A Faint Resemblance is a photography series by Jan Erik Waider, a fine art photographer and visual artist based in Hamburg, Germany. The series itself focuses on the Antarctic Peninsula. Through his lens, Waider captures the beautiful essence and the atmospheric landscape of the north — beautifully. A Faint Resemblance is one of our favourite photography series, and puts Jan Erik Waider on the map as one of the photographers to follow in the future.
Find more superb work by Jan Erik Waider on his website.
Moreover, if you would like to purchase some high-quality Adobe Lightroom presets for your photography, made by Waider, you can do so here.
To accuse The 1975 of being self-indulgent now is to ignore the band’s entire back catalogue. The 80s-inspired pop structures of their early albums always felt like they were struggling to contain frontman Matty Healy’s urge to create something as chaotically decadent as possible, a glossy veneer ready to fall apart at any moment. The more the Manchester quartet broke free from those conventions, the more outrageously ambitious and interesting their music got, culminating with 2018’s landmark A Brief Inquiry in Online Relationships. If there was ever sense that Matty Healy was still holding back a little – it was only an inquiry, after all – on the band’s latest album, Notes on a Conditional Form, he lets all his inhibitions run wild.
The results are polarizing at best. As with A Brief Inquiry, Notes should invoke one of two reactions: blind adoration or bemused annoyance, though neither of them are entirely justified. But chances are, if you could barely tolerate or even found yourself admiring elements of the band’s previous outing, you’ll have trouble sitting through the entirety of Notes without tuning out at least once. Clocking in at an hour and twenty minutes, the 22-track album is a patently messy and directionless experiment that hops from one genre to the next with seemingly no intention other than to satisfy some half-formed creative impulse. As hinted by its pseudo-intellectual title, the album’s boundless incoherence is, well, inherent in its nature – this time, though, it’s so blown out of proportion that it loses most of its appeal.
Which is a shame, because there’s not a single track here that sounds poorly written, recorded, or mixed, largely thanks to the band’s secret weapon, drummer and producer George Daniel. Even drab, purposeless electro cuts like ‘What Should I Say’, ‘Yeah I Know’ and ‘Shiny Collarbone’ sound sleek, like they could easily fit into a solid if somewhat indistinctive electronic EP. ‘The End (Music for Cars)’ is a lushly arranged orchestral interlude that would also sound fine in a different context – just not after the ruthless, IDLES-esque punk anthem ‘People’, which itself follows from opener ‘The 1975’, an ambient spoken word piece featuring environmental activist Greta Thunberg. As a single, the track felt like a powerful statement, a promising sign of what’s to come; and even here, paired with the restless political anger of ‘People’, it hints at a more outward-looking, socially charged direction that unfortunately never fully materializes.
Instead, the record continues its genre excursions with little rhyme or reason, wandering into airy electropop (‘Frail State of Mind’), alternative country (‘The Birthday Party’), and 2000s indie rock nostalgia (‘Then Because She Goes’). By the time we reach ‘Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America’, an acoustic cut featuring Phoebe Bridgers that sounds like a semi-parody of the Bridgers-Oberst collaborative project Better Oblivion Community Center, we’ve basically seen it all – and there are still 13 whole tracks left. The song also features some of Healy’s less-than-profound lyrics, closing off with the head-scratching line: “If we turn into a tree, can I be the leaves?”
The record’s tendency to meander wouldn’t be such a flaw if its second half didn’t explore much of the same territory they’ve already dived into with little to no variation. Take ‘I Think There’s Something You Should Know’, for instance, which might as well be titled ‘Frail State Of Mind Pt. 2’. ‘Playing on My Mind’, on the other hand, follows the same acoustic formula as ‘Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America’, except with less of an interesting concept, though it does contain one of Healy’s more cheekily self-aware lines: “But I won’t get clothes online ’cause I get worried about the fit/ But that rule don’t apply concerning my relationships.”
