Mass layoffs at gatekeep!
Thanks, Phil Spencer!
Wow zamn hi hello everybody, Kerry here, to usher in YEAR TWO of gaslight girlboss GateKeeping! Yes, it’s been 365 entire days since our ragtag team of snobs and obsessives set sail on the seas of Substack, in which time we’ve collectively published 307 posts and convinced 325 beautiful and intelligent readers to smash that subscribe button. Not too shabby! So, before anything else, kudos to each and every one of the 22 contributors who helped build our little slice of music-nerd paradise (and a special shout-out to Tom and Sunny for shouldering the ever-thankless task of compiling all those weekly release lists).
We do what we do here to entertain ourselves and each other first and foremost, but the fact that we’ve made it one notch beyond that to a handful of perfect strangers sure does wonders to keep morale up. Building any kind of audience at all on the modern-day internet is, uh, whatever the exact opposite of a surefire bet is: every person reading this has a billion other things jockeying for their attention 24/7, so we don’t take it for granted whenever somebody trusts us with a few moments of theirs in the hopes of finding something thought-provoking to listen to or read. You could be playing Elden Ring, but you decided to gatekeep! Instead. Sincerely, thanks.
We’ve got the whole team gathered here today to reflect on their innermost feelings about the past and future of this blog. Read on to enjoy musings, insights into our mystery-shrouded personal lives, and of course a curated playlist of our favorite discoveries from the past year of gatekeepery!
Best GK! experience so far
My favorite GK!-related experience was exchanging a few messages with an artist regarding one of my write-ups. It was really cool getting some insight into the recording process of the project that I wrote about directly from the source, and that little exchange serves nicely as an affirmation for me that it’s worth all the time and effort it takes to really hone our thoughts about the music we consume and present in writing.
Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!
On an individual level, I hope to have a more substantial output of full-album reviews to hone further my own style. We have so many talented writers with varied tastes, and I’m looking forward to learning from and growing alongside all of them. A personal dream would be to have the privilege of curating some interviews with artists that don’t get much exposure from English-reading sources with the goal of introducing readers to a wide-range of dope artists that they may otherwise never come across.
Most affecting discovery of the last year
I’d have to say that Park Jiha’s “All Living Things” is the piece of music I’d consider the most affecting of 2025. It’s easy to get bogged down in modern society with all sorts of noise, both internally and externally, and at least for me, this album is the perfect soundtrack to dropping any pretense of self-importance.
As the title would suggest, the traditional (often somber and mystical) soundscape Park Jiha creates with this album is a powerful altar to connectedness; the beauty, the woes, the tragedies, and the miracles of all life are communally shared, and when listening “All Living Things,” one cannot help but see themselves in every other thing, and see every other thing within themselves.
Playlist pick
BIBI - Apocalypse
Best GK! experience so far
The various people involved here who keep picking up the slack. That’s not a dig, just genuine gratitude for the effort we all put in whenever we can.
Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!
I hope that we keep going! Even if that means taking breaks. It’s easy to lose motivation to write for free and get very few eyes on our work, but I’m extremely proud of how we’ve persisted, and I want us to keep going.
Most affecting discovery of the last year
The best thing I’ve done in the field of music in the last year has been going through various “best of [insert decade]” lists. It’s not my natural inclination to listen to Pitchfork’s 200 favorite albums from the 60s, or FACT’s favorite 100 albums from the 80s, but I’m really glad I did it anyway. I have a lot of time most days that can be soundtracked, and I used to spend a little too much time figuring out what to listen to. Now, if I’m not sure, I just go for the next one on the list. It’s a relief for my decision-paralysis-prone brain, and gives me a more certain sense of listening progress.
More importantly though, it’s expanded and reformed what I enjoy in music. By the time I finished listening to the Beatles’ discography, The Velvet Underground and Nico hit me much more than it would have 199 albums earlier, and now “Heroin” is one of my favorite songs. I’ve had plenty of examples of music I’d heard before and didn’t really get, but now that I’ve tried a lot more stuff, I can appreciate it all the more. Even Black Sabbath kind of clicks for me now, and if you know my taste, you know how much of a miracle that is. And the more I listen to, the more confident I am in my own taste, and the less it matters to me how it aligns with any perceived ideal. If music is getting a little stale, or you just want to explore a little more, I really recommend finding a list that seems interesting and just going for it.
