ID Music: Bandcamp Sunday November 2023
ID Music: Bandcamp Sunday November 2023
TFW it's easier to imagine the end of Bandcamp than the end of capitalism
As those of us who still purchase music know, this past Friday was the first Friday in November and that meant it was a good day to buy music from artists on Bandcamp. Partially because Bandcamp is was one of the last good places where we could directly support artists through a platform that felt like a nice place, something between a Tower Records franchise and the local freak scene music spot slash head shop that closed its doors a decade ago.
Also because – starting at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic – the online music retailer has famously been waiving their cut of sales on first Fridays, meaning that the people who make the music get all (most?) of the $7 paypal1 dollars you spend on their work. This is maybe the first time I’ve tried to put together a list of Bandcamp Friday suggestions but since you’re receiving this after midnight PST on Saturday morning on Sunday afternoon we’re doing Bandcamp Sunday. It’s always a good day to support the artists who offer us a little relief from such trying times as these, although it’s long past time to find a way to do that without relying on Bandcamp or another company that will always put profit before people. Even when, like Bandcamp, they’re already turning a steady profit.
Since I’m not really on ex-Twitter anymore – and I don’t know what bsky.social2 even looks like because it’s behind a registration wall – I’m not doing my usual Danny Downer routine of hollering about how Bandcamp isn’t your friend, how they’re just the best of the bad choices available when it comes to spending money to access music. Bandcamp Friday is nice but it’s not mutual aid, it’s good publicity, it’s charity, and Bandcamp is just another for-profit company, albeit one that is not (yet) using the money you spend with them to pay psychedelic fascist talk show dip shits to produce transhphobic podcasts, or literally investing that money into not just drone warfare but AI drone warfare. Wealthy entities push us further into dystopia because dystopia isn’t dystopia if you’re running the dystopia. I guess I’m doing Danny Downer anyway, but in an 18,000 character newsletter rather than the standard 180 character tweet … if you wanna talk dystopias.
This is an especially unnecessary point at this point in the Bandcamp story arc as even such polite outlets as Pitchfork are warning of the end of Bandcamp as we know it.
For thoughts on the same topic that focus more on streaming DJ mix sites, see this earlier newsletter with a bunch of DJ mix links:
The people who started Bandcamp – the nice company that people wanted to think of as a community – were in it to make money, not to support artists. As is the case with any for-profit company. The business plan may say “marketplace and community,” but those concepts are at odds. Community may suggest common ownership, shared goals, or mutual aid. Community members may have non-dualistic, fluid, or less hierarchical relationships, changing roles and identities over time. They may be valued for reasons other than their purchasing power. A community member may have worth just because they exist in the community.
A marketplace may lay the groundwork for, or produce the illusion of community – a physical marketplace especially – but participants are segregated into a strict binary of buyers and sellers. Without the financial resources to make a purchase, you are not a member of a marketplace. Once your transaction is complete, you have no power, no value in the marketplace until your next purchase. And if you’re a vendor in the marketplace, you have very little power compared to the landlord who owns the marketplace.
“[Capital] has resolved personal worth into exchange value,” Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote in The Communist Manifesto, back in 1848 when people were buying albums via telegraph. “In place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, [it] has set up that single, unconscionable freedom – Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.”
As the late, lamented music writer and cultural theorist Mark Fisher writes in Capitalist Realism, responding to Marx and Engels’ language, “Capitalism is what is left when beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration, and all that is left is the consumer-spectator, trudging through the ruins and the relics.” Is there a better account of online 2023 than an encounter with an SEO-optimized malware-infested Ozymandias?
So it was a major bummer but hardly a surprise when the people who owned Bandcamp made the choice to cash out in March 2022, selling their humble yet persistently profitable and – in hindsight – undeservedly beloved independent music store to Epic Games, the video game company that makes Fortnite.
Bandcamp employees unionized a year later which was a heartening surprise victory! But it was another unsurprising bummer when Epic Games sold Bandcamp in September 2023 to Songtradr, the largest music licensing platform in the world, the sort of entity strip-mining what’s left of the old growth forest where musicians used to be able to eke out a living with their music.
