Rec
aside from just being abrasive sonically, a lot of her early work just has this uncanny vibe that makes my skin crawl. i remember seeing her years ago at this festival in Houston and her visuals were like live two-headed goat births mixed with people washing guts off the decks of fishing ships and fetish videos. it was a lot haha. her stuff tends to be more pop/dance focused recently tho
Apr 27, 2024
Related Recs
Rec
doing a deep dive, checking out the whole discography. rid of me is a knockout of course but i really like the spooky eerie almost trip-hop vibes on this one.
Sep 20, 2024
Rec
She may present herself in this really connect and mystical way, but she is very human. Her artisrtic practice centers in performance, which dives and explores ritualistic aspects of living, so I undertand why she come of as a witch type. I reccomend you watching the documentary she did in Brazil, The Space In Between, in which she explores a variety of local spiritual practices, including JoĆ£o de Deus/John of God, who is now a convicted sex offender and criminal, and can be actually compared to Rasputin as he held such local political and economical power (i reccomend the maintenance phase episode on him, they do a good job debunking his techniques - https://open.spotify.com/episode/3t1hjrqB7cXs9HTWxPqVgU?si=712bb5f30ce54bbf). Though when she recorded the documentary he was still very respcted and the accusations hadn't come out yet, there was already many people exposing him as a con artist. You can see that her enchantment with such things come from the same naivity and somewhat fetishistic views many Europeans, and North Americans have with South American, African and Asian countries and their cultures.
For me, this makes it very clear that she is just like anyone who is a little interested in spirituality, someone who is open to exploration but can also be swayed by her biases in this process.
Anyway, I also really like most of her work, but I find it important to dismistify her artistic persona, which is now a clear part of a succesufull brand.
Rec
If you were obsessed with Melanie Martinez, Mars Argo, Yungelita and honestly dare I say Poppy (we do NOT need to open that can of worms)and the aesthetic of the psychotic but sweet woman in the mid 2010s, you would remember scrolling past Juno Calypso on Tumblr and her candy colored macabre photographs similar to that of a Cronenberg (Brandon the son, not David) fantasyscape. I absolutely adore her photography and have let it influence and inspire me and my art ever since I discovered her. The women in her photos are eyes without a face, your nightmares about that one friends mom, Puberty 2, and offering yourself up on a cake platter.
Top Recs from @royallmonarch
Jun 2, 2025
Rec
š“I consume a lot of music regularly, and a huge part of keeping a fresh diet of new listens going is having enough sources of recommendations that arenāt an algorithm that either 1) reinforces your existing listening patterns, keeping you stagnant in your tastes, or 2) platforms whoever paid enough to push their product to the top, serving you something that may not inherently be of inferior quality, but may not align with your tastes, may not be exciting beyond just being a new release, and realigns your current listening habits to be more in line with what the average user on the platform is also listening to ā which socially might have benefits but which creates a homogeneity of consumption that can become bland since youāre listening to something really just because itās the next product on the assembly line to have its public moment and not because anything about the music actually captured your attention. the current landscape of streaming is designed to keep you at an all you can eat buffet where you take whatās served to you, and as a result a lot of us have forgotten how to look at a menu and order.
so what does taking a more active role in your own music curation look like? for me, itās meant not using streaming as a primary listening platform. I mostly use my local Apple Music library on my phone that I curate with the vestigial iTunes Library framework thatās still a part of Apple Music on my laptop. probably going to find an alternative soon since apple seems to be cutting integration progressively. I like this method because it forces me to choose what to sync to the limited storage space I have, forcing me to take inventory of what I actually listen to and what I can offload. the files I get are mostly from Bandcamp or Soulseek depending on whether itās available for purchase or entirely unavailable online (as is the case for a lot of electronic music that was on vinyl only, which is where soulseek comes in clutch). I also have freedom here to change the ID3 tags to better sort and organize, rate, change track info, and track my own listening data.
Bandcamp and other music purchasing platforms are great because 1) it reshapes my relationship to music away from consumerism and back towards curation. I have to pay actual money for this thing now if I want to use it, so iām forced to consider its value (usually iāll stream a release first to gauge my interest). 2) having to spend money helps me to course out my meals so to speak, as iāll buy a few releases iāve accumulated in my cart over the month and cash out on Bandcamp Friday when 100% of my money is actually getting to the artist (TOMORROW IS BANDCAMP FRIDAY BTW!!!), and between purchases I can actually chew and savor and digest my last orders, they donāt get swept up in the deluge of new releases. my plate is full until iām done and then I order more. also for the times of the year like now when new music isnāt coming out as regularly I take time to find older music that I would normally overlook while keeping up with new drops. currently very into early 80s/late 70s music with early digital production, kinda stuff that would evolve into synthpop and dance music.
so how do you know what to order? for me, Iām getting recs through trusted curation platforms. whether itās bandcamp daily, yāall lovely folks here on PI.FYI, friends, or most importantly musicians who I follow on socials that share their tastes through posts, stories, playlists on steaming, interviews, etc. I like this last one especially because itās kind of like a musical game of telephone. if I like an artist and they share their interests and influences itās like every layer in this process is stretching my palate further from the sound that I was originally interested in and into a new territory that has some shared DNA but would never have been recommended to me by an algo because thereās no shared category or label between them, only the musical influence and interpretation of it made by the artist. as an example, I was a huge Skrillex stan, he signed KOAN Sound to his label, they collab with Asa who collabs with Sorrow, Sorrow takes huge influence from Burial, Burial makes some ambient adjacent stuff and takes huge influence from 90s rave music and drum and bass and 2000s rnb, now iām listening to Brandy - All in Me, William Basinski, Aphex Twin, none on whom would get recommended by Spotify to me from Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.
