There are people around today who will tell you that there is no good new music. They will say that music stopped being good back in their day. They are, as you probably are already well aware, quite wrong. Utterly wrong, in fact. Because there is so much good music around right now that it is impossible to even be aware of it all, let alone have the time and opportunity to listen.

I know this, because sometimes I look at the number of unread emails I have, and decide to flick through the past seven days in case I missed something exciting.

Invariably I did.

But not Young Hunting. I don’t have any emails saying they’d be perfect for Record Rewind Play. I had to discover them through another route. That route was Soundcloud, and its “playing from related tracks” feature, where it autoplays a series of tracks based on what you’ve just listened to, and what other people have listened to, and where your worlds collide, or slow-dance. With a little effort in following bands, writers, and compilers of mixes, it’s an incredibly strong discovery method. Every now and then I’ll just let it play through a few tracks after whatever I came for, and add the best to a playlist.

I’m approaching 100 tracks in that playlist; when I get there I’ll post something in celebration, perhaps picking my favourite dozen or so tracks.

It’s not always perfect, but generally it comes up trumps, giving me music I wouldn’t have otherwise heard, by artists I wouldn’t have otherwise heard of. Artists like Young Hunting, who I didn’t know until today. Because try as I might, I can’t see everything, or know about every new band. But therein lies the thrill of discovery - your own personal moment of joy, irrespective of how long it took you, or how many were there already. It’s why you should always follow your eye to whatever that is at the end of the road. It’s why you should try something new from the menu. It’s why you should resist the temptation to be knowing when someone tells you about a fantastic new band they’ve just got into, when you’ve known them since their first rough demo tapes were doing the rounds.

It’s why you should listen to the easy-lilting Blue Dream, and earlier tracks White Light Years and (the heartslammingly beautiful) Baby’s First Steps, and why you should go off and listen to The Blue Nile if you don’t already know them. It’s why you should give the related links further down the page a go.

It’s why I’m here, doing what I do, falling in love with something new each day. In your own way, it’s why you’re here, too. Thanks for taking a walk to the end of the street with me.

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