Welcome back to the Sputnik’s most irresistible democratic feature!

Digbox Ten is T for TECHNO, which is fortunate because the science is finally beginning to show that techno is the only good genre, and we are able to deliver a high-profile TIE-IN with Sputnik’s Build-an-Album Competition. Run by bop chieftain Sinternet, the tournament sees a number of users go head-to-head with one another, jumping through a pernicious set of hoops to produce the perfect playlist for a range of randomly-selected genres. Starting on an apparent high with techno, Round 1 laid down the following criteria for song selection:

No tech house

Neither the artist nor song title may contain the letter “E”

This gauntlet wreaked havoc among the unfortunately techno-phobic ranks of the competitors (many of whom managed to produce excellent submissions all the same), but in order to get the scoop on no-E / no-house techno, Digbox decided to investigate further and is happy to present the following set of killer tunes you should listen to from based+qualified enjoyers of the genre. Enjoy!

Aril Brikha – “Ottil”

Despite being born in Iran and now residing in Sweden, Aril Brikha is a pivotal contributor to the formation of Detroit Techno in the vein of Jeff Mills or Robert Hood. The supposed simplicity and repetition of his tracks act as major positives here as I’m transported back to my early childhood days where using my dad’s Windows 98 at his office felt like I was taking a vacation.…

Welcome back to the Digbox for a three-in-one collaborative special!

The Digbox has been undug for rather a long time, but we are back once more with a sexy square container and a voluptuous square NUMBER – give it up for it up for number nine, folks (it might be square, but boy I wish it were single…)

Nine is very much key here: nine collaborators, nine digs. Usually one intrepid digger will command full Digbox autonomy, but this time we have many paws scooping from many angles. To streamline this somewhat, we are going to tackle today’s excavation from three distinct angles: Food, Dogs and God.

Please leave a comment specifying:

a) which of these themes is your favourite and

a) which Digbox contributor is the most attractive.

Let’s go!

[“Digbox” – reimagined by SandwichBubble, 2021]

Foodbox

Deepchord – “Alfama”

As I write this, I’m wiggling on my desk chair. Yes, moving and grooving, foot-tapping, and thinking about how even the most punny could possibly construct a food metaphor from “Alfama,” a driving, yet soothing dub techno tune by Rod Modell, aka DeepChord. Without lyrics to extract perceptible wordplay, the listener is left only with minimalist dance music structure and, of course, their own thoughts. “Would I dance to this?” “Would I eat food to this?” “How far is Alfama from the nearest KFC/Taco Bell?” Questions are…

Hiya. johnnyoftheWell here. A couple of weeks ago I found myself hospitalised, in severe pain and a 50/50 mix of unable and unwilling to listen to music. It sucked.

Here’s a Digbox about how I got out of that.

So, uh, welcome to a special edition of the Digbox. This is a little unorthodox and perhaps closer to straightforward diarism than anything I’d usually allow to be published about music under my name, but there are circumstances and pressures and maybe even a story behind it. So there: get your shovel.

Around mid-November I picked up inflammation under my wisdom tooth, which proceeded to turn into an abscess. I struggled through work and visited my dentist on the regular, but he didn’t pick up that my increasingly debilitated state pointed to an abscess until it was too late. Next thing I knew, the right side of my face was swollen to three times its usual size, my jaw was locked shut, and I was in a hospital bed with little to do but knuckle down and count the minutes between continuous rounds of painkillers and antibiotics. Up until the start date of this piece, I was only able to listen to music as a frayed-nerve distraction, which I stopped entirely once in hospital because I felt too washed out to process anything and the inflammation had spread to one of my ears anyway. So much for that end-of-year cram.

Fortunately, and I guess inevitably,…

Kompys2000 is a mystery, a connoisseur, a shrewd cookie, and an always-welcome voice of reason.

Welcome to their Digbox!

As is custom for this series, list is, in fact, digs. No real theme or throughline, I don’t have the mental capacity to get cute about it right now. Tried to cover a good variety of sounds and styles so hopefully there’s something here for everyone. Also tried to keep things at least nominally “obscure”, if for no other reason than because I spend quite enough time already writing about music everyone has heard a million times. Here we go!