Even less of a surprise then when Songtradr immediately fired half of Bandcamp’s staff, perhaps hoping to one day afford the missing vowel in their name3. Layoffs coincidentally included “every member of [the] Bandcamp union bargaining team,” as reported by Stephen Council in SFGATE. Council adds the following context to illustrate where Bandcamp may be headed: “Songtradr’s editorial blog has marketing-focused articles with titles like ‘Rock Music is the Perfect Condiment For This Fast Food Brand,’ which goes on to methodically and statistically analyze the music in Taco Bell ads.”
None of this was inevitable. Everything that happened here was a choice. But that choice was not made by the workers who keep Bandcamp running, and not by the artists who rely on Bandcamp for their livelihood. It was a choice made by the small number of vampires who owned and controlled Bandcamp, whose priority was to make as much money as possible. They easily tricked artists and fans into thinking they were a community by offering 12 days of charity each year, for which they received unfettered wide-eyed praise. Sort of like a landlord giving you one rent-free day every month and then all your friends send them flowers in return. Or the idea that it’s not insanely depressing to see Patagonia and thousands of other corporations flexing about participating in the 1% for The Planet program. Greenwashing achieved through voluntarily donating literally the smallest detectable percentage of millions if not billions in annual sales to environmental organizations.
“Bandcamp is so central to the business of independent music that it’s tempting to see it as too big to fail, yet its failure is a real possibility,” writes Philip Sherburne in Pitchfork. “‘Nationalize Bandcamp’ is a Twitter meme, not a political program; not even Bandcamp’s union was able to help save employees from this round of layoffs.”
Why can’t Nationalize Bandcamp be a political program? The answer is what prompted me to revisit Fisher’s 2009 book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? It begins with the answer, a phrase attributed to Marxist literary critic Fredric Jameson and confusing philosopher Slavoj Žižek: It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.
More on this lack of imagination soon coming in these pages. But for now, when one reads phrases like “too big to fail,” consider that success and failure can mean very different things to landlords, shopkeepers, and customers. A community’s success may be a marketplace failure, which is why relying on mARkEt-BaSsEd sOLuTiOnS to climate change has produced extinction rates that are “between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than natural extinction rates.” Not to mention the gulf between comparing success as an artist and success as a business.
“Billboard reported in 2021 that Bandcamp had been profitable for almost a decade,” Council reminds us. Even the new owners acknowledged the “continuous profitability” of Bandcamp’s business model while beginning to break it down for parts. It was a profitable model that simultaneously offers musicians the rare opportunity to make money from their work. So the new owners fired half the staff, especially the ones who wanted everyone to share in that profit with a living wage and the ability to seek medical care without going into bankruptcy.
Meanwhile Spotify “posted an adjusted operating loss of $123.7 million” in the second quarter of 2023, despite adding 36 million customers for a total user base of 551 million. And Spotify is almost universally despised among the small, statistically-insignificant cohort of musicians that I talk with. Also despite consistently losing money they can still make substantial investments in companies working to streamline the already depersonalized bloodshed of contemporary warfare? What does “failure” mean in the hegemonic economic system that is destroying the only known habitable planet in the universe? Fisher again has an answer in Capitalist Realism, as part of his thoughts on the horrific conclusion of Kurt Cobain’s career: “Here, even success meant failure, since to succeed would only mean that you were the new meat on which the system could feed.”
At least if you buy some music on Bandcamp download it so when Bandcamp follows in the footsteps of Netflix and Youtube and Twitter and Mixcloud and Gmail and breaks their promises of infinite storage with paywalls and content purges in efforts to squeeze a few more drops of blood from the people who – at this point in history – aren’t even trying to have careers as musicians, but are instead maybe only hoping they might break even. Or don’t download the music. Do you even have a way to listen to music that isn’t streaming, or do you just use a Sonos or the Amazon in-home surveillance device? Are you able to listen to music after logging out of the Apple, Amazon, or Bandcamp retail interfaces? Perhaps instead think of it as the contemporary equivalent of stuffing a couple bucks in the hat when a busker4 that you didn’t hate passes their sweaty fedora through the crowd.
