| Folklore, folk-lore, means 'folk wisdom.' It is knowledge filtered by centuries. These are our roots, from which we came and to which we'll return. | |  |  | | Nata Zhyzhchenko of Onuka performing at Eurovision, Kyiv, May 13, 2017. | | (Michael Campanella/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | quote of the day | | "Folklore, folk-lore, means 'folk wisdom.' It is knowledge filtered by centuries. These are our roots, from which we came and to which we'll return." | | - Nata Zhyzhchenko, co-founder and lead singer of Okuna | |
| | rantnrave:// | Et Tu, Bandcamp?
That was the basic response from the music world after news broke Tuesday that the gaming company EPIC GAMES, maker of FORTNITE, has bought BANDCAMP, the beloved indie music commerce platform, aka everyone's favorite online record store, aka the artist-friendly one, aka the non-evil one, aka the one you can use without hurting your eyes, your brain or your soul.
The hurt and fear are palpable and understandable. Both companies said all the right things in their announcements: Bandcamp founder and CEO ETHAN DIAMOND said he'll continue to run the company "as a standalone marketplace and music community," with existing features and ethos intact; EPIC paid heed to that ethos and to the needs of artists. But of course they did. That's what you say in an announcement. Being bought means being bought, and there's good reason to be skeptical that any company can truly stand alone after literally selling its right to stand alone, no matter how well meaning its acquiring partner. The business structure has changed. The business inevitably changes too, sooner or later. It's really just a matter of *how* it's going to change.
People who know more about gaming than I do, which is basically everyone, suggested Epic has treated its previous acquisitions well. And there are plenty of potential synergies between the two platforms, as PETER KIRN of CDM CREATE DIGITAL MUSIC pointed out. "There's an unusual amount of promise in this one, even for me, the acquisition skeptic," he wrote.
Musician/activist DAMON KRUKOWSKI, on the other hand, picked up on one of the more troublesome twists in the deal: Epic is 40 percent owned by Chinese tech giant TENCENT, which also has stakes in SPOTIFY, UNIVERSAL MUSIC and WARNER MUSIC, raising all sorts of awkward questions about monopoly and competition. "Did we just lose our independent digital record store," Krukowski asked.
The purchase price is unknown and neither company has taken any outside questions yet. All we have to go on is the official announcement, along with a handful of reassuring tweets, like this one from J. EDWARD KEYES, who oversees Bandcamp's excellent online magazine, BANDCAMP DAILY. "We're going to keep doing what we do," he promised.
Bandcamp has been a model of how to value artists and fans, how to pay what artists overwhelmingly say is a fair rate, how to actively promote independent artists and music, how to offer a number of price points and options for consuming music, and how to make a profit while doing so. It's been one of the great independent music successes of the past decade, and it's attracted a community that cares deeply about art and artists in the process. It goes without saying there's a lot at risk here, and the FUTURE OF MUSIC COALITION does a good job of laying it all out in a clearheaded, nonjudgmental way in this thread. Among the coalition's suggestions for what to do next: "we watch closely.' "we work to address the systemic problems that lead to market dysfunction in recorded music."
Amen to that.
Granddaughter
NATA ZHYZHCHENKO, who leads the eight-piece Ukrainian band ONUKA, is in a way the opposite of her friends in DAKHABRAKHA, who I wrote about Wednesday. Whereas DakhaBrakha's project is to preserve Ukrainian folk songs and stories by updating them for modern audiences, Onuka's is basically to backdate the feel of modern electronic music by playing it with traditional Ukrainian acoustic instruments. Among the group's weapons of choice are bandura, a lute-like instrument with 50-plus strings; trembita, a wooden horn, and sopilka, a Ukrainian flute that was Zhyzhchenko's first instrument. Her grandfather, a musician and instrument builder, made one for her and taught her to play. Onuka means "granddaughter."
Zhyzhchenko journey of musical discovery was a typical teenage journey, albeit one that took place in the shadow of Chernobyl, where her father worked as a liquidator. She grew up studying and playing the local folk music she learned from her family until around age 15, when her older brother turned her on to PINK FLOYD and DEPECHE MODE, whom she followed down a rabbit hole deep into electronic music. Unlike typical teenagers elsewhere, her university thesis was about the cultural impact of the Chernobyl disaster as seen through "the musical material of those who remained in that area, and those who were evacuated." Onuka's 2016 EP, VIDLIK, is about Chernobyl, an infamous site that's back in the news now that an invading army, from a country Onuka has refused to perform in for several years, has taken it over.