LAST thing iāll say ā because in yappin about this iām realizing how actually passionate about this subject I am: MAKE LISTS! playlists are cool, but they can flatten your music into vague categories of āvibesā and āaestheticsā and encourage picking one-off songs from artists that you never form an active audience relationship with. I make a practice of making my own year end lists of top 25 albums (plus some honorable recs and top individual songs) and keeping them in a notes doc that I regularly update and rearrange over the course of the year. this forces me to consider the actual relationship iām forming with what iāve ordered for myself. did I like it in the moment but it didnāt have staying power? is it slowly growing on me? it also encourages taking albums as a whole. maybe I liked one or two tracks a lot but the rest wasn't resonating. thatās ok! maybe I rank it lower but now iāve actually taken time to consider it, itās in my library, and maybe (quite a few cases for me) something I ranked like bottom 5 albums becomes a retroactive favorite from that year as my tastes evolve. also 25 albums to take with me from each year is really more than you'd think, i struggle sometimes to even find 25 that I formed a true connection with. I think the biggest thing the itunes era ruined that led into now is the single-ification of music, the ability to separate the hits from the deep cuts. albums are meant to be taken as a whole, and then once you've really sat with the whole you can find what actually stuck. even then I like to keep the whole around because soooo often iāll write off a track that yeeeears later I come to love. trust the artist, they made it like they did for a reason.
aaannyyyywayy TLDR: get recs organically, be more active in deciding your listening patterns, fr*cken pay artists yall, trust the artist embrace the album, really consider what you consume
so what does taking a more active role in your own music curation look like? for me, itās meant not using streaming as a primary listening platform. I mostly use my local Apple Music library on my phone that I curate with the vestigial iTunes Library framework thatās still a part of Apple Music on my laptop. probably going to find an alternative soon since apple seems to be cutting integration progressively. I like this method because it forces me to choose what to sync to the limited storage space I have, forcing me to take inventory of what I actually listen to and what I can offload. the files I get are mostly from Bandcamp or Soulseek depending on whether itās available for purchase or entirely unavailable online (as is the case for a lot of electronic music that was on vinyl only, which is where soulseek comes in clutch). I also have freedom here to change the ID3 tags to better sort and organize, rate, change track info, and track my own listening data.
Bandcamp and other music purchasing platforms are great because 1) it reshapes my relationship to music away from consumerism and back towards curation. I have to pay actual money for this thing now if I want to use it, so iām forced to consider its value (usually iāll stream a release first to gauge my interest). 2) having to spend money helps me to course out my meals so to speak, as iāll buy a few releases iāve accumulated in my cart over the month and cash out on Bandcamp Friday when 100% of my money is actually getting to the artist (TOMORROW IS BANDCAMP FRIDAY BTW!!!), and between purchases I can actually chew and savor and digest my last orders, they donāt get swept up in the deluge of new releases. my plate is full until iām done and then I order more. also for the times of the year like now when new music isnāt coming out as regularly I take time to find older music that I would normally overlook while keeping up with new drops. currently very into early 80s/late 70s music with early digital production, kinda stuff that would evolve into synthpop and dance music.
so how do you know what to order? for me, Iām getting recs through trusted curation platforms. whether itās bandcamp daily, yāall lovely folks here on PI.FYI, friends, or most importantly musicians who I follow on socials that share their tastes through posts, stories, playlists on steaming, interviews, etc. I like this last one especially because itās kind of like a musical game of telephone. if I like an artist and they share their interests and influences itās like every layer in this process is stretching my palate further from the sound that I was originally interested in and into a new territory that has some shared DNA but would never have been recommended to me by an algo because thereās no shared category or label between them, only the musical influence and interpretation of it made by the artist. as an example, I was a huge Skrillex stan, he signed KOAN Sound to his label, they collab with Asa who collabs with Sorrow, Sorrow takes huge influence from Burial, Burial makes some ambient adjacent stuff and takes huge influence from 90s rave music and drum and bass and 2000s rnb, now iām listening to Brandy - All in Me, William Basinski, Aphex Twin, none on whom would get recommended by Spotify to me from Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.
LAST thing iāll say ā because in yappin about this iām realizing how actually passionate about this subject I am: MAKE LISTS! playlists are cool, but they can flatten your music into vague categories of āvibesā and āaestheticsā and encourage picking one-off songs from artists that you never form an active audience relationship with. I make a practice of making my own year end lists of top 25 albums (plus some honorable recs and top individual songs) and keeping them in a notes doc that I regularly update and rearrange over the course of the year. this forces me to consider the actual relationship iām forming with what iāve ordered for myself. did I like it in the moment but it didnāt have staying power? is it slowly growing on me? it also encourages taking albums as a whole. maybe I liked one or two tracks a lot but the rest wasn't resonating. thatās ok! maybe I rank it lower but now iāve actually taken time to consider it, itās in my library, and maybe (quite a few cases for me) something I ranked like bottom 5 albums becomes a retroactive favorite from that year as my tastes evolve. also 25 albums to take with me from each year is really more than you'd think, i struggle sometimes to even find 25 that I formed a true connection with. I think the biggest thing the itunes era ruined that led into now is the single-ification of music, the ability to separate the hits from the deep cuts. albums are meant to be taken as a whole, and then once you've really sat with the whole you can find what actually stuck. even then I like to keep the whole around because soooo often iāll write off a track that yeeeears later I come to love. trust the artist, they made it like they did for a reason.
aaannyyyywayy TLDR: get recs organically, be more active in deciding your listening patterns, fr*cken pay artists yall, trust the artist embrace the album, really consider what you consume
Feb 29, 2024
Jun 4, 2025