tessellates

how-to

This page talks about how to import music into tessellates. This is not as easy as it should be; it is being worked on. For now, though, this is what we've got -- more coming soon.

Some general notes: tessellates is not concerned with perfect metadata accuracy. A Release in tessellates just has Title, Artist, Label, all of which are strings - and Track titles which are also just strings. If you want to add, say, orchestral music that could be said to have any of 4 artists, you'll need to make choices about how to turn those into strings.

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json file

A classic. This was the original format that I used, back when tessellates loaded a static 6.3 MB json file each time, instead of having a "database". You'll need to make a list of json objects, each like so:

       {
        "id": "3734564210",
        "title": "Wallshaker",
        "artist": "Aaron-Carl",
        "label": "Millions of Moments",
        "tracks": [
          {
            "position": "01",
            "title": "Wallshaker (Original 12 Inch Mix)",
          }
        ],
        "image_url": "https://tide-pool.ca/tessellates/digital/images/3734564210.jpg",
        "image_url_small": "https://tide-pool.ca/tessellates/digital/images/3734564210-small.jpg",
        "year": 2007,
        "purchase_date": "2011-04-01"
      }
      

Some notes, for nerds, but this is a nerdy thing to do:

• - "image_url_small" is optional: we'll make a small image and store it for you, if you don't have one.
• - "id" becomes "external_id" in tessellates. It is your job to make sure that your external_ids are unique.
• - In "tracks", note that "position" is a string, not a number. This allows constructions like "A-Side" and "B-Side"k, for instance.
• - Note that year is a number, but purchase_date is a string.

You can check out an example JSON file, of part of my vinyl collection, here.

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spotify via exportify csv

The Spotify API has been locked down as of early 2026, so tessellates can't get access to act as you. The best way to get a Spotify playlist or Liked Songs collection loaded in is to visit the fine folks at Exportify, connect your Spotify account there, and then load the CSV into tessellates.

You can check out an example CSV, of Ultimate Breaks & Beats here..