Articles
We ask people who make music what they listen to when they are not working, and then we get out of the way. These are not promotional interviews and there is nothing on sale: a handful of chosen tracks, each with the reason beside it, and the reason is usually the better half. A drummer picks something with no drums on it. A name you had filed under one genre turns up carrying a record from somewhere else entirely. That is when this section earns its place, because it shows how listening works for someone who has spent years building sound. No scores, no head to head, no contest between artists. These are recommendations, and they are worth what a good recommendation is worth.
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Artist pick Funk
The Budos Band
VII
In June 2025 Bandcamp Daily asked The Budos Band what they listen to. The band plays heavy instrumental funk and presents itself with horror-film titles: the trumpet player answered with a list of acoustic records, and stated the thread holding them together himself.
Artist pick R&B
Yaya Bey
Ten Fold
In May 2024 Bandcamp Daily asked Yaya Bey what she was listening to. The answer was six names who are all friends of hers, and she stated the criterion herself: her relationship with music is communal, not a matter of taste. Four of the picks, and two that are not on Spotify.
Artist pick New wave
David Bowie
Confessions of a Vinyl Junkie
In 2003 Vanity Fair asked him for the records of his life. He had two and a half thousand LPs and no method, so he invented one: pull a record out blind, and if it is too obvious put it back. Four of the twenty-five that came out, each with the reason he wrote for it.
Artist pick Jazz
Alan Braufman
Infinite Love, Infinite Tears
In May 2024 Bandcamp Daily asked a saxophonist who in 1973 shared a loft with David S. Ware what he was listening to now. Four of his picks, with the reason he gave for each, and one that is not on Spotify.
Artist pick Hip hop
Madlib
Shades of Blue
In 2003 Blue Note sent him the original tapes and let him get on with it. He did not only choose the tunes: he chose the takes, and the minutes where the studio is just people talking. Four records he pulled out of that archive, and what he heard in them.
Artist pick Electronic
Ryuichi Sakamoto
The Kajitsu playlist
He wrote to the chef that the food was as beautiful as Katsura Rikyu and the music was like Trump Tower. Then he offered to choose it himself, for free, and left every one of his own records out of it. Four tracks from that selection, and the rule holding them together.
Artist pick Dub
Kevin Richard Martin
The Bug
In 2019 Bandcamp asked him what he was listening to. Kevin Richard Martin came back with ten releases sorted into four headings: beats, riffs, drones, heavenly voices. Four of those picks, with the reason he gave, and one that barely exists anywhere else.
A single format, and the part that matters is not the list of tracks: it is the line of reasoning next to each one. There are three to six tracks, each with its player, and together they add up to a portrait of the person choosing rather than a list of preferences.
The choices stay with the person who made them: we do not correct them and we do not rank them. When a track needs historical context we add it ourselves, with the source at the foot of the page as in every other piece on the blog.