Notes peaks with ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’, the band’s most commercially successful single in a while – which is ironic, considering it’s about being infatuated with a girl he met in an adult website. Featuring an appearance from FKA Twigs, it’s an infectiously upbeat tune most reminiscent of the 1975s’ typical sound, complete with tongue-in-cheek lyrics and a euphoric sax solo. But as Healy himself said in an interview, “it’s another completely different tone to the album and it kind of comes out of nowhere.” Which proves that, again, this is all part of the point – like A Brief Inquiry before it, Notes is intended as a reflection on our increasingly shortening attention spans, and in that respect, its stream-of-consciousness flow gets the point across fairly well. It’s just not the definitive masterpiece it tries and very well could be.
That said, the album rewards any listeners who stay up until the very end, as it closes off with two of the band’s most heartwarmingly earnest moments. ‘Don’t Worry’ is a heartfelt, lullaby-like collaboration with Healy’s dad, who wrote the song when his son was just a toddler; but it’s ‘Guys’ that’s the real stand-out here, an unashamedly sentimental love letter to the frontman’s bandmates that is sure to become a fan favourite. “The moment that we started a band/ Was the best thing that ever happened,” he croons amidst nostalgic keys. It might strike an entirely different note from the album’s opening – which wouldn’t be such a problem if there was any sense of an emotional arc running throughout – but still, it’s proof of just how affecting the band’s music can be when they shed some of those layers of irony, when they embrace those metamodern qualities Healy is so fond of. By striking that balance between self-awareness and emotional sincerity, the band could make an album that’s truly transcendent, even if it’s just as unsure of itself as Notes – it just has to be a little bit more focused.
Charli XCX isn’t the only pop star who’s written and recorded an entire album during lockdown. Carly Rae Jepsen, who just surprise-released her new album, Dedicated Side B, revealed she’s already made “an entire quarantine album” with longtime collaborator Travish Crowe.
In an interview on the Switched On Pop podcast, the Canadian singer called the album “very different”, adding: “We had to do it around Zoom or things like that so it’s been like a challenge but a really fun one! You kind of write differently that way. You have more time to have space inbetween the decisions you’re making and more time to kind of be away from the song for a minute, so I find it to be a whole new style of going at it, and I like it.”
Jepsen first revealed that she’s been working on new songs in an interview with the Guardian last week. “When I don’t have an album immediately due, I just allow myself to experiment,” she said. “If you heard what we were making you’d be like, ‘every song sounds completely different’ — and that’s the point.”
We still have no idea when the album will be released, or if it will even see the light of day. Last year, Jepsen revelead she’d made a disco album that she has no intention of releasing. “I had an album I named ‘Disco Sweat’ that will probably never be released, and shouldn’t,” she said.
TTRRUUCES, a duo known for taking a different approach when it comes to music, have released their beloved song I’m Alive, today. The song has already featured big on the biggest football game in the world FIFA 20, and has steadily helped grow the fanbase of TTRRUUCES. With this unexpected release, we expect things to come for TTRRUUCES in 2020.
The duo will be releasing their self-titled album on the 26th of June, however for now here is the ear-pleasing song I’m Alive.
Netflix’s Sex Education (2019 -) is a British comedy-drama that follows Otis Milburn, a sixteen-year-old virgin, as he sets up a sex therapy clinic at school with Maeve Wiley, a very smart, well-read social pariah who needs money to pay rent. The series finished its second season not long ago. To remind us of the brilliance that Sex Education brings, we have selected five empowering moments from the series.
Adam Finds a Friend
Adam Groff is the son of Moordale High’s Headmaster, an uptight man who sends Adam to a military school after he fails his classes. He’s kicked out of this military school after protecting two of his roommates from being found out as gay, though this fact is kept under wraps.
Back in Moordale, Adam gets a job and impresses his boss by taming his dog—Adam’s first achievement in the series. He helps his parents, even washing his dad’s car, but Groff is irritated that Adam is doing this when he needs to leave for work. As to his job, Adam is fired when the shop is ransacked the morning after he was allowed to lock up.
