The Magic Organ

Episode 107! Another slamming best of 2025 thus far episode celebrating the deluge of new music from the first half of this year. No need to listen to the new Miley Cyrus biscuit, or the Lorde snoozefest, or the narcissistic Kesha record, nevermind the latest Justin Bieber tragedy (oh how low can the IQ go? pretty low, apparently). There is so much shit to listen to. I mighta have gotten the band...

So much new music is released over the course of a year and because it is a constant struggle to push the super high quality music that has little to no marketing budget it makes perfect sense to do a best of 2025 thus far this year episode. With another one on the way pronto. As a listener across almost all of the genres I can say that 2025 has been super fruitful, a landslide of new music that I...

Halfway through 2025, gotta couple of best of 2025 episodes coming out in the next two weeks, it's been a smoking year for new music, my best of year list candidates are many and they are righteous. This episode sports a pair of cumbia tracks and a pair of darker electronic tracks, hence the name the hard shit and the party shit. A lot of folks will get down with dancefloor banger electro but the...

Let's have our own parade and not one based on domination, violence and killing. The Magic Organ freak parade has variety, features people from all over the world, and values their cultures and contributions to humanity without collapsing into New Age bullshit. We do all the musics and it will get rough. We kick things off with a collaboration between a Romani Balkan brass band and a Canadian guit...

2025 has already been a banner year for new music, at least as far as I'm concerned, and we're not even at the halfway point. As I'm one of the only music critics listening to all the musics, I speak with knowledge that the continent of Africa, closely followed by Central and South America are the drivers of great music right now. It's a sad time for rock music and by default white people who make...

What makes people open their minds? Why are so many folks locked in to very definite categories/liefstyles that all come with their own soundtracks? These are the questions that I think about. For some folks it is a question of money but for a lot of folks it's something else cuz with streaming stores providing the immediate access to every small record I've suggested in the 100+ episodes of the M...

First off a coupla housekeeping items. I mentioned the song tile, Comet of End Times (track 4), but not the band, the band is Sarcator and it's a really good metal record and folks should check it. Secondly, Kombilesa Mi (track 6 excerpt) is from Palenque and they perform in Spanish and their indigenous Palenque language called Palenquero, a blend of Spanish, African languages, and other European...

Episode 100! I will not spoil the incredible insights gathered during the effort expended to make 100 new music podcasts focusing on all genres of music. Needless to say the umbrella. under which all these conclusions fall involves the idea that this is absolutely a golden age of recorded music, there is so much great new music to listen to and powerful cultural and economic factors limit the numb...

New music thus far in 2025 has been crazy great. A great record is one that bears repeated listens, is interesting and creative in a unique way, and makes you feel something emotionally. Making people feel something through music is not as easy as it may sound. In a normal year I listen to well over 1,000 excerpts from new recordings and find maybe 20-25 recordings that fit my definition of a best...

Need a little escape from dystopia? Hey, why not try some new music? Episode 98 consists of pieces of six tracks, opening up with a slyly psych cumbia track and closing out with an outer space ambient maybe improvised electronic. And in between the space sandwich is some British hip hop (love/hate!), a tune from Santrofi which blends Ghanaian highlife with funk and other influences, a rock track w...

There are many awful things about the open American #fascism now culminating in the chaotic reign of President Orange Ballbag. Make no mistake this bullshit has been slowly growing for decades now. The cultural impact of maximum corporate power pushes people into survival mode where there's no time, energy or money to think, relax, explore, maybe even check out new music, poetry, be quiet by thems...

In the first 4-5 weeks of 2025 I have found 4 albums certified banging accoring to the Magic Organ banging system, and we kickoff the episode today with a track from one of them. It is a collaboration between a Peruvian artist and an African guitarist and it's upbeat and joyous and it slaps. During the second track I might have used the word 'crock' instead of rawk. I meant rawk as in rock music....

The internet's most fiery 13 minute new music podcast returns with our first sure to make the best of year list, Vaodou Game's new record FINTOU. Their previous efforts are over the top funky and partyistic, pumped beyond belief but this one has slowed down the tempo, added some accordion and guest singers and I think it's a certified bag of bangers as there's more depth to what they're doing here...

