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Jon Hillcock

@jonhillcock

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music and radio things. tend to post most music stuff on my Stops page. Playlists of new music I like and substack also linked here:

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Lately I’ve seen some grumbling about social posts like these*, which just share a bunch of album covers in a row, saying that they’re not really any use to anyone without any context or deep, considered reflections. And I get it. I value focused analysis as much as anyone. But ultimatelyI disagree - there’s room for both.

Yeah I wish I had the time (and talent) to elaborate on what I like about each of these records but ultimately I think there’s value in earnestly sharing ANY new music you love, however you can, rather than leaving it to algorithms or whatever.

Hate to be a bit virtuous and worthy about it but - plainly - there is more music released daily than ever before, BUT at the same time, madly, people are increasingly listening to more old music (over new music) than ever before. A grim dichotomy!

And anyway, I like seeing my feed full of stuff like this.

*mostly by “music writers” on substack tbh by @jonhillcock

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10 days ago

All sorts in here. Ongoing favourites playlist linked in bio. Bandcamp picks not on streaming by @jonhillcock

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2 months ago

90 seconds of 2026 so far, mostly from my daily Lewisham to W1 commute, set to one of my favourite songs - Invisible by No You - from one of my favourite albums of the year. Full list of 40 or so other records I’ve liked below (grouped in slightly contrived genres😅). I’ve written about them all, with a preamble about having a musical identity crisis: link in bio.

ambient/modern classical
Mabe Fratti & Bill Orcutt - Almost Waking The Soft Pink Truth - Can Such Delightful Times Go On Forever? Zsela, Daniel Aged & Taul Katz - 4 Dreams

indie rock
Chad Van Gaalen - Full Moon Bummer Exposed Assets Sluice - Companion Mildred - Fenceline

experimental/ambient
Dublin - Heavy Dublin Guests - Common Domestic Bird Radio Selena - Paper Boats

electronic
Shed - Rave Echoes Supermodel - Supermodel Picture - Eeeeeeee

alt
No You - No You Casual Technicians - Well Once There Was A King Nashpaints - Everyone Good Is Called Molly

indie folk
Andrew Wasylyk - Irreparable Parables From 2 - Indie Stock Field Commander Ali - The Next From Field Commander Ali

Rap
Navy Blue - Sir Render Tierra Whack - WHACK’S MUSEUM Sideshow - TIGRAY FUNK

jazz/jazz adjacent
Resavoir - Themes For Dreams Gregory Uhlmann - Extra Stars Memotone - Warm Shadows

ambient/electronic
qwqwqwqwa - words left unsaid Velv.93 - Maidstone Pan American - Fly The Ocean in a Silver Plane

virtuosic indie (?)
My New Band Believe - My New Band Believe Wendy Eisenberg - Wendy Eisenberg Frog - Frog For Sale

punk/metal
Truck Violence - The weathervane is my body Alien Nosejob - How A Mosquito Operates Hammok - When Does This Place Become Our Scene

soul/r&b
duendita - existential thottie Samba Jean-Baptiste - +3 Momoko Gill - Momoko

Soundtracks
Hania Rani - Sentimental Value OST Duval Timothy & CJ Mirra - My Father’s Shadow OST Oliver Coates - The History Of Sound OST

EPs/mini albums
Eliana Glass - E at Home EP Khotin - KIND 013 EP SANGUINE - Paraíso EP

dec 2025 (because they always get missed)
Frederik Valentin & emil f - Falling Into Fall Leif - Collide U.e - Other Girl

#music #musicrecommendations #bestmusicof2026 #musicgram #newmusic by @jonhillcock

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3 months ago

Nancy: “happy father’s day!”
Louis: “happy birthday!”
Poppy: “then miss came into the toilets and said “CAN I SMELL BLUEBERRY CHERRY CRANBERRY IN HERE, GIRLS?”
Evie: “we realised the sky was already turning blue so we just stayed up”
Elliot: “daddy” (this is new)

Five different quotes on one unique Father’s Day. Life is mad, beautiful and brilliant and I am lucky. Especially that I get to drop in and talk about the Stones and our family World Cup sweepstake with Big Man Hillcock too. It’s especially clear on days like today that so many would love the chance to do the same. (Not necessarily with my dad, of course. Nice as he is.)

Enormous, genuinely thrilled high fives to the gang (via an ever thoughtful @thissarahpowell) for my perfect FD gift of a @jordanboltondesign book. This and Toy Story 5 in one looooong day?? More than enough to destroy a sensitive old sad dad 🥺😭 by @jonhillcock

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4 months ago

Poppy’s school life wasn’t what I thought it would be. Twelve occasionally agonising years that zipped by. At the start you think, you hope, all the things any parent does: that it will be fun, inspiring and engaging for them, setting them up with codes and, perhaps, friends for life, and the makings of an identity.

But of course all the things that *you* struggled with start to happen all over again. Right in front of you. Revealing you to yourself. Not to make it all about me (this is so all about me) but their school life repackages your own experience thirty years later and delivers it back to you, faults and all. But this time, if you choose to, you have a chance to make it better, learning and listening and reflecting, and picking apart all you thought you knew. They are not you. Thank god.

And Covid! Right there in the middle of it all! Corrupting an educational set up that is already wildly flawed and grossly outdated. Is it really any wonder this generation of kids feel trapped and resentful of school?

