Roundup: January 2026

Featuring: AI slop and bouncy tunes

As I said in the December edition, this roundup is relatively sparse as I was travelling around Mexico for the first few weeks of the year!

I was inspired to take the break after meeting another Berlin resident at Stone Techno in July who told me that I needed “an exit strategy” for Berlin winter. And coming back has me realising he made an incredibly good point. This is a grey city and the cold and dark does not make it a more inviting place to be.

However, still got a few exciting bits and pieces to talk about. Enjoy!

Out And About

Bandcamp has announced that it’s banning AI produced content on its platform in the past month. The content they are referring to is either: “Music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI”, or “any use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles”.

This is a huge win for the music community.

From the deplorable AI produced “We Are Charlie Kirk” right-wing slop to the scarily accurate outputs from Suno AI, the world of generative AI in music has been progressively getting more depressing. It’s gotten so bad that I find that I’ve had to research songs that I like to double check that they’re not produced, at least in part, by some generative AI model. This lack of trust doesn’t make finding new music any easier and the gall of the people who use these generative AI “tooling” to classify themselves as musicians is frankly offensive to artists and listeners alike.

And nothing compares to that feeling when you discover that something has been genuinely produced by AI. Crestfallen doesn’t even begin to describe it. It is not a good feeling. Jacksfilms does a good job of explaining what this is like.

Bandcamp, however, seems to be making movements in the right direction. And this is the second time in recent years that the company has done something positive after it announced it would continue the Bandcamp Friday initiative it started during Covid to continue supporting artists. In August of last year, it announced that it generated $3.5 million in one day for artists on its platform.

This is all in despite of the drama following its back to back sales, first to Epic Games, and then to Songtradr. Both of which, raised eyebrows in the music community. Firstly, what was Epic Games, a gaming company, doing buying a music company? And secondly, Songtradr proceeded to layoff a number of the Bandcamp workforce in the sale with a large percentage of the Bandcamp workers’ union: Bandcamp United, being removed in the process. Both parent companies didn’t seem to have the best interests of Bandcamp in mind.

Unfortunately, even though it has seemingly no positive effect on the music community, this generative AI story doesn’t seem to be ending any time soon. In fact, it seems like companies are trying harder and harder to get people into using these models. Recently, in the span of a week, I received three emails from Google trying to get me to start using Google Gemini. For a tech that I’ve heard being described as “the future”, it seems like they’re putting in a lot of effort to get people to even use the tech in the first place.

So this begs the question, what is all of this for? This tech is clearly causing issues in the music community and it seems like these tech companies are desperate for more people to use it. So what’s the point? Communities don’t want its output, and people aren’t giving it input.

This is why it’s so refreshing to have companies like Bandcamp stand up and say no.

Now just to wait for the rest of the companies to do the same.

Music Recs

Came across this jaunty little number from Camoufly this past week. It has this infectious bounce that I can’t get enough of. The rest of the album is also worth a listen but this is my favourite.

I’ve started getting more and more into radio lately, and I tuned into Nadia Wise and Laurel’s breakfast show on Refuge Worldwide the other day, on which, they played this saucy beat from Gombeen & Doygen. A sultry groove.

The Myd remix of At The Party by DRIFT is an punchy, acidy, housey track with an undeniable energy. The break may be a little rogue, but I quite dig it to be honest.

I love Elkka, the woman never misses, and her latest release is a favourite of mine already. Bouncy, happy, energetic, what’s not to love.

Bonus Content

My friend Pearl has started her own radio show and her debut episode aired this week gone. Get Ready With Me Radio “captures the essence of girlhood” and “emphasises what makes it so special to be a woman” with DJs taking the helm whilst the group get ready for a night out in the background. This first episode is great fun, and I love the idea of mixing a DJ set into the girls getting ready for the night ahead.

With some of the boys I’ve been on nights out with, I can’t imagine a straight men’s version of this would last longer than about 5 minutes.

Another friend of mine, Mbarr, has also released his debut mix on Soundcloud. With a cracking track selection, it’s a good one to put on to get the energy going.

Until Next Time

The chaos of the winter break is past, and we’re slowly climbing our way out of the dark hole of the year that is January. Winter, however, is the best time of year to go clubbing if you ask me, so there’s big things ahead.

See you on the flip side.