Category: Bandcamp Crate Digging

There are songs that are over played via radio (back when that was a thing) or pop culture. And then there are songs that are overplayed via covers – we all know the tired trope of “Freebird” requests from a crowd, or how about that classic Wayne’s World denial. But if you go back to traditional jazz, blues, bluegrass, or gospel, the idea of certain songs becoming “standards” is common and widely accepted. Beyond this being a more accepted part of certain genres, I think there’s something to the idea that some songs are not just beautifully written, but they have a fundamental structure that makes them a willing palette for others to build off of or dig deeper into.

I’m not a very good Neil Young fan. His impact on music is undeniable and I have huge respect for his music and his vision. However, I’ve never really been sucked into all of his music. I think that adds a certain layer of magic into how “Cortez the Killer” became one of my favorite songs, and a song that can easily be argued as one of the few accepted rock “standards.”

I know I heard the Neil Young version on classic rock stations growing up, although probably not very much given it’s non-radio-friendly format. But of course (obvious for those who know my music history) it’s the 20-minute Built to Spill version that generated my love for this song and put it into my pantheon of real classics. Since then, my ears have remained tuned to the sound of that opening guitar riff, always interested to hear a new artist’s take- and why I got excited when I saw Squirrel Flower recently dropped a live cover. (All covers have to be done live, it’s a rule. I’m not sure where this rule is written down, or who enforces it, but I’m in full agreement.)

So, in honor of another great version being added to the tome of Cortez, I thought I’d share that track along with a few of my other favorite interpretations.

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In 2019 I saw the film “I’m No Longer Here” on Netflix and got hooked on cumbia music. I thought the film was good but like many other people, it was the rhythm of the music that really grabbed me as well as the devotion that these misfit kids had to it. Since then, I feel I’ve only scratched the surface of this world with all it’s sub-genres and variants (the kids in this film are actually devotes of variant known as cumbia rebajada which takes traditional Columbian tracks and remixes them, slowing them down dramatically) but something about it continues to fascinate me.

At the start of the year, maybe as a way to cleanse the Christmas music from my pallet, I began digging more into the cumbia music I could find on Bandcamp. Below are some favorite examples from traditional to remixes of the familiar, all centered on that simple double-beat shuffle that’s the infectious heart of cumbia. But what I might love most about the result is seeing how a relatively rare and niche genre can spread across the world.

So, let’s start with a collection of traditional cumbia from the source, Columbia.

From Germany, my favorite modern collection – cumbia remixed for the dance club.

For a taste of the cumbia rebajada, here’s a compilation from a Swedish label.

As a wonderful illustration of how the love for this Columbian music has spread, original new cumbia music from Japan.

And finally, folks who have read my music posts know that I am a huge fan of Run the Jewels. So what could be better than a Run the Jewels cumbia remix!

Last year I stumbled onto the band Nation of Language (mentioned in my recent Unburied Treasures post). Their sound got me digging deeper into a realm of bands that I see as today’s “Second Wave of New Wave.”

If you search for any description of “New Wave” music what you’ll most likely find will focus more on a historical period of music rather than a genre. You’ll hear the story of bands in New York and the UK breaking away from the punk rock scene, evolving a new sound and eventually a new ethos that replaced the aggression and ideals-first mentality of punk to instead prioritize musicality, production value, and more accessible music.

What I find interesting about this common use of “New Wave” is that while there is typically a reference to synthesizers in the sound, the term is used to cover such a large time span and such a huge range of acts (from Blondie to Duran Duran to Talking Heads to Tears for Fears) that it leaves the term fairly useless as a descriptor of what the music really sounds like.

Today though, at least in the corners of the internet where music nerds pay attention to this stuff, I see the label “New Wave” getting new legs as a genre name and one that’s seen a recent boom given older Gen Zer’s falling for the music of their parents’ youth. Like most labels in today’s music, this “Second Wave of New Wave” is somewhat subjective, either overlapping or containing things like “synth-pop” and “coldwave” depending on your viewpoint. But at it’s foundation, beyond the synthesizer heavy sound and mid-tempo, dance-able rhythm patterns, is that bittersweet or even melancholy vibe that goes all the way back to the roots of 80’s era “New Wave” and bands like Joy Division, New Order, or The Cure. And in my opinion, this is where the magic lies: in the juxtaposition of the downhearted dance tune.

So with that intro, here are some favorite Modern New Wave finds from my recent Bandcamp crate digging.

People frequently ask me how I find new music. There are a whole range of ways, but one of the most fascinating to me lately is Bandcamp. It is a seemingly infinite source of music which is often obscure or niche, can easily range into bizarre, but contains wonderful treasures. As I’ve been spending more time exploring Bandcamp I thought I would try to share some of my favorite finds, things that are older releases so they wouldn’t be contenders for my best-of-the-year list but I still consider them worthy of getting more attention. Combing through the music site has come to remind me a bit of browsing through the bins at music stores (back in the old days when those existed) so I’ve decided I’ll refer to these posts as my Bandcamp Crate Digging series. Stay tuned…