One of Poppy’s teachers sent us a note this week. She said “I couldn’t imagine school life without her arguing with me every day about lashes and skirts but I wouldn’t change a single thing.” The endless battles. Brutal and scarring and brilliant. I LOVE that Poppy battles. I wish I’d battled more. It’s these battles that have pummelled us all into the healthier shape we’re in now. I couldn’t be more grateful for everything Poppy has taught me. Thank you, Pops! Thrilled to watch you fly ❤️❤️ by @jonhillcock

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4 months ago

“You shouldn’t expect life to be great, but there are joys in it, sometimes very small and very close to you. That’s a political message.”

Thank you for the joy and the space, David Hockney 🌱 by @jonhillcock

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4 months ago

Went to the V&A Storehouse to see the Bowie archive today. It was overwhelming, moving and fascinating, and, just like the Kurt Cobain thing I went to a while back, a bit weird. Weird to get to be right up close to all these super familiar iconographic items. To see the stained clothes, creased collars, scribbled lyrics and ideas, even colour combinations, all so deeply storied and ingrained on your brain, but stripped of their majesty, reduced to being just things. Tatty, grubby, normal, kind of actually dull things.

Maybe it’s that which makes it all the more remarkable. A reminder that greatness, essentially, comes from nothing.

Not going to annotate all the pics but just to say I wanted to get up close to all the things. Did an actual little gasp when I realised what Eno’s oblique strategies box was, and constantly surprised to see David’s childlike handwriting in the mid 70s - unjoined up, with circles on the ‘i’s - seemingly when he was in the worst depths of the coke years.

Argh, and look at the handwritten setlist from The Idiot tour! Complete with David’s own scribbled post it. Have included a pic from that tour because why not.

Also have to say I really loved the whole idea of the V&A Storehouse itself. Like a museum on shuffle. Anti-curation. Literally no notes. Perfect. taken in V&A East by @jonhillcock

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9 months ago

🚨 MAWK ALERT 🚨

I used to wish Christmas away. Hiding in radio studios on Christmas Day and New Years Day, pretty much every day from mid-December to early January. Arriving to an empty radio station office was never not thrilling. Hermetically sealing myself into a soundproofed room with records (and lonely listeners) was all I really wanted. I didn’t know why I wanted to escape Christmas, but I definitely did. I longed for things to get back to normal. I liked normal life, with its structure and optimism and ambition. But inevitably ambitions shift, structures crumble and realities set in. And the great immovable vacuum left behind forces you to take stock. Weigh things up. See what’s what. And what isn’t.

No two ways about it, life at home now is intense. Like an anxiety dream directed by Josh Safdie. Babies, toddlers, teenagers, all at once. A mad conveyor belt of chaos. Soiled clothes, floors and sofas. Endlessly (un)settling tantrums and squabbles. Wailing and crashing. Clashing dates, tedious logistics. Eternally rushing or waiting. And set against a backdrop of sleeplessness, exacerbated by the comically unpredictable and unmanageable angst of a 16 year old. It’s genuinely hard to remember days that weren’t as utterly all-consuming, but in reality it’s only been like this for less than a year.

Due to one thing and another I was to have two days to myself this year. The 22nd and 23rd December. Actual solitude. 48 hours of nothing. Naturally I’d been focused on this unimaginably blissful festive island for weeks, months.

On the day I got home to an empty, silent house after dropping the crew at Euston - very ready to watch films, tv shows, read, piss away hours online - the open void was too distracting. A quiet unlike anything I’ve known before. A kind of weird longing that paralysed me. It was shocking to realise that this mad life was The life. This chaos is it. All I ever wanted. And I desperately wanted it back. Normal life. Next Christmas everything will look totally different. I hope it’s as good as this one. by @jonhillcock

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9 months ago

To confirm I still love Caramel Freddos and want more in 2026 by @jonhillcock

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10 months ago

Here are ten really good records that aren’t on loads of other lists (I’ve been posting little videos about these this week too).

I also liked Geese, Blood Orange, Turnstile, Rosalia, and *really* loved the Dijon album. And Sabrina Carpenter too. (Goodbye made me inexplicably tear up like a sap walking through Soho one summer morning). But this year’s AOY lists across the board (esp with the music media big guns) felt more homogenous than ever. Is it just me? Feels especially dull given how much music is released daily.

Scroll on a bit if inclined for lists led by a kind of combination of mood/tone/genre. There’s an extremely niche guitar-led instrumental ambient list as it’s been a remarkable year for those, and a list of really great EPs too. And I didn’t even include any reissues. I’ve got to stop. The numbers are arbitrary. Why limit a list for the sake of it?

Oh, the one thing there isn’t this year is an actual playlist. Because my beautiful, brilliant two year old son hurled a book at my laptop while I was watching West Ham Villa and broke the screen (see last slide) and it’ll take me forever to make them without that. Maybe I’ll do it in January, or May, or something.

Oh, and no songs of the year list because I need to go and be a parent now. But if there was one it would 100% be topped by Afterlife by Alex G. by @jonhillcock

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10 months ago

One more for luck.

An album that ought to have been on all the lists this year

11 - @voila_deadgowns - It’s Summer, I Love You, and I’m Surrounded By Snow by @jonhillcock

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10 months ago

Okay I cheated, but one’s an ep. And both on @wahwahwino

Both in my list of brilliant records from 2025 that are missing from lots of the main eoy lists

10 (a) - Wino-E - WINO-E
10 (b) - @officerjohn___ - The Return of Officer John by @jonhillcock

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10 months ago