Agreed. Sure, as I have been around when mp3s became a thing and the TranceAddict or MercuryServer forums where the go-to place for electronic music enthusiasts, I'm of course familiar with your sources. In fact I produce and to a lesser extent DJ myself.
Of course since then my taste became much wider and genres are really irrelevant to me today. Which renders the usual recommendations engines hardly useful to me - it seems everyone's coming up with the same suggestions (or they all use EchoNest). In any case it's not a replacement for a real human curator that knows his stuff. Also labels play a pretty big role in this. Despite the evil reputation of the major ones, their smaller siblings are very valuable when it comes to curation and selection. Being featured on kranky, warp, Secretly Canadian, Editions Mego,... well, you name it, is a very strong indicator for quality. Particularly in electronic music this is hardly news.
Speaking of digging up hidden gems and rare classics: Do you know the Numero Group? An utterly fantastic re-issue label that made it their mission to find the most well hidden and unreleased material to give it a proper modern release. The background story is a fascinating read too: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jun/13/numero-group-cr...
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Agreed. Sure, as I have been around when mp3s became a thing and the TranceAddict or MercuryServer forums where the go-to place for electronic music enthusiasts, I'm of course familiar with your sources. In fact I produce and to a lesser extent DJ myself.
Of course since then my taste became much wider and genres are really irrelevant to me today. Which renders the usual recommendations engines hardly useful to me - it seems everyone's coming up with the same suggestions (or they all use EchoNest). In any case it's not a replacement for a real human curator that knows his stuff. Also labels play a pretty big role in this. Despite the evil reputation of the major ones, their smaller siblings are very valuable when it comes to curation and selection. Being featured on kranky, warp, Secretly Canadian, Editions Mego,... well, you name it, is a very strong indicator for quality. Particularly in electronic music this is hardly news.
Speaking of digging up hidden gems and rare classics: Do you know the Numero Group? An utterly fantastic re-issue label that made it their mission to find the most well hidden and unreleased material to give it a proper modern release. The background story is a fascinating read too: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jun/13/numero-group-cr...
If you want to learn more about them, start here: http://m.mixcloud.com/NTSRadio/numero-six-hour-takeover/