#1 – Every Noise at Once

As the site describes itself: “Every Noise at Once is an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space” In legible english: Every Noise at Once is a massive music genre map. Click on a name to hear what it sounds like!

#2 – Soma FM

Soma is a user supported, internet in-browser radio station. Named after the fictional drug from Brave New World as well as its home, San Francisco’s south of Market area, SoMa. Comercial-less, underground radio that plays right in your browser? Yes please!! Some top stations include The Dark Zone “The darker side of deep ambient. Music for staring into the abyss” and Mission Control, electronic ambience overlaid with vintage NASA communication audio.

#3 – You are listening to Los Angeles

Fan of Soma’s Mission Control station and craving something with a little more…car chases feel? Hop on You are listening to tune in to some ambience with city-sorted police radio chatter. Described as “plugging into the heart of the city” by Nicola Twilley of GOOD, the scanners tell a strangely compelling story. Plug in and hear about a fire in Chicago. A traffic jam on the way into LAX, A Denver PD birthday party, Oh yeah, with ambient hip hop laid over the top.

#4 – U.S. National Jukebox

The National Jukebox, a Library of Congress archive, works to digitally preserve obscure and underground records and audio recordings, and let the public access them for free. On the site, you’ll find Jazz, folk, and polish dance, some as early as 1901.

#5 – PulseQueue

PulseQueue is a minimalistic, electronic in-browser application for composing tunes with virtual synthesizers. Free, intuitive to use, and with a high-quality multi-layered step sequencer, even my 11 year old brother could use PulseQueue.

#6 – Gnoosic

Same 5 songs on repeat got you bored? Gnoosic’s algorithm will recommend you artists you might like based off of three artist inputs. The algorithm learns based off of things you dislike as well, so don’t worry about being recommended something you might hate. 

#7 – Cassette Gods

An LA webzine formed in 2006, Cassette Gods strives to elevate recent tape releases and the format itself. The site contains mostly user-submitted reviews of various cassettes, from experimental hip-hop to noise punk from Berlin.

#8 – Butter Churn (MP3 Visualizer)

Butter churn, a modern ported winamp “milkdrop” visualizer, provides a more retro look, with integrated text.

#9 – Uber Visualizer (MP3 Visualizer)

Uber Visualizer hosts user-created content, so its more of a lottery on the site. One of my favorites is the word problems vis, with its futuristic colors and automated entrance speech.

#10 – Stero Drift (MP3 Visualizer)

Stereo Drift is the most retro of them all, with 37 different vis presets. My favorite is the preset “lava lamp” with the palette “emerald.”