What’s a music tech company to do once they launch their music service? Create a recommendation engine, of course. Being able to recommend an artist or track based on a user’s existing playback data is the holy grail of both streaming and download services, and Spotify is but the latest to think they’ve done music recommendation right.

I’m glad these groups are trying. However, try as they might, for a heavy music consumers like myself, the recommendations never extend past the things I’ve already heard and things I never want to hear again. That truth holds for Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, Pandora, and everyone else.

I’m skeptical any music tech company will ever get it right without tapping into the NSA’s data stream. Music recommendation isn’t as simple as like A then you’ll like B.

For me, the best recommendations still come from curators. A curator can be a label, a friend, or another music writer. In the case of His Electro Blue Voice, the curator who made this recommendation was Sub Pop Records, via their Sub Pop 1000 compilation released this past Record Store Day.

Who knew in 2013 I’d fall for an Italian trio of thrashing and shoegazing, industrial, post-punk? Sub Pop that’s who. Spotify would rather I listen to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The Gories, The Breeders, and Animal Collective.

Anyone who really knew me would find that last recommendation especially laughable. I’d rather make fun of Animal Collective and their fans than listen to that band. No, I’ll stick to my human recommendations, thank you.

Sub Pop will be releasing His Electro Blue Voice’s debut LP on August 20th. Based on this one track alone, a track that didn’t even make the record, I highly recommend it. For a preview of what actually did make out the record, play the teaser video below.