[“Digbox” – reimagined by SandwichBubble, 2021]

#1: Car Seat Headrest- Hey, Space Cadet (Beast Monster Thing in Space)

At this point, it seems your Dream Ons and November Rains and Champagne Supernovas are destined to become relics of a time when the music industry was willing to pour a lot more money and/or cocaine into guitar music… but that doesn’t mean there’s no one still trying. “Hey, Space Cadet” is a stadium-rock anthem for an era where bands have to record albums in their bedrooms and most of the fans will only ever hear those albums in their bedrooms. It’s a climactic, adrenaline-fueled victory lap squeezed into the confines of a shabby studio apartment, and it is glorious. As it turns out, a songwriter as erudite and discursive as Will Toledo can be…

‘Homines non nascuntur, sed finguntur’

Some heroes are born. Some are made. Some are found by the investigative talents of vigilante detectives to whom the internet secretly owes the world.

Let’s take a glimpse into the journal of Sputnik user ArsMoriendi…

Each song is something I’ve been digging from each month within the past 5 months. While writing this I decided that the first four songs easily relate to the four temperaments of humorism (choleric, melancholy, sanguine, and phlegmatic respectively.) It feels pretentious to point that out, but it’s true. So check these out anyway:

[“Digbox” – reimagined by SandwichBubble, 2021]

November 2020: “Don’t Call Her No Tramp” by Betty Davis

Much of classic funk has the same energy as rock, but with the bass in the forefront. This often makes early funk incredibly fun and danceable, while retaining the earthiness of hard-rock. Betty Davis is one impressive lady within this already fantastic genre. Not only was she the person to influence her husband Miles (you know that trumpet guy, maybe you’ve heard of him) to incorporate funk and rock into his jazz (yep, she’s why Bitches Brew exists,) but she also made a hell of her own frontwoman. “Don’t Call Her No Tramp” marks itself as They Say I’m Different’s centerpiece as it oozes with confident sex-positive feminism. It’s backed by, roaring bass, shuffling keys, and Betty’s purposefully gruff voice. Everything about this song…

Garas is the grumpiest contributor on Sputnikmusic and one of the nicest people on the internet. Today, he digs!

Hello, welcome to the Grumpy-Digbox, where you may experience a short and madly niche list containing some of my favourite picks from the very recent times. I’m usually more of an “album-type” instead of a “song-type”, but from time to time my obsession with certain songs breaks my limits. Chances are you might hate these songs, but I really hope at least some of you might enjoy blasting them (with me)!

[“Digbox” – reimagined by SandwichBubble, 2021]

Slayer – South Of Heaven 

According to last.fm, thrash metal claimed the crown of being the my most listened genre at the end of February – I’m sure you can guess which one is my top listened genre otherwise. And pretty much South Of Heaven had the biggest role in this historical event. The song is not just the perfect choice of being the album’s opener, but this also the greatest Slayer song as well, I daresay. Most sinister mid tempo tunes and neck-breaking heaviness: perfection.

Craft – Again

“Awakening. World Suffering

Twisted things empathise with nothing.”

There is no better way facing daily stress than strangling it with a good amount of black metal, I’d say. Craft’s “anti-everything” philosophy is not easy to digest, but one thing is for sure: these…

SandwichBubble is one of Sputnik’s soundest denizens and a longstanding hero of the Digbox. Today, he comes to conquer!

How very conceited of me to think anyone wants to hear my lame digs, amiright? Yeah, I know, I’m well aware. But, I actually have a few reasons for wanting to do this. For one, I helped make the new logo for this series, so I feel like I have a small stake in its success. But the main reason was because I wanted to check if some of my recent Bandcamp finds were on Spotify. See, I’ve barely used my Spotify account the last 2-3 years, and I know people that prefer streaming their music, so I thought this would be a good way to introduce you all to some good tunes and finally give me a reason to use my Spotify account. Seriously though, Bandcamp is way better and all of you should be using it to find music. Anyways, strap in, because here we go:

[“Digbox” – reimagined by SandwichBubble, 2021]

Cold Meat – Nice Girls

You just can’t beat some good hardcore/garage punk. You just can’t, alright? I recently found this Australian band on one of my Bandcamp digging sessions and was immediately hooked by Cold Meat. Their particular brand of raw punk rock gets me going. I wouldn’t go so far as to call “Nice Girls” anarcho-punk or something, but there’s definitely some 80s influence to the…

Today we welcome Sputveteran Josh D. to the Digbox. Boy, can he dig!