Her band is her attempt to tie together her love of modern music with her obsession with the history and traditions of her country. "I wanted the Ukrainian youth to get acquainted with their traditional instruments," she told Azucar magazine, "not in an old and boring way but with a modern view. That was the beginning of the Onuka sound."
Etc Etc Etc
LIVE NATION and SPOTIFY have pulled out of Russia... A running list of artists who've canceled Russian shows. (Reasonable followup query from MICHAEL DONALDSON, aka Q-BURNS ABSTRACT MESSAGE: "i wouldn't mind a list of artists who haven't cancelled tbh")... Conductor MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS is giving up his post as artistic director of his NEW WORLD SYMPHONY after undergoing a series of treatments for brain cancer. He said the cancer is "in check. But the future is uncertain." He'll continue to conduct orchestras, including New World, in the US and Europe.
Rest in Peace
Brazilian classical and jazz guitarist CARLOS BARBOSA-LIMA... Multi-instrumentalist CHUCK CRISS of New York rock band Freelance Whales.
| | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | |
| |  | | FLOOD Magazine |
| | Nipsey Hussle: The Legacy of a Mentality | | By Soren Baker | | Coming up on the third anniversary of the Crenshaw rapper's untimely death, we spoke to friends and collaborators about the lasting impact of Nipsey's worldview within and beyond his South LA community. | | | | | | | | | |  | | The Quietus |
| | Showing Solidarity With The Ukrainian Underground | | By Alex Bondarenko | | Ukrainian writer Alex Bondarenko writes about 14 "new weird" bands you can discover in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, and Kyiv's underground, plus a resource of humanitarian organisations and charities directly helping those most affected by the conflict. | | | | |  | | The New York Times |
| | The Enigma of Big Thief | | By Jon Caramanica, Jon Dolan and Sam Sodomsky | | A conversation about the space the breakout Brooklyn band occupies in contemporary indie-rock circles, and its latest album. | | |  | | Stereogum |
| | Conway The Machine Builds A Legacy | | By Tom Breihan | | Gun-talk sounds different when it's coming from someone who's really been shot and who wears the evidence on his face everyday. | | |  | | Pollstar |
| | The Fog Of War: Ukrainian & Russian Live Biz Call To 'Stop To The Madness Immediately' | | By Gideon Gottfried | | "Our work as festival promoters has frozen, we're using all our resources to either provide humanitarian, logistical or military help, to contact all artists, colleagues, agents and other promoters and get them to spread the truth about the situation, share it with their audiences, organize special events and fundraisers, and to urge people to go to demonstrations." | | | |  | | Dallas Observer |
| | Thicker Than Water: The Re-Rebirth of Midlake | | By Vincent Arrieta | | On a chilly January day in their hometown of Denton, the members of beloved folk-rock outfit Midlake are having a spirited discussion about bagels. "Supposedly it's the water you use that makes the difference, but I don't know what the science behind that is," keyboardist Jesse Chandler says. | | |  | | Tidal |
| | Steven Bernstein: Community Organizer | | By Larry Blumenfeld | | From his work with Robert Altman, Levon Helm and Hal Willner to the music he records with his own ever-growing circle of collaborators, Steven Bernstein creates an aesthetic built on trust. | | |  | | Billboard |
| | The Changing World of Radio Promotion | | By Dan Rys | | As record labels and the media landscape evolve, pitching songs to radio has too. Seven executives break down how they do their jobs. | | |  | | The Independent |
| | Tony Visconti: 'Spotify does nothing to support the culture of music' | | By Roisin O'Connor | | The architect of Seventies glam-rock is heading to the UK to play his friend David Bowie's songs alongside other former collaborators. He talks to Roisin O'Connor about artists' rights, boundary breaking, Boris-bashing... and why it's not been easy to get the band back together. | | |  | | Tone Glow |
| | Tone Glow 081: John Oswald | | By Matthew Blackwell | | The musician, composer, and media artist, best known for creating "plunderphonics," has been focusing on his Rascali Klepitoire project, for which he mines the classical repertoire from Beethoven to Varèse to compose new works. | | | | | what we're into | | | Music | Media | | | | | | Suggest a link  | | "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" |
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