Cassandra Voices

Category: Music

  • NARLI: Independent Music Worth More Than Money

    A hegemonic, neoliberal logic based upon competition, exploitation, and inequality appears to have largely supplanted democratic principles of community, interdependence, and solidarity. The National Association of Record Labels of Ireland (NARLI) is significant in this context – founded in 2016 to further independent music in Ireland by forging a co-operative, community involved in its production – their work is both a means of challenging and resisting the dominant cultural ideology of our times. In this era of digital media saturation shaped by the prevalent cultural hegemony – playing, producing, talking, and thinking about music in an independent manner is vital.

    The NARLI moniker alludes to the work these labels engage with in this respect – gnarly in the sense of being ‘difficult, dangerous, or challenging’ and also, ‘excellent’. Their Annual General Music (AGM) event took place at the Irish Music Rights Organisation HQ, Dublin on 11 October – including a ‘sonic meeting’ featuring some of Ireland’s finest composers and musicians across a broad spectrum of music: contemporary classical, early music, electronica, folk and popular song, improvisation, Irish and traditional music from around the world, and jazz. The intersubjective and organic musical performance that resulted drew together artists representing the respective outputs of Diatribe Records, Ergodos, Heresy Records, Raelaech Records, and Improvised Music Company.[1]

    Listen to an exclusive recording below via our YouTube channel:

    After the AGM event, Eric Fraad (Heresy Records), Nick Roth (Diatribe Records), and Garrett Sholdice (Ergodos) gave their insights into the state of play for independent music-making in Ireland and further afield:

    ERIC FRAAD, HERESY RECORDS

    How would you explain the work of Heresy Records to someone who isn’t familiar with independent music?

    Heresy is an Irish-based internationally distributed art music label that curates and produces recordings in multiple genres including classical, contemporary classical, early music, world music, electronica, folk and a fusion of these styles. Being headquartered in Dublin we work with many Irish-based composers, singers and instrumentalists. We are known for unusual programming and surprising, original and sometimes provocative artwork.

    Our album The Wexford Carols, the first recording of Ireland’s greatest Christmas music reached #1 on the Billboard and Amazon charts and featured Caitríona O’Leary, Tom Jones, Rosanne Cash, Rhiannon Giddens, Dónal Lunny and many others. 

    Upcoming releases include The Red Book of Ossory – a new ensemble with Caitríona O’Leary, Deirdre O’Leary, Nick Roth and Francesco Turrisi – which fuses medieval music, jazz and contemporary classical in a unique and compelling way; The Richter Scale, a new composition by Berlin composer Boris Bergmann written for the concert pianist Ji Liu and the Steinway D Spirio/r, the world’s finest high-resolution player piano (Heresy and Steinway are premiering the work on 20 November at Steinway & Sons in London); Strange Wonders, The Wexford Carols Volume II produced by Ethan Johns and starring Caitríona O’Leary, Clara Sanabras, Seth Lakeman, Alison Balsom, Olov Johannson, John Smith, the choir Stile Antico and several others. 

    Caitriona O’Leary and Eric Fraad representing Heresy Records at the NARLI AGM. Photograph by Costantino Idini (c).

    What are the major challenges facing independent record companies presently? What is the most rewarding part of this work?

    Money, money, money and money! The bottom has fallen out of the independent art music recording industry which is no longer viable as a profitable business – meaning investors will not see their money back, revenue is too small to pay a reasonable staff, fund regular business functions or support strategic development plans. In fact, it is no longer a business in any legitimate sense of the word, and I’ve considered restructuring the label as a non-profit or charity which is actually what it is. That said, the creation and production of beautiful, surprising and meaningful recordings which give people around the world great pleasure and powerful experiences is still extremely rewarding. 

    How do you envision the future of independent music locally and globally?

    There is more music available and being created today than at any prior point in history and people’s appetites for diverse styles of music is voracious and unabated. This is true both locally and globally. Most of this output and activity is fueled, distributed and supported by the independent sector of the industry which is more available and risk-taking than the majors. Issues of quality of the music (which is subjective) and the untenable economic model (which is objective) aside the future for independent music is loud and bright.

    Sailog Ní Cheannabháin and Neil Ó Loclainn from Raelach Records at the NARLI AGM. Photograph by Costantino Idini (c).

    NICK ROTH, DIATRIBE RECORDS

    Can you describe how Diatribe operates as an independent record label?  

    We describe Diatribe as Ireland’s leading independent record label for new sounds… which is admittedly, unforgivably disrespectful of all the other leading independent Irish record labels for new sounds, all of whom are also making some amazing music right now and who happen to be our very good friends. At Diatribe, we focus on the recording and production of music that we think needs to be heard, aiming to constantly diversify our catalogue and do new things. There is just so much great music in Ireland, and in the world, and never enough time.

    What kinds of challenges are independent record companies facing at the present moment? What keeps you motivated in the face of these obstacles?

    There are challenges on both a local and global level for the existence of an independent record label. The older (pre-digital) model is just no longer relevant in our wonderful neoliberal gig economy, particularly now that previous revenue streams (like sales) have essentially all but disappeared. Practically no record will make back its production costs these days, without recourse to the kind of marketing and promotional budgets that are paradigmatically impossible for non-corporate labels. The gap that has always existed between majors and independents is now an insurmountable chasm. Essentially, an independent record label just isn’t a very good business to be in any more, at least in a capitalist sense. Which is kind of why we love it.

    Audience and performers at the NARLI AGM 2019. Photograph by Costantino Idini (c).

    Ever since its invention, recording has proven an essential part of the musical ecosystem, and our relationship with technology has changed the way that we listen to the world. Right now, as an independent label founded in 2007, we are making more music than ever – really amazing records that we love everything about. We are proud and happy to be supporting the artists in their fight, against all odds, to make this music happen. What does that mean? I guess that music is worth more than money.

    What’s next for Diatribe?

    Our big news is that we are running a Diatribe stage at the New Music Dublin (NMD) festival in the National Concert Hall at the end of February 2020, where we will be launching seven new records across the weekend. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited we are about this wave of music coming out – it’s a huge milestone for us, and the culmination of several years work across three continents. Previously we have launched two sets of four records simultaneously as collections (Solo Series Phase I / II) and these were really exciting moments for the label, so NMD promises to be incredible. For us it’s really about bringing people together and creating a sense of community through mutual respect and shared inspiration.

