Category: Meta

Last Lists

A reminder, this blog will be going away, take down from the internet, on February 21. If you want to follow my continued writing, please subscribe to my ongoing newsletter, with issues just about every Friday:

Kill Yr Idols

That’s where I have my latest best of lists, for example, and if you want to see what I thought were the best recordings from 2020, here you go:

Those lists are free, the newsletter in general is not, but there are occasional free issues, especially around Bandcamp Fridays. Check it out, hope to see you there. Later…

For Those in Need

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Got any coin stuffed away in a digital mattress someplace? Asking for a friend…

Seriously, I am asking, because this is 10 of my April fundraiser, and baby I’m still out here raising. I’m a maker and a taker, and if you can skim anything off the top, it all helps. If I’ve ever helped you discover a new pleasure, if I’ve saved you money by pointing out a bargain on something you wanted to buy, I’d appreciate a cup of coffee (but not if you’re shit out of work, like me).

Case in point: if you have some money for new music, hold onto it until Friday, May 1, when Bandcamp is again donating all their fees to artists who sell music; buy something and the maker gets 100%.

Can’t wait? Brooklyn-based Temporary Residence, Ltd. label giving away an album a day, starting today (at Bandcamp, that means pay what you want, which can be $0). First up, April 27, is this rocking art-punk album from the Italian band Bellini:

Tuesday, April 28, you can get The Drift, by Noumena, and don’t miss out on William Basinksi’s ambient classic The Disintegration Loops (May 1), and then releases from Field Works in their series of albums based on and inspired by the field recordings of Stuart Hyatt. This daily sale is going to continue until there’s a COVID-19 vaccine, so the label is paying it forward in the extreme.

May 1 is also the release date for a new Field Works record, Ultrasonic, a collection of music based on Hyatt’s recordings of bats. I’m very excited about this one coming out, check out the preview below and you’ll “see” what I mean:

Experimental musician Howard Stelzer has brought out the back catalogue for two now defunct labels he used to run, Intransitive and Songs From Under the Floorboards, and he’s offering a deal on the full digital discography, 29 releases for $22.70. Go to any releases, like this excellent one from C. Spencer Yeh, and purchase the bundle from there. But maybe wait until May 1.

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― New Amsterdam Records

Brother, We Need Some Dimes

UPDATE: The Freelancers Union has created a Relief Fund, check the link to either apply or donate (note: applications look to open April 2).

UPDATE: New Music USA has opened up their Solidarity Fund for all you freelance musicians out of gigs. Apply here.

I started this blog a dozen years ago because I was going insane—the banks had destroyed economic opportunity for tens of millions of people, I couldn’t find a job, my unemployment had run out, and I had to do something constructive.

And here we are again, folks. In this case, it’s a virus, nothing nearly as sociopathic as an investment banker but more destructive. Where before I had not been working, now I had been working constantly, and now that’s been taken away.

As a freelancer in the arts, I’m now searching high and low for both work and relief. The former seems non-existent, but there is a bit of the latter, and for anyone in my shoes, there’s some resources to check out to see if any are targeted toward your needs:

Every little bit helps, even a $5 tip from the button below. I’m sure a lot of you are screwed over as I am, but if you’re looking for people to help out, I could use it.

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“My favorite new music blog.”

― dotdotdotmusic

“George Grella, always on the money!”

― G. Schirmer & Associates

Soundtrack to the Apocalypse

While you’re busy honoring artists for their work at Bandcamp—and you must be because the site seems to be overloaded—check out this list I made for them a few years back, when maybe I was the only one thinking about a desolate Earth. This is selected ambient music that comes out of the concept of sounds left behind when humans are gone, a companion this post.

For more books to read while you’re cooped up, get Annalee Newitz’s Scatter, Adapt, Remember

And A Canticle for Liebowitz, one of the greatest novels of the 20th century

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Reading Through the Virus

Fossil Aerosol Mining Project

Unlike older, lost civilizations that had no means to record and preserve audio, nor a method for notating musical instruction, we have been preserving sound for 150 years, and digital audio has been accumulating like an avalanche at easily the same speed as digital words. But these are all based on technology and need a means with which to reproduce the sound, from a cylinder player to a set of AA batteries.

“Sounds of Futures’ Past,” by George Grella

We don’t seem to be anywhere near facing an apocalypse, but that doesn’t mean that the idea can’t sit there at the base your skull, quietly screaming its way into your nervous system. Contemplating this idea through reading is a great way to work through it and brace the spirit. So I’m re-upping this article from NewMusicBox that considers what sounds we may leave behind when civilization is gone, and if they will be considered music or not.

The star of that article, Fossil Aerosol Mining Project, has a new recording, Scaath Catfish, scheduled for release Friday, March 20, from the Helen Scarsdale Agency—though this may understandably be delayed, like everything else right now.

Here’s my favorite FAMP release, enjoy it while working your way through the recommended reading list below:

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