Ola—Moordale student, Otis’s ex-girlfriend, and Adam’s fellow employee—shows up and says the lock was already faulty, so their boss fires them both. Adam is confused as to why Ola defended him and she explains it’s because he’s her friend. He says that nobody has ever called him their friend, then hugs her.
After struggling for so long to accept and love himself, Ola sees Adam as a boy who’s trying his best. Ola is new to Moordale, so unlike Adam’s other peers, she doesn’t have the weight of his past mistakes to cloud her judgement. This proves that Adam has truly grown over the two seasons. Ola’s words help him embrace his identity and stand up to his father.
Eric And His Father Make Amends
Eric’s father often expresses concern over his effeminate mannerisms. When Eric and Otis plan to see a musical production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch for Eric’s birthday, Mr Effiong almost stops Eric from leaving in his costume.
Unfortunately, Otis doesn’t end up going because he gets caught up in a sex therapy debacle with Maeve. Eric feels vulnerable on his own, and his paranoia distracts him so much that he doesn’t notice someone steal his things at the station. He walks home in the dark, where two men beat him up. Mr Effiong’s concern proves to be warranted, and Eric tones down his vibrant outfits and personality.
On the morning of the school dance, Eric sees a man on the street whose nails he describes as “fierce”, and he’s inspired to embrace his identity. Before the dance, his dad asks if he’s sure he wants to go in dressed as a woman. He explains that he struggles to fit in as an immigrant, but Eric stands his ground. “Your fear doesn’t help me, Dad. It makes me feel weak.” Still, his father worries that he’ll be hurt, but Eric replies that he’ll be hurt either way, so wouldn’t it be better to be himself?
Someone honks at Mr Effiong to move his car, but he yells at them to wait. He turns back to Eric and says, “Maybe I am learning from my brave son.”
Watching this whole exchange is Adam. He attempts to tease Eric, but he’s no longer afraid of this boy who bullied him for years.
Jean Reassures Florence
In the school’s musical production of Romeo and Juliet, Florence stars as Juliet opposite Jackson Marchetti: Maeve’s ex-boyfriend, Moordale High’s Head Boy and most popular student, and a swimming champion who suffers from anxiety. Florence’s friends tease her that Jackson will have sex with anyone, so she better get in quick. But the constant reminders of sex make her uncomfortable. She schedules a sex therapy session with Otis, but he mistakenly believes that she feels insecure about falling behind her peers.
Otis’s mother, Dr Jean Milburn, has been invited to Moordale High to observe the school’s sex education curriculum and set up a counselling office to get a better idea of what the school needs. Florence comes in to see her after receiving Otis’s unhelpful advice. Jean gently asks Florence if she’s heard of asexuality. Florence worries that she won’t be able to fall in love, but Jean reassures her that romance is possible without sex. When Florence confesses she thinks she’s broken, Jean replies, “Sex doesn’t make us whole. And so, how could you ever be broken?”
The Girls Smash Stuff
Aimee Gibbs is Maeve’s best friend. Early in season 2, Aimee decides that she wants to be a baker. She makes a cake for Maeve’s birthday and is carrying it with her on the bus to school when a man ejaculates onto her jeans. Nobody says or does anything, thinking she’s made it up or exaggerated the incident. At first, Aimee is only indignant and upset that he ruined her jeans. Maeve insists on taking her to the police station, where Aimee feels she’s wasting everybody’s time and keeps saying that it’s not a big deal. As the season continues, the trauma of the event slowly creeps up on her. She stops catching the bus and making physical contact with her boyfriend.