    Cora Venus Lunny, Matthew Jacobson, Nick Roth, and Olesya Zdorovetska of Diatribe at the NARLI AGM. Photograph by Costantino Idini (c).

    GARRETT SHOLDICE, ERGODOS

    What kind of work is Ergodos engaged with?

    Ergodos is a record label and concert promoter based in Dublin. Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and I started Ergodos about thirteen years ago. We’re both composers, and I think, for both of us, curation and production have always felt like important components of our creative work. We share a very eclectic outlook, and we both believe in music as a potentially transformative and transcendent experience. Concentration, immersion and re-contextualization have been recurring themes for us. 

    We celebrated our thirtieth release earlier this year – Winter, a rich and poised classical chamber music set from Ficino Ensemble. Other titles range from curated projects inspired by J.S. Bach, medieval music,  and the art of song with “house band” Ergodos Musicians; to solo piano meditations by Simon O’Connor; to the delicate jazz-and-electronica-inflected ambiences of Seán Mac Erlaine, to portraits of acclaimed contemporary composers such as Christopher Fox and Kevin Volans; to traditional Irish music projects featuring fiddle player Frankie Gavin; and much else.

    We began as a music festival in Trinity College in 2006, and live music production has always been so important to us. Since then we have produced many events in Ireland, but also abroad in London, New York, Berlin and Amsterdam. In recent years, we’ve had the pleasure of presenting The Santa Rita Concerts – a series of music and wine evenings in the Little Museum of Dublin. These events have featured artists as diverse as British folk singer Chris Wood, Egyptian composer-vocalist Nadah El Shazly, sound artist Chris Watson, and cellist and Crash Ensemble director Kate Ellis. 

    Garrett Sholdice and Michelle O’Rourke of Ergodos perform at the NARLI AGM. Photograph by Costantino Idini (c).

    What are the rewards of running an independent label and production company? What is the main obstacle you face?

    Well, the reward is to bring what we feel are important documents into the world so that people can encounter them and – hopefully – be enriched. But the economic challenges of running an independent record label in 2019 are considerable. We feel that labels like us and the others in the NARLI alliance make an important contribution, also as a platform for musicians. Access to structural grant support would help to sustain our place in this rich ecosystem.

    How do you see the future of independent music?

    It’s very difficult to speculate about the future. The marketplace is saturated, yet it seems that the importance and potency of recorded music is not diminished. In such a crowded arena, perhaps more than ever the role of the curated, independent label is to offer distinctive, meaningful experiences – hand-selected art, rather than lifestyle soundtrack; music that invites sustained attention, regardless of format. 

    Garrett Sholdice, Michelle O’Rourke, and Benedict Schlepper-Connolly (There is an Island) performing at the NARLI AGM. Photograph by Costantino Idini (c).

    NARLI’s co-operative, considered organisation is salient in the face of the excesses of our predominantly precarious and unforgiving cultural operating system. As a forward-thinking, non-corporate entity, their shared interest is in sustaining a vibrant musical ecosystem allied to principles that extend beyond concerns with relentless competition and vapid consumption. As such, independence, interdependence, and inspiration are key to the work these labels encourage and support.

    As an association, NARLI facilitates the endeavours of musical artists to refashion and refresh existing traditions in forward-thinking and heterogeneous ways. And, as the ‘enlivening art’, music has a role to play in reflecting and shaping our experiences of the world – including personal and societal identities. The sum total of the activity represented by NARLI affords a view into how we, as artists and people, might exist together individually and collectively – with all our differences and specifics – to greater mutual benefit.

    NARLI AGM 2019 (left to right, top row): Cora Venus Lunny (Diatribe), Benedict Schlepper-Connolly (Ergodos), Garrett Sholdice (Ergodos), Olesya Zdorovetska (Diatribe), Nick Roth (Diatribe), Michelle O’Rourke (Ergodos), Caitriona O’Leary (Hersey), Eric Fraad (Heresy), Jack Talty (Raelach), Neil Ó Loclaínn (Raelach), Sailog Ní Cheannabháin,(Raelach); (left to right, bottom row): Aoife Concannon (IMC), Matthew Jacobson (Diatribe), Keith Lindsay (Diatribe), Oisín Ó Cualáin (Diatribe), Adam Nolan (IMC), Kenneth Killeen (IMC). Photograph by Costantino Idini (c).

    [1] Farpoint Recordings and DotDotDot Music are also members of NARLI but did not have representatives performing on the night.

  • Musician of the Month: Phil Christie | The Bonk

     

    A Digest

    For most of us, the stomach is positioned around our middle. In East-Asian cultures, this area is usually considered the seat of the subjective self – the centre, from which we extend outward towards the world. Closer to home, we usually think of ourselves as residing somewhere behind the eyes, perhaps at one of the busier junctions of brain fold. Testing both locations within myself for signs of existence, I’m most aware of a ‘self’ when something goes wrong; when things are going well, I don’t occur to myself at all.

    The solar plexus is where the feeling of danger registers whenever it appears I am under threat (emotionally or physically). This reaction happens in my guts before any wordthoughts have time to log the incident in my head. Recent scientific investigations show the extent of the neural network in and around the stomach, and lend credibility to the idea that we exist much more in our bellies than we think we do. I like this idea. It makes sense when I think about playing and writing music, and what can be considered ‘my own’ in any of it.

    The word ‘stomach’ traces back to stoma, a Greek word having the sense of a kind of mouth; an opening; an inlet or an outlet. Interestingly, the entire alimentary canal – oesophagus through to the large intestine – can be strictly considered external to our bodies from an anatomical perspective, in that it has openings at either end. If we consider the stomach as the seat of the self, we might concede that we exist outside ourselves in a certain way all the time. The ear is another stoma, another digestive organ, where voices are metabolized and absorbed into the nerve stream.

    I find the most enjoyment in making sounds when it lends strangeness to the experience of being. When you listen to another person or another thing, you’re initiated into another world, churned around in another belly. Within the transmission process, you are suspended between selves, with an ability to be inside and outside simultaneously, accessing all the feelings on both sides of the exchange.

    As you listen and digest the sounds you hear, you’re not only receiving – the ear also gives a voice to the other person or the other thing. Anytime I hear Roy Orbison sing ‘In Dreams’ now I can’t help but hear what David Lynch heard in the piece for Blue Velvet. His ear has edited what Roy Orbison and ‘his’ song are forever.

