AMF Music | March '25

w33kly #26

New w33kly is in - listen, follow, share! 🎧

Featured Playlist:

If you’ve been following along this year, you’ll recognize Mapate as a contributor with an ear for unique artists with significant fanbases who still manage to fly under the radar. He’s someone I trust greatly in a conversation about underground and indie music, especially from other countries. He’s actually the one who affirmed my UK music rabbit hole this week, and the ensuing conversation led us to this playlist. It’s a collection of old underground music from Japan, and I don’t mind taking us to two different countries in one month. This here is a discovery newsletter 🌍🌎

So this playlist is a curation by some lovely person on Spotify with 10k followers and a dope profile picture. The playlist has about 3k saves, meaning it’s making the rounds but isn’t exactly ruling anyone’s home page. Many, if not all, are tracks from the 80s with publish dates in the last 15 years, meaning they made their way to streaming after 30 years or got a fresh remaster. The point I’m working towards is that most of us wouldn’t have heard these songs in a million years, yet here they are with thousands of digital streams 40 years later. As a millennial in New York, I’m lucky to have tons of exposure to culture, especially art from around the world - still my mind is blown thinking about how much music is out there that I’ll never see.

This exploration into the Japanese underground made me think of an album much closer to home - De La Soul’s 1989 album 3 Feet High and Rising which only made its way to streaming platforms 2 years ago. It’s a personal favorite that helped to make me a music fan as a teenager, but many of my peers weren’t exposed to it until recently thanks to our imperfect, modern music world. I can only imagine how much music out there is on a similar journey through time and airwaves.

Featured Mix:

I’m pumped to include this one. The spirit of this newsletter is to feature music from our immediate community while tapping into the good vibes beyond it - so a longtime friend of AMF being featured on a popular radio show is exactly what we love to see!

I’ve shared Slic here before and will continue to champion their music since it keeps hitting. This mix was made for IDEAL Radio’s 94th episode alongside resident DJ Ant Snow. It includes some original tracks by Slic and a setlist reflective of their electronic, afro-latin (Venezuelan), industrial aesthetic that mixes percussion with etherial sounds and vocals.

If you’re messing with this, keep an eye out here for news of Slic’s next NYC set and give their last album Unbearable Heat a listen if you haven’t already 🥵