Towards the end of the season, the girls (Aimee, Maeve, Olivia, Viv, Ola, and Lily) receive a detention when their teacher finds them standing before a slander painted on a bathroom mirror in lipstick. When no one admits to the crime, she sets the girls the task of writing an essay about what binds them together as women. The girls can’t settle on anything, and Ola and Maeve end up bickering about Otis. In the background, Aimee starts crying and yells at them to stop fighting. She finally admits that she can’t get on the bus, and the girls all reveal similar stories of their own. In the end, the teacher finds the true culprit. The girls tell her that the only thing that binds them together is “non-consensual penises”.
After detention, they’re reluctant to part, so Ola suggests an activity for them. They go to a scrapyard (to which Ola was introduced by Adam) and channel their anger into smashing old junk while voicing the injustices that make them angry.
The Girls Take the Bus with Aimee
The morning after detention, Aimee is walking to school as usual, but finds the girls waiting for her at the bus stop. Maeve smiles and tells her they’re all getting the bus with her. But when the time comes to board, Aimee is hesitant. Maeve asks the driver to wait a minute and reassures Aimee that “it’s just a stupid bus”. She takes Maeve’s hand and they climb on together. The final shot of the episode is of the girls sitting together in the backseat, each with their own history of struggles, each unique in her own way. Aimee has tears in her eyes, but this time she’s smiling.
Following the cancellation of its 2020 edition due to the coronavirus pandemic, Primavera Sound Festival has announced the first 100 names on the line-up for their 2021 festival. New additions from the previous lineup include Charli XCX, FKA Twigs, Jamie xx, Gorillaz, Napalm Death, Mica Levi, Autechre, Jorja Smith, IDLES, and more. The bill also includes Tyler, the Creator, the Strokes, Bikini Kill, Bad Bunny, the National, Chromatics, Rina Sawayama, Brockhampton, 100 gecs, Iggy Pop, Caroline Polachek, Beck, Black Midi, Yo La Tengo, among others. Check out the full lineup below.
The Barcelona-held event is set to run from June 2-6, 2021, with more acts to be announced until then. All tickets purchased for Primavera Sound Festival 2020 will be valid for 2021, while remaining tickets will go on sale on Wednesday, June 3rd. You can find out more information about refunds and ticket exchanges here.
“Whoever said that the second chances are never good did not imagine that we would experience something like what is happening this 2020,” Primavera organisers said in a statement. “With the whole world on pause due to the evolution of the global pandemic and with the live music sector holding its breath facing a summer without festivals, we can only look forward: towards 2021, specifically, the year in which we are going to recover everything that will be pending from 2020.”
They added: “So, we are especially proud to announce that the first names in the Primavera Sound Barcelona 2021 line-up feature a majority of artists who reconfirm their presence at the festival, as well as the occasional very special new addition. A first selection of artists that condenses the spirit of the festival for an edition that is as long awaited as this 20th anniversary edition is, and that will be updated soon with new names, both from the 2020 lineup and new surprises.”
Following the singles ‘Persona Non Grata’ and ‘Forced Convalescence’, Bright Eyes have shared the third track from their forthcoming album, titled ‘One and Done’. Listen to it below.
The song features Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea on bass and Queens of the Stone Age’s Jon Theodore on drums, with Nathaniel Walcott providing the track’s orchestral arrangement and Miwi La Lupa singing backing vocals.
The release date of the album, which will be their first since 2011’s The People’s Key, has yet to be announced.
Billie Eilish has released a short film titled ‘NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY’. The video, which addresses the public’s perception of the artist’s body and clothing, premiered at the opening night of her now-postponed 2020 world tour in Miami. Watch it below.
Against a chilling instrumental backdrop, the film sees Eilish removing layers of clothing before sinking into water. “The body I was born with – is it not what you wanted?” she asks. “If I wear what is comfortable, I am not a woman,” she continues. “If I shed the layers, I’m a slut.”
“Would you like me to be smaller? Weaker? Softer? Taller? Would you like me to be quiet? Do my shoulders provoke you? Does my chest? Am I my stomach? My hips?” she goes on to ask.
As she sinks further into the dark, the film ends with the question: “Is my value based only on your perception? Or is your opinion of me not my responsibility?”