    All of this is a preface to my admission that I always find it difficult to write about what I do with music, ‘my own stuff’. I think everyone should find that difficult. I’m suspicious of those who don’t. There is a well-founded anxiety that comes with the notion of having a genre, image, piece of music, or slogan, represent you.

    Because when things are working well and when music is working well, there is no need to think about what you are doing. You shouldn’t be able to name it.

    The boundaries between what you hear and digest and what you try to say, or sound, are fluid and always shifting. Artists like R. Stevie Moore and Robert Wyatt, whose songs present a healthy digestion of the sounds and perspectives of others, for me always come out sounding the most original.

    This makes me reflect on the obsession we have with our selves, and also, the idea of eclecticism in music. Everyone wants to find what is unique and self-identical and unmixed and quintessential in themselves. The commodification and marketing of music propagates this obsession because in order to sell things, we need personalities, niches, geniuses, and so on. As a musical artist, distinguishing oneself from ‘the others’ through branding, imagery, sounds, and words is deemed crucial to being able to survive the Internet.

    I think it’s worth making the case for selflessness again. This is not to suggest that we don’t reflect on the place we occupy in the world; we might do well to recognise that the need to identify ourselves with any position is questionable and also very boring. The thing that is really interesting to me in all of this is the experience of not being anything, possessing no essential qualities, having nothing particularly special to speak of, and being fully content to tip on.

    SUPPORT Cassandra Voices with a Patreon Donation CLlCK HERE

    The Bonk play The Sound House on 11.10.19

    May Feign is available for free download here.

  • Musician of the Month: Stefano Schiavocampo

    The life of any piece of music is unpredictable. From its birth, flowing from the mind and fingers of the composer, the new-born takes delicate steps across rudimentary harmonies, revealing fragments of thoughts and emotions as it goes on. Its heart takes shape first, and then the brain. This can be sufficient.

    Sometimes a piece is sufficiently enticing and inspiring to be granted a degree of permanence through the cumulative enthusiasm of listeners. This has happened to many folk songs, created somewhere, somehow in the mists of time. Hearts and brains found a passage, a vehicle, through the lungs and fingers of others besides the author, raising the majestic creature to adulthood, until that moment when the song exists, in its own right, detached from the man or woman that translated it from the cosmic tongue.

    In this time of continuous noise, any musician releases their new-born with a sense of terror. How can one expose a beloved creature to this homogeneous ocean of grey matter called the Internet? Like nectar dropping into a pool of gasoline, its ripples will surely be swallowed by waves of ill-conceived music.

    That was my feeling anyway, until the editor suggested using this platform to release my latest record.

    Phew.

    Now I feel better. I may even try to tell you guys about it.

    In 2015 I left Dublin to its lunacy of multinationals. Not without regret. As a traveling musician I had found in the city a place to share, learn, and grow within myself alongside others. Under the jig-lit ceilings of pubs, the multiverse of festivals and the intimacy of tiny gigs in tiny places, I discovered a temporary oasis.

    Then, enough was enough, I embarked on a new adventure.

    For a long time after returning to my native Italy I felt torn and lonely. I was missing Ireland to the extent that it felt like a bereavement.

    At that point I got back into the work of a writer who has helped me understand the person I was while living on the island. I began translating into Italian John Moriarty’s mighty work Dreamtime, a project that remains to be completed. It was hard but illuminating work. Delving deeper and deeper, the map of the above-ground Ireland I had walked merged in my vision with a subterranean other world.

    As this happened a map of myself – displaced somehow – began to fit inside the edges of the Ireland I held in my heart, acting on it like sand-paper. Something had been released.

    I began to write furiously.

    The record opens with ‘Krymska’ (1), a song drawing on fragments of T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘Ash Wednesday.’

    Eliot has been among my favourite poets since adolescence. I return to him every year, always finding a little more depth, and even greater sense. The affinity between him and John Moriarty is huge: the same religious impulse arising from a deeply critical view of Western society and its cold, controlled rationality; finding resolution in the spiritual awakening of a man confronting nature alone, freed from the heavy structure of Catholicism and emancipated from a dominant materialism.

    These are feelings which we all have to deal with: what is our connection with the place we inhabit? What imprint am I entitled to leave on the land I walk?

    I believe a new wave of spirituality offers solutions to the injustices and devastations of our times: that is to say the gross inequalities in wealth and the rape of nature. But if we are to progress as humanity, we must first progress as individuals, finding within ourselves the essence of the world we wish to walk upon, and love. If you have read Krisnamurti you will understand.

    That is why I find these writers so inspiring: each traces a path towards a better Western man – someone who does not deny the mighty achievement of our society (democracy or theatre for instance), but passes them through a filter of a kind of spirituality often considered Oriental.

    And what a glorious turn in history it would be to witness a globalisation of spiritual beings!

    That is the main focus of my record, the title Metamorphose!, is both an invitation and an invocation to people around me and far away, and to myself too.

    In ‘Minotaur’ (2), a divisive political leader discovers that the walls he once erected among people are now divisions within his own psyche, and that the monsters he jailed for their individualities are now rising up.

    ‘And now it’s your time to tell me’ (3) is a love song to John Moriarty. It’s a eulogy to a metamorphic soul who has touched many aspects of being in this world.

    I love thinking of him now. Ethereal in a space of no judgment, unequivocally carnal and majestic, his spirit flies towards human consciousness helping us reach a critical departure. He softly bends a wand – like the lightest bird diving into the ocean – towards a raging humanity; a presence ultimately devoid of purpose and freed from desire. Oh what a perfect place for you to be at John.

    In ‘Desert dogs’ (4) I recall a strange incident when I was attacked by starving wild dogs while journeying through the Atlas Mountain in Morocco. In the song, they eat me alive, transforming me into one of them so I can survey humanity from another point of view.

    In ‘Metamorphose’ (5) I trace my family origins to discover the first seedlings of my disposition to change and capacity for adaptation to confront the abyss.

    ‘House by nowhere’ (6) is a parallel look at both the place I live in at the moment, an isolated house among Tuscan fields, and the Dublin life I led.

    ‘In its peace’ (7) is a folk tale for our troubled times. A migrant travels up towards the Mediterranean Sea, knowing it is both a place of departure and arrival, where all love ends and all love may start again.

