Connection is the key, and while there's a lot of great work on this site, I want to make sure you know about a couple other places.

Jeff Harrington started NetNewMusic a few years ago; I've been helping out there since its beginning. It's a portal to contemporary/avant stuff of all types; but only things we personally visit, listen to and like. We don't care about how "big" the name is, only how good the music is. And we focus on people who provide a generous amount of audio on their own site. After all, music is about sound, right?

Also one of the best of the truly independent CD stores is CD Baby, based in Portland, Oregon. There are amazing CDs that you might never see if you were only looking at major labels and big stores. But it can be hard to find them just by searching, so I've made two different galleries of CDs there, that I personally find interesting. You just might, too... The links are:

Music Now, Worldwide

More Music Now

Explore, listen, support, enjoy.