Earlier this month, Eilish announced she would postponing all remaining tour dates of her ‘Where Do We Go?’ tour due to the coronavirus pandemic.
To celebrate the cartoon band’s 20-year visual history, the Gorillaz have announced an expansive book called the Gorilla Almanac. The hardback will feature original art from over the years by Jamie Hewlett, as well as games, puzzles, and previously unreleased artwork.
Due out this October, the book will be published by Z2 Comics, and is described by a press release as a “full colour, one-of-a-kind, fun-packed, 120+ page, sideways homage to two glorious decades of Gorillaz.”
“Every fan of comics and animation has dreamed of seeing the Gorillaz make their comic book debut, with the Z2 team chief among them,” Z2 publisher Josh Frankel said. “The artwork, the music, and the mythos all add up to what is destined to be one of our most buzzed about releases in history, and when fans see just what we have planned, I know everyone will agree it was well worth the wait.”
“An almanac is an annual book that is a treasure house of useful information like weather forecasts, trivia and puzzles and games,” Z2 Comics’ Sridhar Reddy told Rolling Stone. “They used to sell almanacs at school book fairs, but I’m pretty sure the internet killed the concept of collecting information into a single published volume. It’s what I love about doing a Gorillaz almanac, in that it brings together so much of the ephemera of the band into a physical book that you can kick back with, take a fun deep dive and listen to great music while you’re doing it. It’s consistent with the band’s ethos of immersion.”
Over the past few months, Gorillaz have released the tracks ‘Aries’, ‘Momentary Bliss’ and ‘Désolé’ as part of the band’s ongoing Song Machine series. Earlier this month, they also performed ‘Aries’ on a remote edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Being an independent musician was hard even before the coronavirus brought the world to a halt. With venues being shut down, tours cancelled, and releases postponed, the ongoing pandemic has shaken up the music industry as a whole, and independent artists are among those whose livelihoods are most threatened by the global crisis. To understand the different ways in which the COVID-19 outbreak has affected artists, we reached out to a number of musicians and asked them how quarantine has impacted their day-to-day lives, as well as their thoughts on how the current situation will shape the music landscape in the future.
Most obviously, the pandemic has forced musicians to cancel or postpone all live shows for the foreseeable future. “At first, I felt disappointed,” says experimental electronic producer Dasychira, who was set to go on tour in support of their debut album, xDream. “With all my shows either postponed or cancelled in Los Angeles and New York, most plans for the year were basically thrown out the window.” Beyond individual shows, festivals taking place in the summer are of particular importance for emerging acts looking to gain more exposure, such as the Australian psych-rock outfit The Lazy Eyes, who also had big plans for 2020. “This year was shaping up to include a lot of firsts for the band, namely going overseas to play at SXSW and The Great Escape,” they say. “We were all a bit down when the initial shock of losing so many exciting prospects was thrown on us, but we are just learning and adapting to these new and weird times.”
Playing live isn’t just an opportunity to promote one’s music – for the majority of working artists, it’s their primary source of income. Given that a recent report found that just 17% of musicians said that they were always able to pay their bills every month even before COVID-19, it’s a particularly dire situation with seemingly no end in sight. “Though most independent artists don’t make a lot of money from music, touring is still our best way to do that,” says Stephanie Phillips of the black feminist punk band Big Joanie, who, like many artists, released her debut solo EP Girlhood digitally due to the difficulties of getting a physical version together in this climate.
But beyond the financial losses suffered due to the cancellation of shows – a fact that highlights the fragility of the business model the industry is currently running on – the inability to play live has also taken a mental toll on many musicians. “Of course we’re economically distressed,” says Japanese singer-songwriter and poetry rapper Haru Nemuri, “but I’m suffering mentally in particular ‘cause when I can truly feel alive is only during my gigs.” For many artists, performing live isn’t just a necessary creative outlet, but a vital part of their artistic identity. This is the case with TV Priest, a UK post-punk outfit that recently put out their debut single, ‘House of York’. “We formed the band primarily as a live experience, to try and connect and commune with other people in a physical space,” they say. “That’s obviously not possible at the moment so it’s forcing us to think about how we can at least try and translate some of that feeling digitally.”