    It took me then three years to arrange and record the album, and to find the right place to publish it. It is a little present to John Moriarty and to all his loving readers, a eulogy of sorts, which, although it may not exceed its form, carries all the hope that emerges from studying the intricate patterns woven by the author.

    For the full album click here:

    Sincerely, Stefano

    If you enjoyed this article you might consider purchasing our new hard copy Cassandra Voices II.

    Become a part of the Cassandra Voices community through a monthly donation on Patreon.

     

  • Musician of the Month: Kiruu

    Music is like a home. A country. A tribe. A religion or faith. You can’t see it, yet it is real, and has tangible effects. It brings people together. Or it pushes them apart. It creates groups and sub-groups through inclusion or othering. It provokes love and friendship and connection. It reaches into the core of a person and can save or break them. It makes people dress in certain ways and talk with certain accents or lexica. It is a mechanism, or a process. It is a medium, just like water or air, through which energy can travel.

    I write on the day of the digital release of my first full-length Album, ‘Super Feo Express’, a body of work that spans twelve years of composing and which took three years to produce. It is a defining moment for me as a musician and person, so before going into further detail about the album, it is worth recalling some other defining moments that precluded this one.

    Alongside Baobab bandmates in Valencia, Spain.

    It’s the mid 1990’s. I’m 12 years old and at boarding school in Kenya. I’m nervously awaiting my slot in a piano recital. I play Mozart’s Sonata Facile in C. I nail it and I feel for the first time the buzz of an audience connecting with my sounds. It is a defining moment.

    It’s 2013. I’m standing on a stage in the sweltering heat of Dar Es Salaam, before a crowd of thousands of rowdy and impatient, and mostly male, youngsters. ‘Bongo Fleva’ (Swahili pop) stars have been gyrating sexily to backing tracks most of the day. Many have been booed off stage. My guitar stops working. In a panic, I sing Sikupendi acapella. By the end of the song. I’ve won round about sixty percent of the crowd. The other forty percent want to throw things at me just as they’ve done to everyone else. It is beyond bizarre. It is a defining moment.

    At the Coca Cola festival in Coco Beach, Dar Es Salaam.

    It’s 2009. I’m playing in Eamon Dorans, Dublin with my band, Caracoles. It’s a night full of rather sombre ‘alternative rock’ and experimental sounds. They are wonderful, if sad. But the audience gets up spontaneously and starts dancing and grooving to one of our new, more upbeat songs, ‘Fading Pain’. I am struck by the range of emotions and responses music can provoke, even in a crowd that is ‘into’ darker music. It is a defining moment.

    I’m sat in a flat in Valencia in 2013 glued to the news that the Islamist group Al Shabaab has attacked a shopping centre in Nairobi. My partner’s pregnant friend has been shot. Her lost child’s is named Shivani. A song is born out from the vicarious anguish of knowing that she will not be born. It gushes out, like a lament. I name it ‘Shivani’ after her. I sing it for hours and hours, amid tears. It is a defining moment.

    It’s 2004. My first ever band, ‘To Show This Idea’ plays our final show in the U.K. before I move back to Tanzania, and eventually back to Ireland, after four years in Leeds. The venue is our own basement. My brother, who would be the last person to compliment me on my music, approaches after the show full of enthusiasm, and says: ‘My god Kieran that was fantastic, I’m so surprised.’ It is a defining moment.

    It’s 2014. I’m touring with a band called Solana through Europe. We stop in Calais at the makeshift migrant camp where people from everywhere have gathered. Many are traumatized, some from war torn countries, all displaced. That night we play an unplugged gig for them all. After playing my song ‘Equinox’, I break into Bob Marley’s ‘Buffalo Soldier,’ and everyone starts to jam along. The audience lights up. The refrain ‘Woy yoy yoy!’ sees everyone start singing together. Smiles all around. This was a defining moment.

    These moments sit amid countless others that any musician will have had. Being a musician means having the job of looking after this medium; holding the responsibility to use it wisely. Creating music is working within the same medium, world, or space. Every musician will have their own particular approach to this.

    In my case, I’m yet to grasp fully how I create songs and music, because it seems to happen differently every time. I think that my lyrics mostly come from observation and enquiry, and the music behind (or in front of) them mostly comes from reaction or response. The songs on the ‘Super Feo Express’ album tell the story of over twelve years of composing, performing, and collaborating in bands and musical projects on four continents. Musically, the songs are responses to the musical contexts I found myself in.

    Recording ‘Super Feo Express’ has been arduous and has taken a long time partly due to huge personal challenges along the way that delayed the process. It includes the work of around fifteen wonderful musicians, mostly based in Dublin but hailing from all around the world. It has taken three years, but it is here, and it is done. And I am honoured to share it with the world.

    At the Síocháin launch in BelloBar, Dublin, in 2017.

    I am also thrilled that I’ll be presenting the album’s physical manifestations (CD and Vinyl) with a full band live gig at Lost Lane on September 24th. I hope reading about my background has sparked curiosity and I will see you there. You will also find the album on Spotify, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, among other digital sites.

    Jack Kerouac once said: ‘The only truth is music.’ I believe that I have been able to express myself truthfully in the ‘Super Feo Express’ album, and it is my hope that listeners will be able to appreciate that.

  • Musician of the Month: Fin Divilly

    Over seven years ago, I moved to an old house on Liffey Street having lived in various Dublin suburbs. I was 25 years of age and in the heart of Dublin city. Quickly the opportunity to make music my livelihood was upon me. I was now living on the circuit that could pay me to sing in bars and clubs.

    I still have pleasant flashbacks of coming home from school and while the rest of the family weren’t home, I could play soul and rock’n’roll; ceol loudly and bounce around the kitchen with a broom as a mic stand. Rocking my prepubescent balls off, I dreamed I was Iggy Pop or Al Green. A career began.

    I took every gig available and I learned the absolute strengths and weaknesses of musical prostitution. Meanwhile I could party my arse off, write whatever music I liked, in my own time. The next five-years would be a unique apprenticeship. I was student and master. My mind became a crazy FUCKIN classroom.

    My body on its own is just flesh

    Smelly when it’s used, balmy when it’s fresh

    Playful when it’s bruised while love is how it hardens you

    I am very passionate and often too serious about music. At times, I do forget simply to enjoy the experiences that I have, and live in the moment. Like anyone else, that is something for me to deal with in time.