Playlist pick
From another affecting discovery of this year - Queen of Soul: The Atlantic Recordings, probably the best compilation ever made - “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” by Aretha.
Best GK! experience so far
I am far from the most active person so I am admittedly a bit limited, but ramping up gatekeep! from conception to execution in such a short time frame was such a fun process. The authorbase here has so much skill and heart that it’s been a pleasure to be a part of.
Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!
Contributing more, collaborating more, and doing some sort of celebration for our second anniversary.
Most affecting discovery of the last year
I started volunteering with a local non-profit radio station this year out of boredom and wanting to connect with my community a bit more, and it’s been such a nice boon to my general listening habits as I get to become more knowledgeable of Chicago’s local music scene. They haven’t all been winners, but there’s some real gems that would’ve otherwise passed me by had I just stuck to the usual haunts for discovery and I’ve just about had it with any algorithms doing anything for me at all. Which dovetails nicely into Stuck’s “Optimizer”, an album all about navigating the pitfalls of becoming infinitely efficient. The hooks are sticky as hell and there’s a really playful sense of humor to keep the mood from sinking as dark as the subject matter.
And if you’re looking for a bonus rec, Moron Police’s “Pachinko” is the most life-affirming prog I have heard in some time.
Playlist pick
Palm - Heavy Lifting
Best GK! experience so far
Collabing with Tyman on the review for A$AP Rocky’s latest. Was great to be able to work closely with him on a piece.
Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!
I hope we’re able to continue growing our platform, expanding our readerbase and (hopefully) transcend the substack format.
Most affecting discovery of the last year
In a year where I’ve discovered my passion for some of the most ignorant, ugly-sounding death metal in existence, my most affecting discovery feels somewhat unexpected. It would be the new Static Dress album, Injury Episode. I’d enjoyed Static Dress well enough since the release of their debut full-length in 2022, but I can’t say that I was fully on the hype train for the new album dropping this year. Still, I took pains to revisit Rouge Carpet Disaster in preparation, and this built my anticipation and appreciation for what the band is trying to do aesthetically. That is, channel a very specific brand of throwback post-hardcore that feels nostalgically vintage yet still assuredly modern. However, I wasn’t prepared for just how exceptional this new album was going to be.
It once again struts in the margins of accessible post-hardcore, but with more confidence, conviction and style, their blend of catchy riffing and abrasive textures coming into its own on a collection that is absurdly consistent and convincing in its over-the-shoulder nod-and-a-wink vibe. Now, I do have some reservations about the production on the record — especially the overemphasised low end of the mix that seems to swallow much of the foreground activity in a tremulous ocean of bass. However, it speaks to the strength of the songwriting that this choice neither derails the experience nor ruins the intended effect, with the emotional edge and razored intention searing through the noise with blistering intensity. It builds on everything the band has already established and somehow surpasses it, sitting comfortably as my album of the year so far.
Playlist pick
Static Dress - Adapter
Best GK! experience so far
Try as I might to distance myself from being too invested in what other people think of my opinions over sounds on the internet, I’d be lying if I said the dopamine rush of positive comments on any glowing review didn’t feel damn good. My write-up of last year’s The Armed LP stuck out in particular as a fun one to write and a rewarding one to get feedback on.
Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!
I don’t think we’re in any danger of it, but just don’t burn out! We have a sizable enough team here to allow for dips and lulls in any one writer’s interest or time, and the fact that we’ve got consistent weekly/monthly series is a great foundation after just one year of activity. Whether or not gatekeep! blooms into an indie household name for music discourse or forever remains a niche blog for misfit critics to plug what they enjoy, I’m getting a kick out of pitching in when I can and collecting some great recommendations in the process.
Most affecting discovery of the last year
On a technicality, this is a re-discovery instead of a first-time venture, but after a decade of procrastinating on giving it another go, Number Girl’s 1999 post-hardcore classic School Girl Distortional Addict clicked hard with me on a whimsical re-listen this past winter, encouraged me to learn the majority of its songs on guitar, and is thus the only album to not leave my weekly rotation since then. The album’s successor, 2000’s Sappukei, had been a longstanding favorite of mine, a nocturnal, angsty, blaring slab of urban jungle noise rock that accompanied me through a rough stretch of depression back in 2016. I guess I bonded too closely with it at the time to give the rest of the band’s discography a sober-minded shot.
