Mapping Out Your Vibe

What’s good everyone,

It’s cherry blossom season! 🌸 What’s your go-to spring anthem this year?

As a tropical gurlie, I’ve yet to experience a full-blown (or full-bloom, pun intended) sakura moment in Japan, but in the meantime, I’ve rounded up some tracks that capture the essence of spring.

On another note, I’ve been exploring new music sites lately, so I’ll be sharing some cool finds in this week’s newsletter. What’s cool is that these sites are packed with info and loaded with data, so it won’t take longer than five minutes to find a new sound that’s right up your alley.

Give each site a try — maybe you’ll stumble upon another Gracie Abrams, some fresh rave tracks for your gym sessions, or a band that brings back major throwback vibes to your teenage years.

Let’s go on a music exploration trip ✈️🎶

Your music traveler,

Val ♫

(P.S If you are reading this in your email, please click “Read Online” at the top-right corner next to the date for a better reading experience!)

In this week's setlist:

• 🛜 Major Vibes Sites

• 🌸 Spring Scenes

• 🎶 New Music This Week

• 📼 Your Go-To Mixtape

🛜 Major Vibes Sites

Looking for new inspiration, or looking to build your go-to playlist with your comfort sounds? Here are music sites that can help you with just that:

Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music

If you're new to exploring electronic music, this handy guide has all the tracks you need to master the genres.

Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music is an interactive, visual timeline that maps out the evolution of electronic music genres into a branching chart, where you can click into each genre and listen to the audio samples, historical context, and personal commentaries.

From trance to chemical breaks, you can explore different styles, see how they’re connected, and listen to defining tracks. Here, I clicked on “Twinkle Prog,” and it’s characterised by a lot of booming bass and shimmering synth melodies that give it an light, yet punchy feel.

• Natural Perfection by Noel Sanger

You can also toggle the list and info icons next to the fast-forward button to pull up more details about the genre, along with a collection of tracks that fall under it. Here, I clicked on “Dream Trance,” and it sounds a lot like the predecessor of Aqua’s hit song Barbie Girl.

• Atlantis by Imperio

Here’s another example of a much older electronic music genre called “Krautrock,” which originated in Germany in the late 1960s. It sounds a lot like those intense drama background scores from the ’80s, and if that doesn’t ring a bell, just imagine it playing at a Paloma Diamond special (yes, I’m chronically online enough to know who she is HAHAHAHA).

• Storm Column by Mark Shreeve

Music Map & Live Plasma

Grouping these two music discovery engines together because they serve the same purpose, which is mapping out artists that sound similar to the artist you type in the search bar. If you’re looking for new artists that fall under your vibe, then Music Map and Live Plasma are for you!

The main difference between these sites is the user interface. Music Map offers a simpler design, while Live Plasma features more distinct visual clusters. Also, these sites probably use slightly different datasets, so the results may vary depending on which artist you choose as the reference.

Here, I’ve keyed in Pale Waves, a new indie band I’ve been bopping to for a while now. As you can see, Live Plasma maps out related artists, with those most closely connected highlighted by yellow-outlined circles as compared to Music Map, which simply displays all relevant artists in a word cloud.

Both sites also display proximity, showing how closely related an artist’s music is to the reference artist based on their distance from it.

I’d say both sites are cool in their own way, but if given a choice, I would choose Music Map as it displays more non-mainstream artists as compared to Live Plasma, which displays artists that I’ve already listened to.

Speaking of artists, here’s a song from Pale Waves that you might like, plus some similar artists I discovered through these sites:

• There’s A Honey by Pale Waves

• Swoon by Fickle Friends

• Turn You On by Cherry Pools

🌸 Spring Scenes

The sakura bloom has long been a source of inspiration, and has drawn thousands of crowds to Japan every year. It symbolises the fleeting nature of youth, change, and new beginnings. Whatever the cherry blossom means to you, there’s no denying it’s a whole vibe.

Here are some of my latest Japanese song obsessions that put a spring (yes, pun intended again) in my step this season:

• fragrance by まひる and RINZO

• sakura by Ketsumeishi

• ランブル by Awesome City Club

🎼 Lyric of the Week

🎶 New Music This Week

Supernova by WIM: I cannot get enough of how smooth the vocals and melodies are and how well they go together. The groove is unmatched.

Wii Date by City Girl, tiffi and siopaolo: If songs came in sizes, this one would be fun-sized. It’s got a cute, tiny vibe — perfect for a quick Mario Kart run. 🎮

📼 Your Go-To Mixtape

Quarterly Rewind (Q1’2025): Looking for more sounds? Check out my latest playlist featuring all the cool songs I found last quarter 🎶

Inspired by this week’s music picks?

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