Alternately, you could subscribe to this Vøid Contemplation Tactics newsletter for money, or put some change in the tip jar, and I’ll spend that cash on music for you. I’ll listen to it on my clunky yet 100% offline digital Walkman high-res audio player, and play it on the cookie-free airwaves of Marfa Public Radio and WQRT Indianapolis. We’re also dreaming of one day breaking even with our creative endeavors, but as the Inter-Dimensional Music library approaches 2TB our hopes are not high. “To do this practice, we have to give up hope,” I hear Joko Beck’s voice in my head as I click “buy now” and reduce my wishlist to a mere 5109 titles.
For the purposes of this post, I’m focusing on music from the Autumnal Koans series that has been airing each weekend on WQRT Indianapolis and Marfa Public Radio in Far West Texas: archive soon coming. There are also releases from friends of the show, artists who offer their sounds at the “name your own price” tier, and a few things that could use more love than they seem to be getting. I’m not sure how accurate Bandcamp’s “appears in x other collections” running score is, but it’s social media so there’s gotta be a dopamine casino element. Much of the language here is lifted from artist statements and other publicity materials: with the death of the music press, artists and labels – and sometimes stores like Bandcamp or Boomkat – seem to have stepped up their game when it comes to advertorial. Speaking of something that IMO should appear in more than 15 other collections ….
NKISI - Avebury
Nkisi is a Congolese-Belgian artist creating sounds that serve, in her own words, as “a microcosmic encapsulation of melo-rhythmic trance.” Her past work was already using a complex layering of bass-forward soundsystem production with heavyweight ambient sound design to convey a fusion of contemporary avant-garde electronics, dancefloor energy, and intense drumming. Avebury achieve a new level of lysergic ritualistic frenzy and meta-psychedelia as a soundtrack to “A Journey to Avebury, Stanley Schtinter’s shot-for-shot remake of Derek Jarman’s film of the same name.”
None other than industrial-psychedelic legends Coil released a score for Jarman’s original film in 1994. “A score replete with birdsong and unsettling sounds,” writes online retailer Boomkat, “which Nkisi actively references by shaping a mostly beatless sonic topography that swerves the hi-def methodology of post-Zimmer Netflix OST bores.”
Medicine Singers, Lee Ranaldo & Yonatan Gat – “Honor Song”
I was pretty excited about self-identifying Native American black metal artist Blackbraid until one of the few remaining politically-engaged metal blogs revealed that their touring guitarist was a nazi. If you haven’t spent much time digging around the most septic corners of online, it may come as a surprise but there’s a not insignificant alliance between white supremacists and indigenous nationalists. The original poster dug this up through the exhaustive Encyclopedia Metallum database, after unearthing that Maȟpíya Lúta, another indigenous black metal artist that we inadvertently played on our airwaves, was releasing music on an obscure Estonian label mostly known in non-fashy circles for releasing explicitly fashy metal. I’m so tired.
But then there’s Medicine Singers, whose psychedelic Native American spiritual punk jazz lives up to its string of Bandcamp tags without forging alliances with elusive nazis. Instead, Lee Ranaldo joins this “collective started by Eastern Medicine Singers and guitarist Yonatan Gat” for a blown-out, hypnotic, and intensely rhythmic dirge.
“‘Honor Song’” was given to me by my uncle Wayne Red Dawn Crippen,” says collective member Arthur Red Medicine Crippen. “When my wife Ms. Kat wasn’t feeling well I used to sing it to her when she was in the hospital every night.” He continues, “This song lingers because we lost her since we recorded it. When I sing this song I think of her the whole time. It’s a part of my prayer, I end each day singing this song and I know she’s listening … when people leave this world they travel to another dimension, and songs like this reach them.”
