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Subscribe to the Spotify playlist here.2016 was a year of insurgent indie label artists breaking through to hip-hop radio, including Young M.A, YFN Lucci, and Chance The Rapper, whose jubilant gospel rap sound crossed over from self-released mixtapes to mainstream stardom with the help of killer guest verses by 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne on “No Problems.” Kevin Gates’s long-simmering buzz finally paid off with his first two platinum singles, the sweetly melodic “2 Phones” and the rampaging “Really Really.” Lil Yachty led the charge of a new generation of teen rappers with his breakout guest verse on D.R.A.M.’s “Broccoli.” And mainstays of radio playlists like Drake, Future, and Young Thug continued to dominate the airwaves along with post-prison comebacks from veterans Gucci Mane and Remy Ma.

Justin Peroff is the drummer for Toronto indie-rockestra Broken Social Scene. Hes also the manager for Harrison and McCallaman, two artists at the forefront of the citys avant-R&B/future-funk movement. For his Dowsers playlist, Peroff shines a light on the beatmakers, MCs, and art-pop savants who comprise the citys current musical vanguard.

"I love Toronto. Lately, the source of my citys inspiration comes from the young music communities whose members average birth year is 1995. That also happens to be the year I left the burbs for the city and officially called Toronto my home. This playlist is an example of that inspiration." — Justin Peroff

Of Montreal may be nearly two decades removed from their days as Elephant 6 upstarts, yet the collective’s unmistakable blend of eccentric DIY ethos and ’60s pop hooks continues to haunt the Georgia group’s music — including 2016’s Innocence Reaches. The same holds true for indie rock as a whole. Inspect the genre’s rank and file and the dreamily melodic flavors of Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control, The Apples in Stereo, and all their blissed out pals continue to exert a powerful influence. In addition to spotlighting key tracks from Elephant’s 6’s charter members, our playlist ropes in notable outliers such as neo-psych brats The Essex Green and the utterly indescribable A Hawk and a Hacksaw.

Clap clap clap clap: one of the dominant sounds of hip-hop and R&B in the 2010s is a synthesized handclap, hitting hard on straight 8th notes for every measure of the beat. This deceptively simple formula, which was foreshadowed in the previous decade in beats by Soulja Boy and Swizz Beatz, is compatible with any number of rhythms and production styles, from New Orleans Bounce and D.C. Go-Go to Atlanta crunk and stomping EDM. Stars like Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Kanye West, and Nicki Minaj all have their share of clappers, slowing down a soul clap for a relaxed groove or picking up the BPM to a frenzied pace that no pair of human hands would be able to keep up with.

Click here to add to Spotify playlist!Classic rock possesses all the stubborn resilience of a cockroach . It’s the 21st century, and the technological singularity is upon us: Humans are banging in VR, autonomous cars are causing fender benders up and down the West Coast, 3-D printers are capable of creating hideous yet entirely livable homes, and indie folkie Bon Iver has gone full-blown weepy cyborg. But despite wave upon wave of civilization-disrupting futurism, young musicians totally worship the musty vinyl albums on which their grandparents rolled joints back in the ‘60s and ’70s. The Temperance Movement’s bluesy chops earned them an opening slot for The Rolling Stones in 2014; Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats have zipped up the charts thanks to the kind of high-octane rhythm ‘n’ blues that made the J. Geils Band a workhouse live act in the mid-’70s; and Deap Vally, the take-no-shit female duo from Los Angeles, lay down grooves as big and growling as anything from Cactus.Clearly inspired by The White Stripes and The Black Keys—who basically are the patron saints of what we’ll call nü classic rock—a good number of these young guns temper their nostalgia with modern touches and twists inspired by alt-rock. On Sound & Color, Alabama Shakes dress up their Southern-fried garage rock with a gauzy, shoegaze-like drift and hulking bass drops. Royal Blood, who’ve memorized the stripped down, pulverizing caterwaul of Led Zeppelin I and II, have in Ben Thatcher a drummer whose beats frequently slip into the battering-ram stutter of robotic hip-hop funk.But not every artist on this playlist is a descendent of the Jack White/Dan Auerbach lineage. Both Crobot and Sweden’s Blues Pills follow the lead of retro-everything forerunners Wolfmother and The Sword, bashing out hybridizations of bell-bottomed riff rock and vintage metal heavily informed by Deep Purple, early Rush, The Jeff Beck Group, and other eardrum-drubbing longhairs from the FM rock days. If you think Western civilization peaked with James Gang’s “Funk #49,” then this definitely is the playlist for you. Best of all, no VR goggles needed.

