Listen: Diamond Cafe's Funky Fantasy
Radio links, podcasts, and more music
Back and better with another collection of music from this year you will probably like! Check everything out below, and as always, it’s all been added to our roundup playlist, collecting every song from these newsletters to hold some of the year’s best and most underrated music on it!
DBA’s 2025 Roundup Playlist!
Fantasy Real - Diamond Cafe
6 tracks, 21 minutes
Released: April 25th, 2025
From: Victoria, British Columbia
Genres: Pop, Funk, Alternative, R&B
Recommended For Fans Of: Prince, Q, Steve Lacy
I first discovered Canadian artist Diamond Cafe in 2020 with the single Good Enough, and was drawn in to the well executed drum machine lo-fi R&B. In the years since then, he continued to churn out swanky laid back songs in that style, including a Chuck Inglish collab as well as stopping by for half the tracks on Zack Fox’s foray into serious R&B, with the wood tip EP in 2022. Here he keeps much of the same formula, but turns it all up for some of the most in-your-face music he’s made to date. That’s clear from the opening title track, where his vocals slam to the forefront over a slick guitar lick, spacey synths, and an incredibly punchy drum beat. The highlight though comes next with the standout track Lover Boy, that sounds so incredibly classic, you’re shocked it wasn’t plucked off a “Best of the 80’s” compilation album. Don’t overlook some of the screams he hits in this song, that to me truly encapsulate the level up between the music he’s been dropping over the years to what he’s doing here. It’s so addicting, he had to run the track back for an alternative, slowed down “sex version” to close out the project.
Standout Track: Lover Boy
Other things I’m listening to
I’ve really been loving the new project from MIKE & Tony Seltzer, and have randomly fallen into a hole of walking around with headphones listening to The Life of Pi’erre 4 on loop. But here’s some other great new releases that may have fallen off your radar:
Detroit trio HiTech gets bouncy, groovy, raunchy, and pretty much everything in-between on this incredible fun and loose electronic tape, HONEYPAQQ Vol. 1.
The QUINTESSENTIAL POPSTARDOM EP from EARTH TO EMILY is effortlessly cool and incredibly catchy pop music.
I dropped a late fall ‘24 single from London artist Tiberius b on my latest radio show, but since then I’ve listened to their new album NEVERYTHING and was even more impressed.
His single How? was on episode 3 of my radio hour (see below), and as the year’s gone on Houston artist Love Spells has been picking up cosigns, including multiple features on the new Kevin Abstract album. Hear what all the fuss is about on the new EP, The Love I Showed You Was Yours To Keep.
Feel like Niontay is continuing to occupy more and more space in “your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper” territory, which he showcases on the latest album Fada<3of$.
Your Grandparents (the band) are deep in the pocket, sounding cool and reflective as ever with their new album, The Dial.
NYC band Comet’s new EP Quitter showcases their retro 90s rock sound.
There’s a lot of trendy and interesting ways you could describe the music Chloe Qisha is making with the new EP Modern Romance, I think I’ve landed on meta-synth-alt-21stCentury-pop for now, but that could change.
Kilo Kish has maintained herself as an always exciting artist to follow by constantly maturing and evolving her sound with every release, and the new EP Negotiations is no exception.
Rome Streetz is continuing to cement himself as my favorite rapper on Griselda, with Trainspotting, fully produced by Conductor Williams.
Norwegian duo Smerz take their swanky art-pop to new heights with the latest album, Big city life.
Ambar Lucid returned with her first project released on Ricky Reed’s label Nice Life, with El Jardín de Lágrimas.
Farrah Fawx returned with her first project since the EP I covered in 2022, on the bop-filled But Did You Die.
I missed Bren Joy’s soulful album SUNSET BLACK from the top of this year, but I circled back to it was glad I did! You should too!
More about Bots
Between Timbaland’s new AI artist, and the new “art-hoax” band The Velvet Sundown (can’t put enough air quotes around art hoax), streaming fraud discourse is working it’s way back to center stage.
Wanted to highlight this episode of The Sam Sanders Show from KCRW, where Sam interviews Liz Pelly, author of the book Mood Machine. Doesn’t focus as much on the AI aspect of everything, but is a well rounded conversation with plenty of insight to the entire streaming economy. I learned some things here, like that one of the reasons musicians can’t unionize in the United States is because so many artists are considered freelance or independent contractors (even some signed to labels depending on the deal). There are laws in place that mean independent musicians organizing could be classified as an illegal cartel!
Death By Algorithm Radio Hour
Show is continuing to go strong! As always you can check the Moon Glow Radio mixcloud for an archive of every episode. Next one airs this Saturday (7/12), 5pm west coast time!
I’ve also realized some people may not want to stream on mixcloud , or hate radio format and the sound of my voice. For those distinguished few, I’m playlisting the songs from every episode. Catch up on the playlists here:
Episode 1: SPOTIFY | APPLE MUSIC
Episode 2: SPOTIFY | APPLE MUSIC
Episode 3: SPOTIFY | APPLE MUSIC
Episode 4: SPOTIFY | APPLE MUSIC
Thanks for reading, keep being good listeners