Shfl is a music recommendation tool — one that depends only on the very simplest algorithm of them all, random sampling. It is built from a massive number of specific recommendations from individual people — music critics, musicians, and a few carefully chosen lists from around the web. The only way to make a random sampler work for recommendations is if the population sampled from is full of wonderful things, and this one is — a carefully designed warren where you can go directly from Danny Brown to Scarlatti.

Shfl is a big, densely-connected graph — there's lots of ways to customize your path through it. Tapping on a tag or the icons next to the date, label, or album recommender will restrict the sampler to albums that share that attribute. Filters can also be added manually using search, and they can be combined — you can filter on African music from the 70's, for instance, or norwegian black metal, or jazz guitar. If you're not sure where to start, we also publish guides to various musical subjects, collections of albums grouped by topic, and there's a best-of section with jumping-off points for many of the most popular genres on the site.

Shfl can be easily installed on your phone, and where possible every album is linked to a streaming location, so it's very easy to give something totally unfamiliar a shot. I can be reached by email with any questions or suggestions, and you can also subscribe to our newsletter to be alerted when we put up something new. Thanks, and have fun!

Shfl