Adam Shore, Artistic Director & Event Producer
💭 Thoughts on Decalius, doing the work via Substack, and the importance of NYC show listings.
Adam Shore is an artistic director and event producer who’s been leading creative projects with artists for over 20 years. He was GM and A&R for VICE Records (The Streets, Bloc Party, Justice), worked with Adult Swim on a decade’s worth of music projects, and led live music for Red Bull and the Red Bull Music Academy, launching festivals in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Montreal, and Toronto. He has recently produced over 20 events at BAM, including concert series curated by Hanif Abdurraqib and Solange.
This year’s projects include a new two-day festival for COLORS, Andre 3000’s BAM debut, Togetherness with Grace Wales Bonner, listening sessions of the Wu-Tang Clan's fabled Once Upon A Time In Shaolin, and an all-day free festival outside the Barclays Center with the Brooklyn Raga Massive on Sunday, July 21. He also manages the immersive sound artist Ash Fure, with upcoming shows at the Unsound Festival and the Venice Biennial.
The best album of the year. The only album of the year? Who needs anything else when all of music is in here. Keywords from Grayson Haver Currin Pitchfork review: marvelous, high-volume, obliterative, purifying, ecstatic, mighty, blown-out, brain-fried, loud, relentless, unrepentant, feedback, distortion, hypnotic volume and power, a glorious mind eraser. Need more? Every show gets uploaded to Bandcamp and every one is worth listening to. At Union Pool I think it was two drummers, two bassists, three guitars, 1 or 2 violins, and god knows what else. The overtones were everywhere. Maximal Minimalism.
Kalia Vandever - We Fell In Turn + other solo instrumentalists
A young trombone player from NYC, this album is a wonder — solo trombone, sad but warm, hopeful. My every morning album. I find myself drawn to a lot of solo instrumental records, where the tones of the instruments and the imagination embedded in them feel immersive, pure, and deeply personal. Other recent faves: the otherworldly saxophonist Bendik Giske, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire’s Beauty is Enough, the drones of Jasmine Woods’s Piano Reverb, bassist Luke Stewart’s Works For Electric Bass Guitar from a few years back, and select works of baritone saxophonist Colin Stetson.
Decalius - Dehumanizing Loneliness
A one-man band from Seattle, Decalius falls in to the sub-subgenre DSBM, or depressive suicidal black metal, which I find… soothing? I am neither depressed nor suicidal, yet fully alert to how sad and hopeless the world feels at times, and I need art that reflects our condition and there is not enough. Decalius is without consolation, it is deeply dark music, and somehow singularly cathartic. Hypnotic guitars, subterranean drums, and the most desperate vocals imaginable define it, but there’s clearly a love for classic riffage and secret melodies I find heartening, even reassuring. Unfathomably sad music, rendered impossibly beautiful.
Doechii is a phenomenon. There's inventiveness in every turn: she devours genre, skillfully deploys all kinds of Florida rap, and is hilarious all the time. She just bursts with creativity. Her Oscar-deserving “Crazy” video, directed by C. Prinz, still seems years ahead of its time. A year after her first bonafide hit, she keeps pouring out tracks - the commanding “Universal Swamp Anthem” sampling UGK and OutKast’s glorious "Int'l Players Anthem”, the punk rap “Pacer’, the jersey club tribute “Booty Drop”, the electrifying “Alter Ego” with JT, the comic “MPH”, playing with Afrobeat and dancehall on "Rocket” — all that came out in the last six months. She’s so smart, with a devious mischievousness at every turn. Doechii always seems to have the most fun just being an artist.
Neil Young
What has your favorite artist released in the last four years? This is what mine, 78-year-old Neil Young, has since 2020: two studio albums of original music, one reinterpretation of older songs, three entire studio albums he recorded and never released (Homegrown, Toast, Chrome Dreams, all incredible), one of rare studio recordings, two recently recorded live albums, 10 (!) live albums from the archives (Down In the Rust Bucket and Carnegie Hall 1970 are just magnificent), a reimagining of the great Crazy Horse album Zuma... and then there's the wondrous 10 (!) album Neil Young Archives Volume II, and the 8 reissues in his Official Release Series. That’s 39 albums. If all you do is listen to new Neil releases, it could be all you listen to. That I got to see him with The Horse live, twice, in 2024, is a goddamn miracle.
Eminem
My thoroughly unscientific research confirms all 10-year-old boys in Brooklyn listen to Eminem. They are unable to differentiate the thrilling, early Eminem (the first 2.5 albums) with the dismal, interminable rest (7.5 other albums and counting), but they may be onto something. You have to search for it, but stand-out moments from throughout his discography abound. Put together, when he is at his best, his speed and skill is still breathtaking, no one was funnier, and the craziest shit he said 25 years ago sounds even crazier now in our current neutered era. What he says about Puffy and JLo in “I’m Back”? What?
Doing the work via Substacks
In a different era from our long ago past, we used to have publications with editors who would assemble the best writers who listen to the vast expanse of music and tell you about great music you should know. Now you’re completely on your own. I subscribe to 254 Substacks (not counting the Ghosts, Tiny Letters, Patreons, Mediums, Blogspots, and more), and I do not wish this on anyone. I have to be my own editor, endlessly searching through descriptions, videos, and links to find the exact incredible thing I need right now. A debt of gratitude to the heads who put in the work. A selective list: Dada Strain, First Floor, Futurism Restated, So It Goes, Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches, Herb Sundays, Abundant Living, AnEarful, Antiart, Anti-Matter, Beauty Blew A Fuse, Beta’s Substack, bunni pop, Cabbages, Chasing Sundays, Critical Condition, Deep Voices, Don’t Rock The Jukebox, EchoLocator, Evil Speakers, Fluxblog, Gross Life, John’s Music Blog, KPR Blog, Line Noise, Lots of Commas, No Expectations, No Tags, Nowhere Street, Random Rules, See/Saw, S/FJ, The Signal, Something On, Sound + Vision, The Last Donut of the Night, The Martorialist, The Gig, Todd Burns’ Playist, Tone Glow, Transitional Technology, Untitled 909, Yellow Green Red, Zappagram, Zero Cred, the brand new stübermania and Will Hermes: New Music + Old Music, Beat Connection, Jukebox Graduate, The Leaks, The Unskippables and Simon Reynolds’s Blissblog (+ all his other blogs linked on the right of that page). Click on them all, subscribe, support. Who am I missing?
The importance of NYC Show Listings
Thank you Brooklyn Vegan, Oh My Rockness, Resident Advisor, Dada Strain, Techno Queers, ariellenyc from Heads Know, Go Out!, NYC Noise, New Music Calendar, Extended Techniques, Four/Four Selects, Gunkyard, and Night After Night for the important work you do.
Follow Adam on Instagram and Linkedin, email him at adam[at]thedailyswarm.com, or say hi in person at the Brooklyn Raga Massive Festival outside the Barclays Center on Sunday, July 21.
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