    So much of what people generally care about is not a primary concern of mine. Pride in possessions, voting with tradition and buying upon demand are a few of life’s regular fruits that I have not yet found an appetite for. I am surrounded by shops but I rarely go inside. I have never voted as I don’t see real structural change happening as a result. It’s a rotten economic system of greed and bland reactive politics, from both sides, with a more and more middle of the road agenda for society.

    The fact that individualism is generally dedicated to easy and safe goals makes me sad and angry. I’m interested in affecting the real lives that I can actually experience around me. To love and hate things and people whenever. I want people to be more open about things that matter: distribution of wealth, the demise of civil liberties, drug taking, sex etc., etc. I write from those conversations.

    ‘You said slut! Now apologise! What you say it for?

    Turn that word on yourself, see what you’re aiming for!’

    To make a living, I perform other people’s songs with the addition of some of my own music. Wednesday nights are in the Dame Tavern alongside the inimitable violinist and composer Gareth Quinn Redmond. Other weeknights I play on my own in a variety of city centre bars and beyond. On weekends, I sing and go bananas with the mighty fine cover band ‘Bangers & Cash’. That is my proudest exercise; developing my voice and ability to rock a room. I also do so much climbing, dancing and running around that it now counts as a sport. I pay the rent.

    My body clock is set for a race

    While we’re just some cum sample the universe has gargled

    Left between the legs of an accidental country

    I wrote and released my first solo album ‘Liffey Street’ in late 2017. It’s a brief blend of songs spanning my time here and the endless noisy circus of life around me. I have a very personal attachment to my work but am proud to share my observations with anyone who cares to listen.

    As an avid daydreamer, I have romantic visions of life but I prefer to then find the most direct and honest means of describing things. Having only performed these songs live a couple of times, I have decided to continue writing more music privately, with the aim of building a band under my name that can enjoy much more diverse material to play with than just one album’s worth.

    Most days I can’t stand to sit and wait

    Nobody has a head on someone else

    The body alone is in no shape for horniness

    or “common” sense

    Just loneliness

    While I have this broader aim to create more solo work, my growing admiration and relationship with the poet John Cummins led me to begin writing music around his words and with the addition of two great friends David Meany and Jonathan Jude, we developed the group Shakalak. It is the most exciting and sincerely original group I have ever played in. Our personalities, style and humour make Shakalak both common sensical and unique. We talk and write about what we know and play our instruments with every respect for that.

    The boom is back boys, the boom is back

    The boom is back babe, the boom is back

    Let’s all grab a crane and fuck it all up again

    I feel lucky to have the life I do. So much so that excitement and big mood swings can sometimes make me anxious and doubt if I’m capable of keeping this rebellious lifestyle going.

    I don’t collect the dole and I don’t earn enough to pay tax. I have great independence and occasional bouts of terrifying loneliness. I work FUCKIN hard and I party harder.

    That novelty is wearing off as I find myself joyfully craving the peace of the outdoors more and more, and adventure without the arm of drink and drugs holding me from late bar to early house. I have been hired, fired and heartbroken. I am a punk in a zebra coat. Black and white.

    The quays are these arteries that flow through me

    As Dublin and my mother must breathe me in

    With less boundaries between private and public life

    I’ve come to have no real respect for traffic lights

    Do you think this piece is valuable? If so, you might consider providing us with financial support via Patreon, or simply pay us a small sum directly using PayPal: admin@cassandravoices.com. Thanks for supporting independent journalism. Subscribe for free to our monthly newsletter here. 

  • Musician of the Month – Paul Gilgunn

    Over the past year I developed a musical work reflecting the precarious times we are living through. This composition HERE WE ARE NOW is music for an ensemble of four electric guitars, bass, drums, percussion, and saxophonics. My aim was to produce art with radical import. As well as creating an engaging, innovative, and powerful musical experience, I wanted to explore how co-operation and collective action could happen by drawing musicians from classical, electronica, jazz, and rock music together.

    As a composer and musician I operate across boundaries and systems. My own work spans the peripheries of classical and popular music – primarily, avant-rock, improvised music, and post-minimalist composition – frequently involving cross-disciplinary exchanges with literature, video, video games, and visual art. Rather than being ‘marginal’ in import, these endeavours aim to challenge, empower, enliven, and provoke.

    There is an overlap here with ‘popular modernism’, as Mark Fisher termed it, a deviation from popular culture that challenges the heterogeneity and ideological complicity of mass culture; work that provides a means to engage critically with, and reimagine, the world as we know it.[i] The beneficial social power of art and its ability to spread new ideas are also characteristic of the avant-garde – as originally conceived by Henri de Saint-Simon in 1825.

    After picking up the guitar in the mid-1990s, I experimented with the forms, instruments, and techniques of popular music through performances and recordings. When I returned to study the arts and music in my mid-twenties I came into contact with the work of avant-garde composers and musicians who I felt an affinity with, and who opened up new possibilities for me creatively. By the time I completed my doctoral studies in 2017 I had worked with composers Rhys Chatham, Tony Conrad, and Jennifer Walshe, and established my own artistic practice, which became the focus of my energies.

    Challenging, engaging, and stimulating art is particularly vital at present, as is co-operative and collective action, drawing upon the interdependence of individuals. Content or cultural diversions that seek to maintain a faltering status quo are surplus to requirements. Many of our current woes – consumerism, environmental disaster, and inequality – are perpetuated and sustained by a neoliberal ideology reigning over late capitalism. This model of economic growth-without-end is impossible and unsustainable, a reality confirmed by a recent and conclusive UN report on the matter.[ii]

    Neoliberal governments prioritise corporate profits and the interests of a tiny minority, to the detriment of the majority, and the planet. It is an ideology that predicates upon competition, individualism, manufactured precarity, and scarcity of resources. This hits the lower- and middle- income strata in particular, through erosion of job security and diminished working conditions (longer hours, stagnant wages), and the privatisation of public resources (land, gas, oil, water, etc.) and services (education, hospitals, housing, and transport). Meanwhile, the personification of ignorance and intolerance occupies the Oval Office in Washington.