I spend most of January sifting through best of the year before music lists -- Pitchfork, bandcamp, other lifestyle outlets. The NY Times, no I don't take their music criticism seriously at all, blech. I am looking for records that I may have missed and there aren't many, just going up and down the Pitchfork top 50 I had listened to 30+ of the records they recommend. I think the most interesting t...

If you were to define the greatness of a music writer/podcaster as how closely their recommended picks line up with other music writers/podcasters, then I would most definitely be a shit ass music critic. If one were to have half a brain and define the greatness of a music writer/podcaster as working across as many genres as there are and the independence to pick music based on its quality and not...

Here we are just before the holidays and the digital town square is flooded with best of lists for music, films and books. Some of my choices occasionally pop up on a list but there are many that are unique to The Magic Organ. The Magic Organ is a music loving podcast, it is not a music pimping/PR podcast. Going against the grain, focusing on the actual music and not giving a flying fuq about brat...

Hey hey hey, Part 2 of The Magic Organ's 5 episode cycle of the best of 2024 is up and ready for your earholes. All genres all the time. Dancefloor, reggae, free jazz, stripper pole electronic music and dark epic rock -- we got it going on and hope you like it. If you have anything to say about it or want to counterprogram this hit me up, god forbid we break the corporate chains and communicate wi...

Let it begin! The mountain of turkey carcasses has been made (I did not contribute) and the best of year lists will start firing any day. If you have found this podcast then you might think our collective musical culture matters; it matters to me as the corporate music outlets are basically a bag of ass, we know dis. I consider myself to be the widest listening and hardest working new music podcas...

I can't stand the holidays but this is my absolute favorite time of the year in terms of listening to music and finding new music to listen to during the dark days of winter. Year end lists, checking out how garbage-y the New York Times best of year list is, and then finding awesome heavy metal records in the comment sections of other year end lists. Good times for music obsessives. This here epis...

The Magic Organ didn't vote for either murderous bastard that was on offer and it looks like we got the Orange Circus 2.0. The Magic Organ doesn't want his life to be dictated by this insane Orange Cheese Doodle so we're just gonna tell him to fuck himself and get on with what The Magic Organ does best, bust out the flavor pack. We kick it off with some aggro, there's gonna be a lotta aggro comin'...

Best of the year music lists will start popping out a little before Thanksgiving and they will continue to trickle out into the first week or so of December and then a few stragglers towards New Years. It's looking like 4 best of '24 podcasts for The Magic Organ and maybe an honorable mention if I can squeeze one out. Those shits take time (I've already begun downloading and contemplating my choic...

There are many things we don't do here at The Magic Organ. We don't discuss tits and ass, we embrace ugly ass musicians. We don't celebrate rich musicians, in fact we think they're boring and they shouldn't listen to. We don't stay in our lane, we listen to all the genres and musicians who play all the notes! We do one thing, we bring the bangers, we let 'em out, we drop the mic! I get that might...

This episode, set to go last week, was interrupted by Covid. It is never nice to have the 'vid, but it's receding and we're set to get the Magic Organ back out there. We kick it off with some metal from Thou (heavy metal is good for you, as is eating bitter vegetables), and head out with some funky and poppy hip hop from Rapsody, then a track from Fenya Rai, a group updating older Catalan folk son...

Oh, we've got an episode perfectly matched to the mood of late summer. Kick it off with some super funky techno, into some wild ass video game flavored African music, onto some highlife, into some Moroccan gnawa music, build towards the finish with some modern party reggae, and go out on the cumbia tip. You can't beat it with a stick, tbh. If you want to be on the show, if you're a music obsessive...

This summer has been fruitful in terms of new music and this episode is the kickoff of a flurry of episodes to conclude this season of listening. Whereas I found a ton of amazing African music last summer this summer the action has been spread across more genres. We kick it off with some funky techno, head into some sweet roots reggae, back into techno but a bit more raucous, into the indie, take...