Like most professionals, artists have had to find innovative solutions to try to survive in this rapidly transforming, increasingly digitized environment. As Peter Bibby of Peter Bibby’s Dog Act notes, “one of the most interesting things about this whole thing is how people have adapted to it and found new ways to do what they do.” The most obvious example is the rise of virtual gigs, wherein artists stage livestreams from their living room or home studio and sometimes ask fans to donate whatever they can, if at all. While it doesn’t provide the same kind of financial stability, it helps strengthen the artists’ online presence and retain a connection with their fanbase. But the experience often just isn’t the same. “I’ve done a few Instagram live shows now but they don’t really replace the joy and connection of playing live in front of a real audience,” says Stephanie Phillips.
In the same way that we are now often prompted to look at past works of art in a new light, many musicians who have recently released music they recorded before the pandemic are now finding it take on new meaning. One such case is that of Henry Jamison, the Vermont singer-songwriter whose latest collaborative EP, Tourism, was recorded on or between tours and is “all about the the joys and terrors of life on the road.” Reflecting on the record now, he explains, “it’s almost as if all that touring was building up experiences within me, to be understood in this time away from it.”
Katie Harkin, a musician known for touring alongside the likes of Sleater-Kinney, Courtney Barnett, and Kurt Vile before taking center stage on her self-titled solo debut, finds herself in a similar situation. “I’ve spent most of my life touring since I was a teenager,” she says. “In so many ways this album is a reflection of that.” Interestingly, though, this isn’t the only way the context of the pandemic has reframed the making of the album. Harkin wrote much the record in a cottage in the UK’s Peak District, not far from the village of Eyam, whose self-sacrifice during the 17th century bubonic plague led to the first recorded use of the phrase ‘self-quarantine’. But the connection doesn’t end there. “Much of the interior artwork of the record comes from rolls of undeveloped film I found in my grandparents’ house after they passed,” she says. “They met in a TB sanatorium on the outskirts of Belfast during the outbreak in the 50s. My grandfather spent most of his twenties there. Releasing this record from lockdown, against the backdrop of mourning on a colossal global scale is something I could never have envisaged.”
Staying in quarantine has affected the artists’ creative process in different ways. Devenny, of the UK hip-hop collective 404 Guild, says it’s strengthened the desire for him and his friends in the guild to push themselves and do the best they can. “It has been hard on mentally but I think music has grounded me most days and allowed me a place to express my frustrations and feelings through experimenting and making music,” he says.
Henry Jamison has also been trying to take a practical and positive approach to lockdown, writing a song a day in an effort to “reenter that old way of doing it again.” In contrast to Tourism, he says his next release might be about “the joys and terrors of life at home (and probably everyone else’s will be too.)” But quarantine has made him focus his writing more on the world at large, and less on himself. “It’s almost paradoxical, but also isn’t, that retreating into our homes has led to a palpable feeling of mutual care, and that feeling is coming through in what I’m working on at the moment,” he explains.
But trying to remain productive during these times can often feel pointless. “I’ve just been making silly music on my computer at home rather than making music with my band,” says Peter Bibby. “I’ve found the whole thing quite uninspiring so I’ve definitely given myself a bit of a break from creative pressure and put my energy into other things.”
Part of the problem is having so much free time than that it becomes difficult to focus. “I always felt like a forced moment to breathe or rest would come as a positive experience, like a time to reflect and maybe a time to work on my personal development,” says BABii, an electronic producer who’s part of the GLOO collective featuring Iglooghost and Kai Whiston, and who also released a solo EP called iii+ this month. But it hasn’t always been easy. “Although my body is being forced to stay still, the freedom of time has opened up this huge deep pit in my mind of potential creative endeavours, as well as a huge amount of anxiety about the future. So much so that I am overloaded, unfocused, frozen and slowly edging towards some form of nihilism.”