    What is the role of the artist in a global scenario where inequality and intolerance are on the rise, and catastrophic climate change appears imminent? Marina Abramović suggests the function of the artist in a disturbed society is to ‘ask the right questions, to open consciousness and elevate the mind.’[iii] That sentiment is echoed in Jennifer Walshe’s work, which is alert and responsible to the present, ‘dedicated to grappling with the times we live in.’[iv] An artist certainly has a responsibility to be aware of, and respond to, the present moment. The Anthropocene we are living through – where humans are the dominant influence upon the environment – is not a dystopia as it may ostensibly appear: the possibility to reimagine and reconfigure the world we live in exists within the human mind.

    HERE WE ARE NOW uses new sounds and structures in order to open new possibilities. The music is concerned with rhythm, timbre, and volume – instead of conventional harmonic progressions or melody derived from common practice – as a musical means to engage constructs of subjectivity, and expand or alter them through affect, perceptualization, and rhythmic entrainment. This is an evocation of the imagination through a sublime of music; to experience life in its fullness, to reimagine and reconfigure how we are now.

    HERE WE ARE NOW is available as a digital download, limited edition CD, and via online streaming services: https://paulgilgunn.hearnow.com/. For further information on Paul’s work visit: https://gilgunn.org/.

    Paul Gilgunn, image (c) Arturo Byson.

    [i] Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures, Winchester: Zero Books, 2014, p. 23.

    [ii] Paavo Järvensivu et al., ‘Transformation: the Economy’, Helsinki: BIOS Research Unit, 2019. Available via: https://bios.fi/bios-governance_of_economic_transition.pdf

    [iii] Marina Abramović quoted in Sarah Thorton, 33 Artists in 3 Acts, London: Granta Books, 2014, p. 33.

    [iv] Jennifer Walshe, ‘Notes on Being an Irish Composer’ in The Invisible Art: A Century of Music in Ireland: 1916-2016, edited by Michael Dervan, Dublin: New Ireland, 2016, p. 244.

  • Musician of the Month – Bartholomew Ryan of The Loafing Heroes

    ‘Descend the stairs, bend your legs, melting one by one. / Open your mouth to the snake in the sand, swallowing you one by one.’ So begins the first single from our latest album. It’s one of my treasured moments in the meandering Loafing Heroes journey: in how it came about, how it was constructed, the unfolding of its words and arrangement, and how it sounds on the record.

    “Stairs” sums up much of what I dream about with this music, its vision and where I’m at – then and now. Because, really, however much I say this is the end of a project, or that it is the beginning of a new one; we are really, always, in a way, wrenched into the middle of things, into the middle of life.

    Feeling heartbroken at the end of a relationship, trying to come to terms with the death of a loved one, suddenly hearing by accident a special song from a moment in your life, or catching a smell that brings you somewhere, smothering you with longing, nostalgia, a great sadness or joy – these all throw me into the middle of things, into the middle of life.

    We are suddenly tuning in again – or rather – we may feel that we are spectacularly out of tune with the regular speed of day-to-day, calculative life, and in tune for a moment with another world that is alarmingly alive.

    Months can go by when no new song emerges, as an energy once bubbling over deserts you, and you think, well, that’s the end of that. Or, perhaps you say that I must find a way to begin again, do something new. And then it comes.

    Sometimes all it takes is to hear someone speak, watch a concert, see someone dance, or travel in the countryside away from the chatter of the city. In my case, the intervention came in the form of a visiting friend called Jonathan.

    Along the great river

    After a lifetime thinking about it, I had been travelling along the great river Amazon for almost 3000km, listening to the mesmerizing cacophony, seeing the green, green, green of all the jungle, and following the trail of an extraordinary human called Roger Casement. After making it back to Europe, I went straight on a tour with the band to Ireland for two weeks, and then finally returned to my apartment in Lisbon.

    I just wanted to be alone for a few days after being in such close quarters with people on the road. But Jonathan was staying at my place and he was still there. He was full of beans and delighted to see me, and yet he could quickly see that I was a little moody and withdrawn.

    But that wouldn’t stop him. He knew that I hadn’t written a song in at least six months. So that evening, we forced ourselves to play a game. He offered me three words – ‘hair’, ‘software’ and ‘snake’; a chord to begin; and thirty minutes to come up with something. That’s how the song ‘Stairs’ came about.

    I was thrown into the middle of things – I found myself diving, drowning and then submerged in the interlude, and suddenly I was singing about my hair being on fire and my skin turning to water. It was exhilarating, liberating, revealing. For me, that is what making music is all about. And if you can connect that creation and performance with someone else – then it really is alive.

    Jaime McGill of The Loafing Heroes Image © Sebastian Urzendowsky.

    Beginnings, endings, interludes

    I began The Loafing Heroes back when I was living in Denmark doing a Phd on Kierkegaard, where I met a wandering soul called Jamie from Arizona. We started making music together and recording the first Loafing Heroes songs.

    Four years later, I was living in Berlin pursuing a career as a philosophy lecturer wondering where to go next with the music. The spirit of The Loafing Heroes is that it morphs with the people that have come in and out over the years. This allows diverse flavours and colours to emerge and fade away along the trail.

    We recorded three albums in Berlin: Unterwegs (2009), Chula (2010) and Planets (2011). With Jonathan – yes the same one (from Berlin), another Jaime (this one from Nebraska), and Noni (from Dublin).

    My dear friend and gifted songwriter Michael Hall whom we all affectionately called Big Bear produced the first album (Unterwegs) and was present throughout the album. He died tragically in 2013, yet his ghost continues to haunt and inspire us.

    After four years, we all found ourselves going in different directions. I headed down to Lisbon to begin a research project on the enchanting poet of multiplicity – Fernando Pessoa; Jonathan formed another band called Fenster that have gone on to record some really special experimental pop music; Noni set off to work on solar energy in Rwanda; while Jaime remained for the time being in Berlin, but would remain committed and connected to The Loafing Heroes. She plays the bass clarinet – one of the trademark sounds of the band over the last ten years – and has recorded on all of our six albums.

    The three other albums were recorded while based in Lisbon (Crossing the Threshold [2014], The Baron in the Trees [2016] and Meandertales [2019]). I met Portuguese novelist João Tordo on my first night in the city, and he became a new loafing hero, and played double bass on the two albums before Meandertales.

    I glimpsed Judith with a violin on her back one night at The Lisbon Players Theatre, and soon she was playing with us too. From Germany, Judith actually makes her own violins and violas, and has played on all three of the last albums.

    Judith Retzlik of the Loafing Heroes, Image © Emiliano Perillo.