Over to you, Josh D.. Good luck!

It’s me, the user that’s been on this site for almost half his life. And still, somehow, I can’t seem to remember any site features that really jingled my dingle. But when I saw the birth of Digbox, I thought “cool”. Every other user-posted list is for recs or current digs, so a short but more curated version in blog form is a welcome variation. Especially for me since I write a review every 4 years or so. As for the songs below, I tried to choose things that might be vaguely familiar at best to maximize the amount of unheard music for everyone. This is also the reason I chose people from different eras, surroundings, and styles. Gotta show how eclectic we are while we’re at it. And we’re off:

[“Digbox” – reimagined by SandwichBubble, 2021]

Susumu Yokota – “Purple Rose Minuet”

I hype this album every chance I get to obtain that cool “I love this album you’ve never heard of, check it out” cred, assuming the person likes it after listening. Symbol consists of Susumu’s electronic stylings mixed with samples of classical music, and “Purple Rose Minuet” draws in the piano from Debussy’s “Clair De Lune” to underscore the most dreamy orchestral offering from the album. It’s a blend that almost feels out of place here due…

Today we welcome dedex to the Digbox. Hello, dedex! Off you go!

Hello, welcome to the Digbox. This is a [now confirmed] blog(!) series where a person throws down a few epic jams and talks about them a little bit, or a lot. List is digs, and all that. The only rules set by local resident JohnnyoftheW**b are 1) no more than nine songs (what a random choice btw), to keep this succinct for the readergang, 2) this is primarily about songs, not albums or other things(?), and 3) at least most of the songs have to be really, really good for reasons that aren’t ironic. Cool? Cool. Digbox: begin:

[“Digbox” – reimagined by SandwichBubble, 2021] 

Disclosure – “Watch Your Step”

The biggest mystery of 2020: where were y’all when the last Disclosure album dropped? With an, erm, impressive amount of 46 ratings, it was less hyped than some obscure metalcore album. I get that some specific genres attract many peepz here, but the lack of ass-shaking praise makes me sad. What makes it even sadder is that the average is painfully low, the record being unashamedly tackled for its “genericness”. “Watch Your Step” ain’t no generic mainstream fodder, no! It’s a dangerously infectious banger that bleeds for us all to go tear the clubs up, its catchy refrain only waiting for hundreds of voices to join in unison while dancing feet swaggily stomp the floor. Maybe y’all just weren’t…

Hello, welcome to the Digbox. This is a [potential] blog(!) series where a person throws down a few epic jams and talks about them a little bit, or a lot. List is digs, and all that. The only rules I’m gonna set for it are 1) no more than nine songs, to keep this succinct for the readergang, 2) this is primarily about songs, not albums or other things(?), and 3) at least most of the songs have to be really, really good for reasons that aren’t ironic. Cool: Digbox: begin:

[Digbox – colourised 2021] 

Spangle Call Lilli Line – “Mio”

This song is mid-key the catalyst that got me writing this to begin with. Its name is *deep breath* “Mio” (phew) and it’s one of the best and most sophisticated dream pop songs I’ve heard in a long time. I’m obsessed enough not to want to write on it any further. Ugh. Let’s start on the surface: this ultra-clean style of  production is something I usually associate with overbaked bilge, but Spangle Call Lilli Line’s veteran songwriting chops, flair for killer melodies, and sensitivity to balancing sparseness and intricacy in a complex arrangement give them the footing to knock this one out of the damn ballpark. Take that, shoddy indie-lounge!

“Mio” is teeming with great melodies and instrumental nuances, but there’s never too much going on at any one time; it has the hooks…