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unheralded

Fifty-nine records by artists who should be much better known. That is the whole brief, and it is the hardest kind of playlist to make well.

Unheralded Vol. 1

A set built on the premise that the artist deserves more attention is only as good as the ear behind it, because there is no famous record to fall back on. This one holds up because the selections are unified by taste rather than by obscurity — nothing is here merely because it is little-known.

What emerges is a specific aesthetic: singer-songwriters working in soul, folk and electronic music simultaneously, mostly self-produced, mostly released outside the major-label system. It is the sound of what happened to soul music once the industry stopped funding it.

What to listen for

Mac Ayres' "Waiting" is the best argument on the list — a young multi-instrumentalist making records in his bedroom that sound like a band in a good room.

Mpho Sebina appears twice, and that is the discovery here: a Botswanan singer whose records deserve a far larger audience than they have found.

The Foreign Exchange's "Shelter" is the veterans' entry — Phonte and Nicolay have spent twenty years making excellent records that almost nobody outside the fanbase hears.

Cautious Clay's "Cold War" and Liam Bailey's "So, Down Cold" are the two most distinctive voices, and Bailey's is genuinely unusual — a British singer with a rasp that sounds fifty years older than he is.

ANOHNI's "Drone Bomb Me" is the boldest inclusion by far, and it belongs here: a protest record disguised as a love song.

Sunni Colón, Johnny Rain, Leo Kalyan and Nick Urb are the deepest cuts, and Son Little's "Lay Down" is the most immediately gripping.

Patrick Watson's "Broken" and Matt Corby's "Miracle Love" are the non-soul selections that most repay following up.

Go deeper

Mac Ayres' Drive Slow and The Foreign Exchange's Authenticity are the two albums to start with.

ANOHNI's HOPELESSNESS is one of the most important records of the last decade and almost nothing like the rest of this playlist, which is a point in the playlist's favour.

Why it works: a playlist of unknowns has nowhere to hide, because there is no famous record to carry a weak stretch. This one survives fifty-nine tracks because the selections are unified by an actual aesthetic — self-produced, warm, harmonically curious — rather than by the fact of obscurity. Nothing is here simply because it is rare.

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