    Other musicians and friends have weaved in and out, but before Judith left Lisbon to return to Germany she introduced me to Giulia with a plan for her to join. From Italy, Giulia is now at the centre of the band, playing autoharp, piano, percussion, concertina, and singing and writing songs on the last two albums.

    To complete this crooked cosmopolitan tale, four of our albums have been produced and mixed by our very talented, generous comrade and friend from Greece – Tadklimp.

    Giulia Gallina of the Loafing Heroes. Image © Lucia Borro

    Chaosmos

    Many of the songs have evolved from various strange places; on the one hand, from travelling through vast expansive landscapes; and, on the other, hiding away in dark melancholy, verging on paralysis, in the interiors of a room that can sometimes seem like a shrinking capsule.

    Loafing is always essential in an age of increasing speed, technological overload, psychological detachment and environmental collapse – as we humans exhaust everything under the sun.

    Let’s slow down. Let’s wander. Let’s see and think anew, and laugh. Let’s channel and imbibe energy not into potency, possibility and power; but rather as actual, as here and now, in everything that exists. Energy as a passive ‘is’.

    These twelve new songs (constructed by Giulia, Judith, Jaime and I), from our new album under the title Meandertales, encompass the distorted fairytale and dream-folk that throw us into the middle of life. In the totality and disintegration of chaosmos, in this loafing musical endeavor, I work and play to transform my energetic pessimism into a subversive joy.

    Forthcoming Shows
    Friday, 12th of April: Clonskeagh Castle, Dublin, Ireland.
    Saturday, 13th of April, Bello Bar, Dublin, Ireland. (IRISH ALBUM LAUNCH)
    Sunday, 14th of April, Pot Duggans, Ennistymon, Co. Clare, Ireland.
    Tuesday, 16th of April, Tech Amergin, Waterville, Co. Kerry, Ireland.
    Friday, 19th of April,MUSICBOX, Lisbon, Portugal. (PORTUGUESE ALBUM LAUNCH)    ,

    Bartholomew Ryan is a philosophy research coordinator at the New University of Lisbon (http://www.ifilnova.pt/pages/bartholomew-ryan) and leader of the international band The Loafing Heroes (http://www.theloafingheroes.com)

    Feature Image: Otwin Biernat

    We rely on contributions to keep Cassandra Voices going.

     

  • Musician of the Month – Matthew Jacobson

    A Brother’s Influence

    I distinctly remember this day, aged about twelve, going for a family walk down (up?!) the west pier in Dun Laoghaire when my older brother by seven years was teaching me different rhythms, while the rest of the family discussed the day’s concerns as the seagulls squawked overhead. He would first get me to repeat the same rhythm that he was clapping, before teaching me a second alternate rhythm that would interlock with his original. We walked along with our footsteps creating the pulse and our hands beating out polyrhythms to the bemusement of other families and dog walkers.

    Around the same period, I also clearly remember being at home doing homework when my brother came in and put on John Coltrane’s Giant Steps album. I can still recall the sense of wonder at this chaotic and exotic sound coming out of the CD player. A seed had clearly been planted.

    Another memory is of being in the kitchen before dinner one day and my brother putting on a Sonny Rollins album and getting me to try and click on beats ‘2’ and ‘4’ – as is customary in that particular idiom. At that stage I just could not fathom how it was possible to discern which beat in the bar was which.

    A further recollection is of an annual holiday in Wexford by the beach (along with the rest of Dublin it seemed) and my brother trying to teach me to sing a major scale, using the intervallic approach of tone; tone; semi-tone; tone; tone; tone; semi-tone. ‘How the hell am I supposed to tell what a tone or semi-tone even sound like?’, I remember thinking.

    As you have probably gathered, my brother was at that age a very big influence on me. He was studying jazz performance, and I was more than happy to be his musical guinea pig, testing out and practising everything he was learning himself. It was around then that I also started taking piano lessons, aspiring to play music but not on the same instrument as my guitar-wielding brother. I worried there would be too much competition or that I would end up in his shadow, and there was already a piano in the house as my older sister had also been getting lessons.

    The piano lessons were going well and I had a great teacher, who literally lived at the end of our garden. These continued for about a year, before he moved out of Dublin and the lessons stopped. Over the following couple of years I continued to play a bit, getting one or two lessons with a family friend and my brother also taught me a couple of jazz standards. He said: ‘Chords in the left hand, melody in the right hand. Then to improvise just use any of the notes that are in the chords in your left hand at the time – fun!’ I got a little repertoire together including, ‘Mr PC’ (from Giant Steps) ‘Blue Bossa’, ‘Mac The Knife’, ‘All of Me’, ‘There Will Never Be Another You’ etc.

    At the age of fifteen, when I had to pick an instrument for Junior Certificate music, my teacher at school, who loved that I was playing jazz and improvising – as opposed to the many other Bach-bashing pianists – encouraged me to stick with the piano. When I asked my brother, however, he suggested I take up the drums. Perhaps he had seen some natural talent that day on the pier, or maybe he just wanted a drumkit in the house for him to rehearse on with his own band at the time! Either way, once again his words were paramount and my parents kindly signed me up for a term of lessons, understandably, before they would commit to purchasing such a large and dynamic instrument. The lessons went well and within six months I was swinging away (or at least trying to) on my wine-coloured Pearl Export.

    Image © Gabriela Szeplaki.

    I have since realised how unusual it is to sit down at your first ever drumkit and attempt to play swing grooves à la Elvin Jones, as opposed to the more common rock beat #1. This unconventional route was confirmed by my decision, once again at the prompting of my brother (surprise, surprise), to take transition year out of secondary school and take the same one-year music performance certificate course at Newpark Music Centre that had set him on his way some years beforehand. Later, after I finished my Leaving Certificate, that course became the first year of a four-year music degree programme that I went on to complete.

    This deeper delve into the world of jazz, and the connections that I had made through my brother’s involvement in the scene, meant I gained lots of experience in situations that technically I was probably unready for. I now believe this was an invaluable part of my musical education, meaning there was always a creative or musical reason for practising, as opposed to practising a mechanical exercise purely with the goal of ‘being able to’.

    These formative experiences, absorbing music from somebody I looked up to, learning the piano before the drums, and playing with a variety of seasoned musicians gaining valuable insight into the necessities of a drummer, have made me the musician I am today. And what kind of musician is that?

