I just quit Spotify

The big trigger was my favorite band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard leaving Spotify (Vice covered it, Variety too, and Diffuser gave more context).
But the real frustration hit when I discovered that the lo-fi jazz I’d been listening to was actually AI-generated (Reddit thread here).

Echoes from the deep

Yeah, I fell for it... and I felt betrayed.

It started when I thought: this music is almost too clean. So I tried to find out who played the drums. No name. Weird. Maybe a new band? Oh, 2025 release... pretty new. But wait—seven albums already?

I’m used to King Gizzard’s crazy output, but this felt impossible. And it was. Turns out, they found the sounds that tickle people like me, generated a bunch of artwork mimicking other artists, and handed me nothing more than an echo of a real band. Fuck that.

Old school

So I grabbed all the download codes I could find, installed Petrichor on macOS (GitHub repo here, and some good chatter on Reddit) and Doppler on iOS. Both are great, btw.

Now I’ve got a music folder full of FLACs and a Bandcamp wishlist overflowing. I even ripped the CDs I already owned.

Feels good.

Discovery

Finding new music has always been one of my favorite things—like when I stumbled onto the band Chartreuse (love them).

So now I’m on the hunt for blogs or indie radio stations that can help me discover fresh stuff. Hopefully it’s more fun than an algorithm.