Better late than never, but as the two most similar albums in their brief but influential canon, I can’t for the life of me understand why SGDA took this long to resonate. True, frontman Shutoku Mukai’s nasal, nerdy, and helplessly pitchy vocals (not to mention the language barrier) don’t help its mass appeal, nor does his mates’ tendency to shy away from providing any melody themselves, but the scarcity of self-evident hooks gradually circles back around to a strength. As the world whizzes by and Mukai’s protagonists ruminate over hallmarks of youth so electric, so impassioned, and yet so distant, the band’s clamor churns and divebombs and on rare occasion even ensnares some ecstasy. I’ll turn 30 this fall, but it’s nice to know I haven’t lost my appreciation for catharsis via knotty, punchy indie rock. If anything, the instant 180 I made proves it comes more naturally to my ears and fingertips than ever.
Playlist pick
Opener “Touch” (タッチ) most clearly exemplifies the album’s shrill tonality and addictive, kinetic desperation—if you can stomach it, maybe even love it, the rest should go down smooth.
Best GK! experience so far
Clobbering out blurbs for Nex’s great big 2025 metal list ran me through more albums than I’ve listened to since. Just great fun, for a great list!
Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!
I want to contribute more. Keeping up with new music is generally not my strength, but I have other ideas in the pipeline. Watch this space.
Most affecting discovery of the last year
Flying Lotus has well earned all the ink spilled over the spectacular electronic music he released through the 2010s. Cosmogramma through Flamangra (yeah, I said it) is one of the most sublime album runs an artist has ever gone on, and I’ve spent most of the last year digesting it. Glitched-out, eclectic, danceable, carefree, deeply serious - it is rather silly to try and describe FlyLo’s music when haphazardly jamming adjectives together conveys the relationship between frenetic, nigh-schizophrenic pace and deconstructive disassembly so much better. Why try and describe glitch when I can simply say ‘distending’ and ‘delicate’ and let the reader imagine an oeuvre of sonic landscapes that can credibly contain both in songs that rarely surpass two minutes. More than anything FlyLo is the ancestor of the rock opera, the upright hominid with his putty boy strut stomping all over the the australopithecus formerly known as Meat Loaf. Not to diss him, but it’s deeply refreshing to listen to music made by such a consummate nerd. The sort of nerd who scares the hoes but also isn’t trying to, because it’s just the way they are. Everything beautiful in Flying Lotus is found in the threshold where the turgid leviathan finds it also has feelings, no matter how absurd and inexpressible those feelings may be. Music as an insatiable gojira, but also as a flower.
Playlist pick
Flying Lotus - More
Best GK! experience so far
Collabs.
Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!
More collabs.
Most affecting discovery of the last year
Humanity isn’t lost just yet.
Playlist pick
Let’s go with a traditional Comorian birthday song: Embrionic Death - Sperm to Egg
Best GK! experience so far
Interviews and the AOTY lists! I feel very lucky to have had meaningful conversations with artists I adore, and I was really happy with the format we produced for the AOTY lists, with the majority of it celebratory and unranked, and the high-stakes ranking saved for the top 10. Been looking forward to the 2026 version ever since.
Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!
Our collaborative stuff has been really fun to work on, so definitely to do more of that more often. GK! has motivated me to put more thought and research into each piece, but I’d like to work on an off-the-cuff style so that I can cover more releases without going the whole hog every time. For the site as a whole… well, a year on Substack has made me realise how reluctant many music writers are to be viewed as ‘critics’ – maybe they’re worried about negativity in their own perspectives, maybe certain people have just made criticism hysterically unfashionable – and a lot of them seem to view their work as a direct extension of the creative industry. That’s cool and in some cases inspiring (it’s made me think a lot more deeply about responsible platform use), but there can be a very deferential, sanitary side to it too – so I guess I’m increasingly grateful that we tend to avoid that without sacrificing our good faith. I’d like to see more pieces that reflect that spirit, especially collaborative ones where different voices balance each other out. Our friendly fire SEVEN a few weeks back was great for that!
