Recommended For Me: A Dream Logic Dive Into Crate Digging, the Indie Web, and Musical Exploration Outside Familiarity
We’ll see when I get to the bottom of this essay, but this whole blog post may be the result of heat wave delusions. If you live in the Midwest (which I reckon many folks reading this blog do), you probably experienced the same oppressive heat that I had last week. Once I’m indoors with the air conditioning cranked, I don’t want to move my sluggish, humidity-ridden body from the couch. It’s not a state that’s conducive to creativity, and none of this weather helped the fact that I was a bit tapped out on topics to write about either. When I find myself in these occasional spots where the ideas run dry, I like to peruse magazines, newsletters, and the Instagram feed to tune back into what’s going on in the music world to see if something sparks a thought or concept.
Amidst the heat and humidity, I’ve also been getting terrible sleep, tossing and turning, awakening throughout the night with sweat sticking to my neck. So, I never expected that this week’s blog would come to me in a dream. This idea arrives from maybe my strangest source yet, but I figured I’d run with it in keeping with the otherworldly conditions of the past week. In my dream, I was sitting on a plane with seats arranged in rows parallel to the sides of the plane instead of perpendicular, facing each other like seats on a subway. I’m talking with a friend who asks me what the upcoming blog is about, and I replied that it was about how music lovers get caught up in names and connections when exploring new music, always thinking about who’s done what with who, this person worked with so-and-so, etc. Then, I immediately woke up at 4:30am with the details fresh in my mind, and the blog topic my dream self discussed wasn’t entirely unusable.
What my dream self was talking about slightly reflected how I feel sometimes when I browse The Wire, scroll through social media, or read a newsletter. My eyes scan for what I recognize, searching for names or terms that pop out at me. I suspect I subconsciously do this while perusing for new media (or writing ideas) because there is comfort in that familiarity, in feeling like I already have a sense of what I will encounter for the first time and that the odds are high I would enjoy it. I might be more inclined to listen to an unknown record if an artist I do know plays on it or produces it. I don’t believe I am alone in this tendency, or else hype stickers with promotional quotes from other artists wouldn’t exist. But I wonder what is lost when I settle into that comfort zone, surrounding myself in the same circle of familiarity for musical exploration? Is this mindset a byproduct of how technology has come to shape our tastes to familiarity, creating a real-life version of “You Might Also Like,” or is technology simply exploiting that tendency? How can I break out of that same echo chamber of voices to hear something new?
Don’t get me wrong, I love putting together the pieces of who works with who in the music scene, the thrill of realizing two artists I adore collaborated on a record, embracing the interconnected web that’s spun by musicians coming together to form a network of influence, inspiration, and community. Those kinds of connections are what infuse music with humanity. However, sometimes I find that I overly rely on that kind of name recognition to guide me in my listening. It feels like I create my own, twisted version of a Recommended For You playlist. Eventually I’m cornered, cycling through the same tried and true individuals making music instead of breaking completely out of the circle and seeing what I’ll find. Recently, I was enlightened with a couple experiences, both analog and digital, that tossed me out of the names I typically scan for in magazines, newsletters, and even the record bins.
On the digital front, my curiosity has been piqued about the indie web for quite some time now, and I had the idea to look for a search engine for the indie web specifically. The indie web encapsulates decentralized and independently hosted websites, developed as a response to the centralization of online data onto the few major social media platforms. I found a website called IndieSeas that works as a search engine for only the indie web, and the site is enabled with a feature that pulls up a random website to explore each time you click. I flipped through the random sites for awhile before landing on Realismo Mágico, a personal website that had me captivated for ages. Run by a Uruguayan percussion college student nicknamed Clave, Realismo Mágico pays homage to the early Internet with its bold, eclectic, hodgepodge style and casual narration throughout the site.
In the bottom right corner of the homepage, Clave built a little music player loaded with five songs. I immediately loved the first track, “Culpable Eternamente” by the esteemed Argentine rock musicians Charly García and Pedro Aznar. I was completely unfamiliar with Charly García, and now I have the initial building block to a brand new area of musical discovery. By throwing caution to the wind and diving into the indie web, opening up to all of its possibilities, I allowed for a redirection of my personal musical compass. Stumbling upon Realismo Mágico felt like slipping into a timeline in which the utopian dreams that society had for the Internet in the nineties actually came true, that the Internet would be a place that wasn’t centered on only your tastes, but also on connecting you to the lives and experiences of others. At the time of writing, the music player on Realismo Mágico unfortunately is not working, but I have to admit I love that. Parts of the website aren’t even built yet, and that imperfection and transparency about the web coding process reminds us that the web can be a hobby, just like music. They aren’t just there to kill time.
In the analog world, my friend and I went record shopping a week ago, an experience that reminded me of the differences between each person’s approach to crate digging, and what can be learned from shopping with a buddy. Before this trip, I hadn’t done a good, heavy crate dig in long time, and I often crate dig alone. I realized how much of a routine I have by observing someone else dig, and my routine definitely relies on name tabs. After a swing through new arrivals, I search for particular names in the various genre categories, hunting for certain finds. On the other hand, my friend took a more open approach, perusing certain genre bins to see what sparked her interest and grabbing records that simply looked intriguing based on cover or title. She did a quick check of the records at the listening station to be sure they were enjoyable before deciding whether to buy them, but I still admired the spontaneity of her method, a vulnerability to let the bins guide her musical journey instead of demanding certain rewards from them. Musical exploration via crate digging doesn’t have to be mining for exactly what you want. You can get that online. The capricious nature of a record bin is what makes collecting so special. Plus, record shopping in community with another person is also an experience that helps get you out of your comfort zone, bringing you to bins in the shop you maybe don’t visit often alongside a friend showing you records and artists you’ve never heard of before.
In the end, my heat-wave-induced dream blog was exactly what I needed to write. My dream self was reflecting on quandaries I was experiencing in the waking realm. I believe we all go through stagnant, dry spells of musical exploration sometimes, periods when we get stuck in our routines and usual favorites. But musical discovery isn’t necessarily supposed to be comfortable, or routine, or predictable. What can get us out of those slumps isn’t one sure fix or another, but simply remembering the spontaneity and surprise of discovering something truly new, and relinquishing control of the process.
– Hannah Blanchette
June 30, 2025 | Blog