Listen to the Soundafide Monthly playlist, a project devoted to giving you fresh underground music. Here’s three artists from the list to check out.
DJ Manny
Involved in the Chicago footwork scene since the age of 10, DJ Manny, both a dancer and producer, knows all about performing at the genre’s trademark tempo, 160 BPM.
DJ Manny is indebted to his mentor, DJ Rashad, while also pushing the sound forward with newfound R&B elements. The electronic artist often barrages the listener with relentless vocal sample repetition, a point taken from the aforementioned footwork pioneer, while also picking up the mic and adding novelty live vocals to the genre.
His 2023 project, Feet Start Dancing EP, is a chaotic romance of frenetic rhythms and hypnotic melodies resulting in intense danceability.
Now based in Brooklyn, DJ Manny represents both the past and future of footwork.
caroline
UK band, caroline, responds to life’s chaos with minimalist abstractions that are as intimate as they are expansive.
Their 2022 self-titled debut is a sweeping landscape of post-rock well acquainted with instrumental folk, and somewhat congruent to midwest-emo.
Unraveling song structures and experimenting with texture, their latest track “peak chroma,” feels both cluttered and serene.
Consider catching them on their US tour.
MSPAINT
Mississippi band, MSPAINT, have a wildly distinct take on hardcore, infusing the aggressive genre with vibrant synthwork.
Regional Justice Center and Militarie Gun frontman, Ian Shelton, produced their 2023 debut album, Post-American.
Shelton said:
“Sometimes a hardcore association can almost be a stain upon a band, because people have such a preconceived notion of what it means creatively and what it means ethically. Most bands are not looking to tear down the establishment quite the way MSPAINT is,” says Shelton. “But I think those two things, order and destruction, can exist at the same time, can play together and mutually feed each other.”
These forces of order and destruction are on full display in their latest release, where driving drum beats meet spellbinding, almost psychedelic, keyboard lines in a synthetic-hardcore sound all its own.