There’s a tragic feeling of incompleteness to Sharon Jones’ career, and it’s best be summed up with the phrase "discovered too late and gone way too soon." The soul and funk vocalist’s story is a well-told one: a criminally overlooked session powerhouse—who clearly possessed the chops and sheer life-force to be a star when she first turned professional in the ’70s—finally achieves fame in her late-’40s only to have pancreatic cancer claim her life in 2016 at the age of 60. Fortunately for the world, the Grammy-nominated Jones and her band, the Dap-Kings, made the most of her all-too-brief stardom, dropping seven stellar studio albums, including the posthumously released Soul of a Woman, recorded as the singer underwent debilitating chemotherapy treatments.What makes the group so unique is their ability to feel unapologetically old-school, yet without any residue of weepy nostalgia. Anchored not just by Jones’ attention-seizing voice, but the group’s agilely stabbing horns and preternaturally metronomic rhythm section as well, their music pops, sizzles, and jumps with a sweaty, determined modernism. (Especially relevant in this context is their funk-spiked reworking of Janet Jackson’s “What Have You Done for Me Lately?”) It’s a sound that has exerted a huge impact on 21st-century pop, pushing retro-soul into the mainstream while also making the Dap-Kings, as well as their sister outfit the Dap Kings Horn Section, in-demand session musicians in the same vein as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section or the Wrecking Crew.Arguably the first artist to take notice was the late Amy Winehouse, who employed the Dap-Kings when crafting her own fusion of retro and contemporary R&B for 2006’s game-changing Back to Black. The album’s co-producer, Mark Ronson, then used the ensemble’s crack horn section on his massive retro-pop hit “Uptown Funk,” featuring dynamo singer Bruno Mars. More recently, the digitally minded Kesha used those soul-piercing horns on her crushing, feminist anthem “Woman,” from her emotional tour de force Rainbow.But not every session/appearance fits snugly between the poles of R&B and pop—there’s a slew of leftfield examples, too. On her self-titled full-length from 2014, avant-garde singer-songwriter St. Vincent leans heavily on the unswerving pulse of Dap-Kings drummer Homer Steinweiss (who also plays skins for the Dan Auerbach-led Arcs), while her collaborative effort with David Byrne, Love This Giant, weaves their horns into the duo’s art-rock pointillism. Other standouts include The Black Lips, whose garage-punk rave-up Underneath the Rainbow utilizes the services of baritone guitarist Thomas Brenneck and trumpeter David Guy, and country outlaw Sturgill Simpson, who worked with the the Dap-Kings horns on A Sailor’s Guide to Earth and then brought them onstage for his 2017 Grammy performance.On top of featuring cuts from each of the artists already mentioned, our playlists dips into the Dap-Kings many related projects (including The Budos Band and Menahan Street Band), as well as veteran soul and funk singers Charles Bradley, Lee Fields, and Rickey Calloway who, like Jones, found a welcoming home on Daptone, easily retro-soul’s most important record label. Of course, the absence left by Jones’ death will forever be felt; she was, after all, a once-in a-generation talent. But it becomes all too clear when exploring this diverse array of songs that her vision and style will continue to echo throughout modern music for a long time to come.

These queens of the modern slow jam have been snaking their way from underground roots into mainstream consciousness like syrup dripping from a stack of candied pancakes, their mesmeric beats and honeyed vocals provoking slow-burning critical recognition. The R&B swagger and soul-drenched seduction of the genres 90s lodestars are all present and correct here, but this is foremost a playlist of unapologetic female power; palpable sexuality, personal mastery unleashed through siren calls, witchy domination car-pooling with low-rider soul. Here, Colombian native Kali Uchis filters Cali sun through a vintage lens, while Odd Futures Syd tha Kyd laces excruciatingly breathy vocals with funk-fueled, dirty bass; Beyoncé nods to her forebears with slick production and urgent harmonies, and scrappy Londoner Tirzah chops and screws her way through woozy heartbreak.

Im always surprised that Duke Dumont has been able to cross over to America to the extent that he has. The UK producer was mentored by Switch, and came up with post-house UK producers like Oliver Dollar and Route 94.His music is great. Its lite, melodic and floating electronic pop, with maybe a little bit of camp thrown in. Its late-afternoon festival music. This is a great mix of his Blasé Boys crew, though it strangely spends the first four tracks on Aki. Duke has one of the most active Spotify accounts though, and its worth a look to check out all his playlists.

The first American Football album presents an image on its cover that has long remained in my mind. This image, a photo of the side of a Midwest house on a cloudy night, is conjured up from my unconscious and displayed on the projection screen of my mind’s eye every time I hear Mike Kinsella’s voice. American Football sounds like that photo looks: inviting, mysterious, and decidedly more complex than the surface would lead one to believe. The past few years have seen a renaissance in American Football’s emo/math rock aesthetic, with numerous young indie bands taking up the torches of sincerity and despair, displaying their emotions cleanly and clearly on distortion-tinged canvasses that recall the side of that house from the American Football album cover. And yet as the emo revival seems robust and healthy, I recently saw online that the house—which resides in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois—is for sale. Some things come full circle, it seems, especially with the release of a long-awaited second American Football album. But many things do change: people move away, houses fall apart, neighborhoods fall into dilapidation. Perhaps if the house is to be a metaphor for the resurgence of emo, it must be taken both as a memory and a state of disrepair that tasks the present with its rebuilding.

The electropop of Australian producer/DJ Flume certainly moves—the tracks on his latest album are full of dizzying drops, deep, tough rhythms, and gorgeous, sky-climbing pop hooks—but there’s a sludgy textural element that adds weight and helps him stand apart from the pack of superstar DJs. His latest album, 2016’s Skin, is a perfect piece of post-everything pop maximalism, and his hand-curated Spotify playlist serves as a virtual index to his influences. Jeremih bumps up against MF DOOM, while Boyz Noize share airtime with Sigur Rós. The assortment would make no sense unless you’re familiar with Flume, but, for the initiated, it’s damn near perfect.