Submission + - Spotify's Ghost Artists (harpers.org)
"Linus Larsson, showed me the Spotify page of an artist called Ekfat. Since 2019, a handful of tracks had been released under this moniker, mostly via the stock-music company Firefly Entertainment, and appeared on official Spotify playlists like âoeLo-Fi Houseâ and âoeChill Instrumental Beats.â One of the tracks had more than three million streams; at the time of this writing, the number has surpassed four million. Larsson was amused by the elaborate artist bio, which he read aloud. It described Ekfat as a classically trained Icelandic beat maker who graduated from the âoeReykjavik music conservatory,â joined the âoelegendary Smekkleysa Lo-Fi Rockers crewâ in 2017, and released music only on limited-edition cassettes until 2019. âoeCompletely made up,â Larsson said. âoeThis is probably the most absurd example, because they really tried to make him into the coolest music producer that you can find.â
The Ghost In The Machine