Most affecting discovery of the last year
Killing Joke have been on the margins of my rotation since I was thirteen, but I didn’t fall in love with them until a work stint in China last year. I don’t tend to look to music for anger management or to industrial rock thrashers for, well, anything at all, but Killing Joke’s fiercest stuff has somehow stepped up to the mark for me in lieu of any properly aggravated political stuff from our time (I think the last decent record I heard of that description was Soul Glo’s Diaspora Problems). Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions and their 2003 s/t have both aged extremely well in their diatribes about post-industrial capitalism, interventionist military policy and the joyless poisonous shite we spend our lives consuming. Yes, Jaz Coleman was howling about this stuff three and a half decades ago, but it gets my blood up every time I remember how much it’s shaped the present: British rivers have been quite literally flooded with shit by the same water companies he rails against on “Age of Greed” and it’s only recently that they’re beginning to face any accountability for it.
As for China, I was based in Shenzhen, a.k.a. the poster child for Deng Xiaoping’s social market economy. Obviously that policy did a world of good for China, and as a foreigner with no next to no language skills and no cultural roots, I have a comically narrow perspective to judge it from – yet Shenzhen still felt like the most vacuous parts of capitalism, with China’s bustling overload and invasive attitude to biometrical data thrown in at a premium (I literally could not enter my apartment without first scanning my face). I’d blast “Money Is Not Our God” and “Inside the Termite Mound” stomping to work every day, and the city and I gradually started to get along better as my pissiness found a new conduit.
It’s not all politics though: anyone could have sloganeered this album’s key narratives, but I love how humanising this band is even at their most livid. Part of it is introspective subject matter across this album’s backend, but Coleman and Geordie Walker (rest in peace) are such inimitable performers that anything they play on starts to feel oddly comforting once you get an ear for them. The more time I’ve spent with this band, the more I’ve appreciated that their mulish approach to songwriting and their unyielding core sound make them one of the greats when it comes to championing selfhood as an act of resistance. How else can you explain that they sounded this good for this long? Put that way, it’s no great surprise that their single most caustic record was the one where it all finally made sense to me.
Playlist pick
This is a celebration playlist, so let’s go for zero overthinking and an anytime personal favourite: School of Seven Bells - “Half Asleep”
Best GK! experience so far
Putting together our year-end list for 2025 (it being the first time many of us had done so on our own terms) was a great achievement, and really brought the best out of every writer here. But I think i’d have to give it to the ongoing SEVEN series, which has been massively fun to read/write for and has given us a real mainstay/focus/identity to draw from as we keep going.
Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!
I hope to return to writing more often! And especially more thoughtful content (those weekly releases posts drained me completely). But there are a lot of exciting things happening here, including some great interviews and blog-style content and I hope to become more a part of that again soon.
Most affecting discovery of the last year
Jim Legxacy - Black British Music (2025) - What a moment this was and continues to be. The UK has had a huge moment over the last two or three years in the underground rap scene, pumping out fresh and innovative artists who are truly pushing genres forward, but none have yet managed to solidify their leg(x)acy with such a genuine artistic statement as Black British Music. What (among many things) stole my heart here is the sheer breadth of UK-specific influences that amalgamate into a surprisingly cohesive project.- there’s obviously a ton of references to the last ten years of mainstream rap in the UK, but there’s also that R&B undertone, subtle afrobeats nods, jerk percussion, and a straight up landfill-era lost indie rock anthem. Starkly emotionally resonant too on the vocal and lyrical front, occupied with grief, urban decay and struggle, but with that sincere hope and determination and willingness to celebrate what you have right now and what’s in front of you. I don’t advocate for tying your mental health to a piece of media, but if you need an album to be your therapist, there’s not many better choices. A year on from it’s release, I don’t see this slipping out my rotation any time soon - this is for when your shoulders feel heavy, your feet drag along the floor, and you need something to remind you that whatever happens, life finds a way to make things beautiful if you look for it.
Playlist pick
Hearts2Hearts - RUDE! - Completely changing up my vibe from my album pick but uhh song of the year? Extremely quotable, despairingly catchy, infinitely replayable. SM’s newest girl group finally have their defining song.