But even when artists do manage to stay active during this period, it can feel strange to release or even talk about their music with a pandemic going on. “It’s kind of hard to know if it’s even ‘correct’ to be putting work out at the moment when so many things seem so much bigger than a song,” TV Priest say. “But we hope in the very least it’s a bit of a distraction from the world for whoever it reaches.”
Whether or not the current situation has been conducive to the artists’ creative process, it has certainly been a time of reflection for everyone. “Despite the Covid-19 chaos, I’ve managed to find a silver lining under this dark cloud,” says Dasychira. “I’ve been rethinking my intentions as an artist in an unpredictable reality, and how a lot of these intentions stem from self-reflection. By spending the time to get to know ourselves, and how we as individuals effect everything around us, I feel positive that we will all come out of this with a stronger sense of self-awareness in our expressions and actions.”
For singer-songwriter Johanna Warren, who has been touring extensively since 2012 with the likes of Mitski, Julie Byrne, and Marissa Nadler, having this time away from touring has proved unexpectedly valuable. “I feel like a kid who’s been put in time out, and I didn’t even know how bad I needed it,” she says. “I’ve spent most of the last decade on the road and I just put out a new record, so was planning to be on tour for the foreseeable future. But now, being forced to stay in one place, I’m realizing how exhausted I was, how much pain I was in, and how much much I like waking up in the same place day after day, eating at regular times and getting the recommended amount of sleep.” She adds: “The massive carbon footprint of life on the road had also been weighing on me for a long time, so I’m thankful for this opportunity to pause, reflect and re-strategize.”
In terms of how the pandemic will shape the music industry going forward, it’s hard to be certain of anything at this point. As TV Priest note, “it’s troubling to think of the economic impact on venues and spaces for live music and the arts in general.” Stephanie Phillips adds: “Many small, DIY venues will not be able to last the year so we will have to find another way to support independent artists and music organisations.”
But there seems to be sense of hope that, in bringing us together, this crisis might also have positive implications for the music industry in the long-term. “I think it will make the music community tighter and stronger after having to work together to get through such a crappy situation and has opened people’s minds to new possibilities in how to deliver music and performances to the world,” says Peter Bibby. BABii shares a similar view. “I think this will end up morphing the way the music and art world works, it’s gonna take a hard hit but we shouldn’t forget that art and music has never died and has taken worse beatings than this in one way or another,” she says. “I have a strong hope that we will all come through the other side, it just might be a bit of a different place when we get there, and that’s okay, because if nothing ever changed there would be no butterflies.”
Nobody knows how long it will be until we reach the other side of this crisis, but what’s certain is that the music landscape won’t be the same. As The Lazy Eyes note: “It will probably be a while before things go back to normal – and in saying that, there may be a new ‘normal’ to go back to altogether.” Articulating a vision for what that new normal could look like is not the easiest task, but TV Priest argue that “the best possible outcome could be a hopeful return to a more DIY atmosphere; rooted around community and human connection rather than musical proficiency, statistics, marketing collateral, endless content nausea, technological gatekeeping and economies of scale.”
Until then, though, direct fan support matters more than ever – especially as it’s still unclear how governments will act to support the creative sector in the coming months. Whether it comes in the form of buying an album, purchasing merch, or simply seeking out and sharing new artists, every contribution helps. We’ve already seen how powerful it can be when fans come together to collectively support artists: when Bandcamp waived its revenue share in an effort to help musicians impacted by COVID-19, it raised a combined $11.4 million in just two days. After all, giving something back is the least we can do when music has been one of the few things capable of providing comfort during isolating times – COVID-related or not. And as TV Priest put it, “There will be nothing better than that first night out in a dark room surrounded by your friends.”
