An artist exists here the moment they are seen.
Not when a catalogue admits them.
human music discovery. fuck algorithms.
hosaka
Type an artist’s name. hosaka answers with what it has actually seen: how far along they are, who they’ve shared bills with, and how much press is on file.
| MusicBrainz | Discogs | hosaka | |
|---|---|---|---|
| identifier | MBID — a 36-character UUID, permanently assigned | Numeric IDs for release, artist, label and master | cluster_id — a SHA-256 of the normalised name |
| how it begins | A volunteer editor files an entry; the community reviews it | Generated from the credits on a submitted release | Derived the moment a name is observed |
| what it takes | A release, or at least one documented relationship | A publicly released, ownable item the submitter has in hand | One observation, anywhere |
| registry | Required | Required | None — the ID is computed, not issued |
| authoritative about | Canonical metadata and the relationship graph | Pressing-level provenance — barcodes, matrix runouts, SID codes | When and where a name was seen, and by which independent sources |
Different instruments, different jobs. MusicBrainz and Discogs are catalogues, and both are better at being catalogues than hosaka will ever be — one is the open reference the industry runs on, the other holds pressing detail no signal-fusion system can reconstruct. hosaka is not a catalogue. It is a record of what was seen, and when.
One thing worth saying before you find it yourself: a cluster is a name, not a person. The largest one holds 260 members, all called “Indigo”. Names collide, and hosaka does not pretend otherwise.
What hosaka is
Most of the music world notices an artist after the numbers arrive — after the playlists, after the press cycle. By then the story has already happened somewhere: a late-night radio rip, a set in a basement club, a record shop that keeps selling out of the same 12".
hosaka watches those places. When several independent corners of the underground point at the same artist, that agreement is worth knowing about. hosaka also records the moment it was seen, so you can check its work later. The full story → · The method, in detail →