Yellow Swans – Left Behind, et al
Murky psychedelic noise musicians Yellow Swans exist at the opposite end of the spectrum from all of the intensely depressing Bandcamp bullshit. Despite officially splitting in 2008 after the profoundly beautiful Going Places and Being There diptych, their ongoing “From the Vaults” series has delivered some of my favorite music of the past couple years and I do not hesitate to play their jams on the ID Music airwaves every week when the mood hits. Inter-Dimensional Music 20230908 - Impure Flow features a 2007 live recording, and the accompanying annotations include revelatory insights to the generous DIY spirit behind making this sometimes difficult – but not as difficult as you might think – music. The latest installment includes two 10+ minute compositions. “Vibe is heavy, at times almost metal or completely garbagey anemic beats,” they write. The original tape was a benefit for a friend with no health insurance who wiped out skating, and another bud whose “sick gear” got jacked from his car.
If that one’s too much, maybe give Deterioration Yellow Swans, their self-described “most krautrock sounding” album a listen.
… or dig into the “magic, psychedelic, corroded twin guitar, bass and scuzz” of Copper/Silver their 2005 collaboration with Gray Daturas, which has been in heavy rotation here at Cosmic Chambo Studio the last few weeks.
Cicada - We Are Going To Kill You
Also if you follow Yellow Swan Pete Swanson on Bandcamp I will say from experience that it’s worth spending time with any blasted-to-fugk hardcore albums with run times under five minutes that show up in his public library, especially if the band is called Cicada and the release is called We Are Going To Kill You.
YELLOWCAKE - Can You See The Future?
Same goes for when one of the metal labels that I think has good politics [begins sweating profusely] releases music from a Phoenix band they describe as “one of the sickest hardcore bands in America!” for whatever price you feel like paying. Hardcore is the best, sometimes. Here’s a pro-shot video of Yellowcake destroying a Tempe bar a few days before Christmas of last year.
Kimazui Chinomoku - Explorations Vol. 2
As Kimazui Chinmoku, my dear friend and dharma comrade Nick Terry – the organizer of the Marfa sangha that more or less saved my life – makes open-ended experimental ambient music that flows between soothing guitar drift, percolating percussion, and more intense drone passages that touch on – but never give into – dissonance. An experience not unlike the myriad sensations that one experiences in sitting meditation practice.
Golden Feelings - Better Weather
We spent a couple weekends ago at a bunch of wild shows with bands we’d never heard of at the Ypsi Freak Fest organized by our buds at Wyrd Byrd. We missed our pal Dustin’s DJ set because it started after midnight, and we’ve not yet had the pleasure of an IRL encounter with his Golden Feelings ambient music project, but his albums are a steady presence on the house soundsystem and the ID Music airwaves. His most recent effort is “never played the same way twice,” as it’s "composed using a matrix of 64 loops: seven distinct software instruments on a total of 56 loops, four field recordings, and four live instrument recordings. An additional software instrument is used for live extrapolations.
“Loops are consonant with a C major scale when applicable,” he continues, “and are tuned to 432 hz; the latter is either for alignment of the chakras or just for the pleasant sound, depending on where you stand on such matters.”
Cole Pulice & Nat Harvie - Strawberry Roan
If one is attempting to find organic contemporary ambient jazz that does not involve organic contemporary ambient jazz radical connector Carlos Niño – why would anyone do that though? – I can recommend the organic contemporary ambient jazz of Strawberry Roan from Cole Pulice, Nat Harvie, and friends. It’s on the Aural Canyon label, another longtime friend and supporter of Inter-Dimensional Music and also the label that made a shirt that my mom compliments whenever I wear it.
Chaka Benson - “Arkon Bey”
Another good way to discover high grade contemporary ambient jazz and adjacent psychedelic improvisational experiments in fluid rhythm and voicing is to read longtime friend-of-the-show Piotr Orlov’s Dada Strain newsletter, or follow Carlos Niño on Bandcamp. As with Pete Swanson, there are myriad extraordinary revelations in Niño’s library that would otherwise elude my radar. E.g. these two delightful improvisational modular synthesizer jammers from Philadelphia’s Chaka Benson. It’s a rare and forever fresh sound – sublime lo-fi melodies and easily shifting beats that wouldn’t be out of place on a Boards of Canada or Four Tet album – that comes up in the home soundsystem rotation and gets me up from my chair to see what’s playing every time.