Best GK! experience so far
Tie between taking my sweet time to get my OK Go review to a point where I felt I had something original and insightful and poignant to say about the arc of that band’s career and what they’ve meant to me over the years, and tossing together hot takes in a single evening for Permanent Waves. Honorable mention for the recent “friendly fire” collab, which I would like to do again as soon as possible, HINT HINT
Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!
That I get to proofread and edit more of my peers’ work! Step it up, people, I’m a reader, not a writer!
Most affecting discovery of the last year
As far as stuff that gatekeep! led me to, Ninajirachi’s I Love My Computer is an obvious pick, but it’s the best album of last year and it was an absolute privilege to cover it for our year-end top 10 list alongside Jesper. It’s an album fundamentally enamored by the promise of the internet, even as it mines its most potent excitement from the friction of fitting such a powerful technology into a single fragile human life, and well, I shitsure wouldn’t be here on Substack if I couldn’t relate deeply to that.
Honorable mention for Endling’s wonderful “Constancy to an Ideal Object” album, which I wish I’d found time to write something about by now- is it never too late? Sound off in the comments!
Playlist pick
N’Draman Blintch - Self-Destruction (my favorite disco-very from Permanent Waves so far)
Best GK! experience so far
Cliche answer, but just getting to write with everyone! We’ve got one hell of a group of Gatekeepers here, and I couldn’t be happier.
Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!
More consistent content on my end for sure (if 2027 is less turbulent than 2026 has been). I would love to do more throwback content, I feel like I could talk for hours about some of these older, defining albums.
Most affecting discovery of the last year
One of the most fun things I attempted during this year was the Discog Diaries series, which I had to put on immediate hiatus in the wake of some turbulence in my real life behind the scenes. While two of these entries were bands I were familiar with already, one of them, Poison the Well, I had never listened to in full beyond a couple individual tracks. Doing that discog run reminded me of just how thrilling the discovery of classic music is. Once You Come Before You started, and Ghostchant kicked into high gear, it was all gravy from there.
Playlist pick
In honor of their grand return, Revenant by Loathe!
Best GK! experience so far
My occasional appearances on this esteemed publication serve as a ragged disguise to get the inside line on Music Happenings from a dedicated cast of diverse tastes. Accordingly, I have abandoned all other forms of music journalism and have a richer taste for it. This is the essential gatekeep! experience, the only gatekeep! experience, and if you haven’t experienced it you don’t deserve to (check our end-of-year list for 2025 if you’d like to experience this exact experience).
Hopes and dreams for the next year of GK!
I hope that our Hugh “boots on the ground” Puddles interviews more artists, for he gets’em talking and is alert and sensitive. Yes!
I dream that I might find an underappreciated album and give it an appropriate platform, but at this stage it seems I’m closer to posting an unasked for analysis of William T. Vollmann’s Europe Central (*sincere*)
Most affecting discovery of the last year
Keen as I was to break some rarefied wind your way, By Storm’s “debut” record has taken me, uh, by...
This might have something to do with my elation at their singular approach to songwriting (those unlucky few who recall my name might also recall a certain 5/5 review for By The Time I Get To Phoenix), but it might also have something to do with the empathy my increasingly advanced age gives me from the album’s outset (”things been slow / things been sweet / it’s been us two / it’s finna be three”) that cuts me through most of the album despite the fact that I am categorically quite far removed from the Texan MC who’s happy to let his incomparable musical companion take the reins and ride any given song into a perception-altering anomaly.
This might not be for you yet, but it might well be for you in time.
Playlist pick
Tears for Fears - Head Over Heels
I had comprehensive conversations with everyone I love and everyone I live with about how love songs are mostly shite, and then this one’s sensually fluctuating vocal memories wended their way into my soul decades after I first heard them. Hell yeah.
Man, it always warms my heart to see the gang all coming together like this… Happy birthday, gatekeep!, and here’s to many more! In year two, we’re after MORE likes, MORE reposts, MORE comments, MORE arguments, MORE great music that you just can’t resist telling us about! Don’t be shy, folks: who we really want to hear from is YOU! Head down to the comments section, and let it all hang out: Do you have a favorite gatekeep! review? Should Select Frequency return and do battle with SEVEN? Should we hire you yes you as a rookie hotshot pseudo-journalist??? We won’t know until the comments say so. Go forth and be at peace, and we’ll see you all again real soon.