Every Monday, 88Nine music director Erin Wolf shares a sonic gem she found using her nearly 20 years of new-music exploration experience. You can hear all her discoveries at 2 p.m. every Sunday on What’s All This: Adventures in New Music.
Sometimes, being meticulous comes in handy: Picking up every shard of glass when you break something. Checking if you turned the stove off before you leave the house. Not picking out your clothes in the dark. Fastening your seatbelt every time.
One of the ways my natural attention to detail shows up is numbering every single show that I’ve put together, allowing me to easily note that the 100th episode is coming up. What follows is a pull to celebrate somehow, because 100 is a milestone, right?
That’s a circuitous way of saying What’s All This: Adventures In New Music will officially issue its 100th curated playlist of all-new songs this Sunday, Nov. 10, and I hope you’ll celebrate with me (by listening, of course!).
The very first episode went down Sept. 4, 2022 — the same day as 88Nine’s first episode of Justin Vernon’s Song Chest Radio Hour, which aired right after. Over two years and hundreds of songs later, the Song Chest is closed, and my show’s time has shifted two hours earlier. But What’s All This still brings you an hour’s worth of fresh songs to savor each week and still has the same perfect, vibe-capturing logo (a big, big thank you to art wizard Erin Bagatta).
Prior to the creation of What’s All This, I had a personal goal as the newest music director of 88Nine: to create a specialty radio program that would let me express my love of new music discovery, then turn around and share that love with others.
It would also be my way of supporting independent artists, both with airplay and a small but insightful peek into their newest songs. I had done this for years at WMSE, where I was both a DJ and music director, while the whole “crafting a bite-sized narration for each artist and song” came from years of being a freelance music reviewer.
The show was born out of these very rewarding habits I just couldn’t quit, and it’s now a weekly part of 88Nine’s “NPR Music Sundays” lineup in the 2 p.m. slot.
Tuning in each week, you can expect to experience music discovery in nugget form. It’s right in the description that starts every episode: “new songs crafted by artists both familiar and unfamiliar, genres both well-worn and dusty, and sonic observations made simply in the name of exploration.”
If you haven’t joined me on this weekly journey quite yet, Sunday’s 100th celebration is a great time. I’ll even make you a promise to play something you like in at least one of the next 100 episodes. :)
