We made a playlist.

We’ve never really got on well with streaming music. For various reasons. It has its place, but for us it took away the thrill of holding your music in your hand (when it wasn’t playing). Being able to pour over all the credits and sleeve notes and wonder who these people are and what on earth your favourite band are going on about. Squinting to try and see the etchings in the run outs of your latest purchase. You know – all that sad lad stuff that you really love doing.

Yes – it made music more accessible and largely removed the barrier between the artist and the fan. But in a world governed by algorithms and the most powerful music publishers playlisting their chosen artists, something got squeezed out along the way.  Plus, there was a lack of depth – sometimes we want to listen to an old B side by The Fall, and that said B-side is unlikely to be out there in streaming land.

That’s partly what Forgemaster Records was a reaction against. We want to put the physical back into music and take those kindred spirits along with us back in the world of the auteur label.

But can we leverage the digital world to help with that? Hopefully.

It is a way of getting the music we like into the ears of people who might like it in the hope that they will think we might know what we are talking about and come along and snap up some of the music releases we have lovingly crafted.  Plus, we like showing off our musical tastes.

So, we made a playlist. This is songs and artists that we like. Some are new. Some are signed. Some are not. Some are playing stadiums across the globe. Some are not even doing this anymore. But all are stuff we’ve been listening to over the last few months.

Will we work with all the unsigned bands. No – economics currently limits the number of releases we can put out.  But we would certainly like to.

And we need a bit of content to get more eyes on the product. So, here’s our first recommended playlist. It’s kind of eclectic. Hopefully you might find a track or an artist you have never come across before and realise that you were missing out up to this point. The plan is to refresh it once a month or so.

Let us know what you like, what you don’t and which of the featured acts you are going to check out further.

This is a cult. Join us.