Music Ally has been posing the question ‘What can labels and artists do to capitalise on the emergence of smart speakers?’ for a while, and often the answer from the industry has been ‘We’re not sure… yet’. Other than sorting out metadata and a few experiments with Alexa skills. So here’s something interesting: Interscope Records artist K.Flay has launched a ‘microcast’ called ‘what am i doing here’ designed to be listened to on smart speakers.

What’s a microcast, you may be wondering? It’s a podcast whose individual episodes last less than 10 minutes – a growing trend in the podcasting world. Fans are being encouraged to listen to the podcast via Alexa (‘Open K.Flay Show’) and Google Assistant (‘Talk to K.Flay Show’).

The show is recorded on the move by K.Flay, with the promise of “conversations, jokes, musical interludes, as well as special guests”. Each episode is made available for a week on smart speakers, before being archived on K.Flay’s YouTube channel.

It’s surprising that they’re not yet available on Spotify though: the short episodes would sit neatly on a playlist with her music, thanks to the just-launched feature making podcasts playlistable.

Interscope worked with PopCult Worldwide and SpokenLayer on the podcast, which is promoting K.Flay’s new album ‘Solutions’.

Stuart Dredge