Dhyana - Dzogchen
Not unlike Kimazui Chinomoku, the meditative sludge metal of this Louisiana-based project “dedicated to Buddhist teachings and meditative practices” are both suitable accompaniment for, and an accurate representation of, sitting meditation. OM is the obvious touchstone, but Dhyana’s focus on the repetition of sound without concern for innovation suggests a deep understanding of the Heart Sutra’s emphasis on non-striving: “… also no attainment / with nothing to attain.”
Dhyana’s entire catalogue is worthy of exploration, and available as “name your own price.” Dhyana’s previous albums feature multiple compositions in the 10-minute range, but this latest effort is a monolithic 47-minute piece. According to the artist, Dzogchen is “focused on repetition and mid/slow paced droning with a handful of changes in riffs all basically following the same sound. Hope this long meditative track can instill a calm and peaceful mindset.” Thanks once again and in perpetuity to yoga comrade Neil from Online for putting this on my radar way back when.
If you end up buying anything perhaps leave a note telling the artist where you heard the good word? And listen for the conclusion of Inter-Dimensional Music’s Autumnal Koans series all weekend on all the usual channels. And stay tuned next week for an announcement regarding the first appearance of my writing in an actual published IRL book!? Thank you, as always, for being here.
blessing up and blessing down,
DC
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Word of mouth is my primary form of promotion. My reach is limited on social media, which I’m increasingly convinced is a good thing. As Dōgen's teacher told him, “You don't have to collect many people like clouds. Having many fake practitioners is inferior to having a few genuine practitioners. Choose a small number of true persons of the way and become friends with them.”
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It’s probably better for me to avoid social media altogether but as someone who has missed out on scores of events and lots of news because I won’t log in to Facebook, I’m especially wary of social media that is hidden behind a registration wall.
More like Songtraitor [Jeezy hypeman voice: deeeyaaaaaaam].
My friend Andy who I hadn’t talked to in maybe 20 years died last week. He was a good friend in high school, a gentle, weird dude who was extremely smart, but as I recall, sort of bad at school. Because I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian cult church, I was uncomfortable with how easily he talked about feelings and poetry and sex. One of my first encounters with the Grateful Dead happened via his dad’s copy of Live Dead at a sleepover in his basement when I was 15 or 16.
Eventually he got into the Beats and I started going to hardcore punk shows and reading Chomsky instead of Kerouac. We both moved away from Indiana, but I didn’t know that he was in New Mexico around the same time I was in Far West Texas. I didn’t know he came back to Indiana and was living a couple hours south of me. I didn’t know that he was still sweaty and really good at singing sad songs and playing guitar. And now I know that he’s dead.
He was also a carpenter, and other old friends who knew I wouldn’t hear about how he fell off a roof and died since I’m not on Facebook texted me to say that he fell off a roof on a construction job and died. And now I’ve been thinking about him every day and how he’s just not here anymore. He was a busker too, as seen in the video. I rolled my eyes at his dirty hobo hat at first because I’m an asshole – actually the first thing I did is mute the computer to avoid the pre-roll IBS medication ad that accompanies this memorial – but then he breaks into a John Prine song and I’m a mess of sobbing because he’s still Andy, even though we hadn’t spoken in 20 years and we’ll never talk again.
Life is hard and weird and then it’s over, but at least it looks like he figured out how to be Andy, and kept being Andy up until the end. For better and worse I’ll be me until the end, and so will you. The hard part is showing other people. But what else is there to do with your life? Here’s to believing in this livin', even though it’s just a hard way to go. RIP to one of the real ones: You probably didn’t know this, but I’m a better and weirder person for having known you, Andy. Thank you.