    Well, I feel hugely privileged to play drums in a lot of different projects, in many different contexts and with musicians from a wide variety of backgrounds. I am at a stage, twenty years on from that day on the pier, where almost every day I get to play with people I respect and love, and whose music I care about.

    My foremost aspiration is to make all of that music sound as honest and real as possible. Amazingly, all of the musicians I play with trust me to make the most appropriate choices for each situation.

    I do not think of myself as a drummer, but as a musician that happens to sit down behind a drumkit (no longer a wine-coloured Export!). For this I thank my brother (who is still very much involved in music too), along with the rest of my ever-supportive family, including parents who have travelled as far as Paris, Cologne and New York to see me perform. Thank you.

    www.matthewjacobsonmusic.com

    Featured Image: © Gabriela Szeplaki.

    We rely on contributions to keep Cassandra Voices going.

    Image © Gabriela Szeplaki.

  • Musician of the Month – Rhob Cunningham

    The other morning I was cutting through Dublin on the way to the national bus station.

    Having moved away from a cheap place in Vienna, home for nearly 2 years, a friend has offered a place to shelter, a cottage under generous Glangevlin skies, north-east of Cavan.

    The journey from Dublin involves a coach up north, in to Enniskillen, before a bus back south to Blacklion through borderless Belcoo. It’s a three-hour walk thereafter. Hitchhiking optional.

    You’ve got to set off from Blacklion by 2pm this time of year, boy-racers make it risky in the dark.

    The daylit strolls, though, are really something to behold.

    Having recently trekked for seven hours to play a gig atop a Swiss Alp – walking for six of those hours barefoot because my boots were haunted – I can safely say Cavan’s undulating hills, serpentine roads and shimmering lakes, equal the barren majesty of any European peak.

    Lordy! Such burgeoning beauty.

    Shoes or not.

    I hadn’t bothered looking at the Dublin-to-Enniskillen timetable, coaches depart every couple of hours; so, when I came across a fellow, curled up in the sun of Winetavern Street, just before the river, I had time to lean over and ask was he okay.

    A disheveled chap, Marti, was from Poland. He’d been in Ireland thirteen years, longest sober period in that time was a three-year run. He was an alcoholic and had stolen two bottles of wine this morning, leaving him mostly foetal. 

    A sister in Poland, his loving mother had passed away in 2001,
    at 8 years young his father had stepped from a height, taking his own life;
    his son, here, now, recounting the man’s insides splayed before him. 
    My mind went back to a year ago. An intelligent and dear friend with schizophrenic tendencies, showing symptoms, had been taken by his brother to be admitted. The doctors assessed him and sent him home. Within twenty-four hours his illness paved a similar end to that of Marti’s father.
    My cheeks flushed red, guilty for new gratitude at having not been below.

    Marti spoke of his alcoholism, an equally misunderstood affliction. We agreed nobody sees it here. When pressed, he told me his options: first, go to Dublin’s Simon Community; with further help at High Park Treatment Centre.

    He mentioned a dream of visiting Australia. I told him me too. They have different stars there, ones we don’t see. They like some stars so much, they put the pattern on their flag.

    Being in the heap that he was, I had called an ambulance. It wasn’t until after the phone call, when sitting him up, he peeled a sticker from his hand. The kind you get in hospitals when you’ve been on a drip.

    I asked him about how he got sober that last time, that three-year stretch. He didn’t answer. Instead, he told me how, one day, long sober, he was on a bus to leave and visit his sister. He had the ticket and it was fifteen minutes to wait and, in those fifteen minutes, he felt compelled to find a drink.
    So he went to the shop and robbed some,
    hasn’t been out of trouble since.

    As the ambulance arrived, we wished each other well. 
    I travelled the day and wrote a song. I will sing it in Australia and think of Marti.

     

    For The Depot

    ************************************

    I met you of a morning
    The sun upon Winetavern
    Dead or sleeping,
    looking pretty worse for wear

     The only person passing
    And partial to persuasion
    You pined for help,
    I called it in, faked a chair

     You’d been this bold a fair while
    And fared worse than this morning
    You told me of
    a coach that should have stretched you home 

    A battle raged internal
    To fast or swipe a bottle
    You wiped your face,
    confessed to two you took today 

    With evidence rising,
    efforts change.  

    The red that stained your clothing
    For blood, I had mistaken
    Spying your hands
    you’d think mine never worked a day 

    Your mother, she’d adored you
    Father died before you
    He took his life
    when you were just a kiddo 

    So help communes at Simon’s
    And High Park if they’ll have you
    You wished me well,
    left me for the depot 

    With evidence rising,
    efforts change.

    We rely on contributions to keep Cassandra Voices going.

  • Musician of the Month: Massimiliano Galli

    This statement might make me sound old, but I have been through many different phases as a musician during my fifteen year career. I began as the talented kid in the school of music, where I started playing guitar in the 1990’s. Next, I was the super-unprofessional teenager, with no clue as to what I was doing with my crossover band. There followed the wannabe rockstar period. Currently I am the Italian guy playing and producing music in Ireland. I am still discovering who I am as a musician.

    After many years of gigging and recording albums, I now find it most rewarding to integrate my research into my practice. This has influenced my sound – and also probably made my career more complex. Sometimes I think I overcomplicate things, at other times I fear I will be considered banal. The conclusion I have come to is that I just want to be authentic, and honest with myself. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about what I do.

    Next year I will release my new album in Italy. Around ten years ago I founded a band called rumori dal fondo in my hometown of Milan. This will be our third studio album. During this period I moved to Ireland, in 2013, and there I developed, along with my musical brother Stefano Schiavocampo, another band called SignA. We played at most of the major Irish music festivals for a couple of years, an experience which helped me grow as a musician. I still learn a lot from Irish colleagues, and have met incredible talents like Villagers, Damien Rice, Bantum, Meltybrains, Donal Dineen, Fehdah and Loah, to name a few.

    Rumori dal fondo, Le Mie Facoltà

    Every musician has a different story to tell and tries to convey this to an audience. All of us want our music to be listened to, but the perception of success has changed so much over the last twenty years.

    I am increasingly uncomfortable with the way this industry works. We are living in a time when social media followers, views, likes, and tiny pixelated hearts are the main barometer establishing who is doing well, and who isn’t. Perhaps the difference between success and failure has always been based on superficial measurements, and this is simply the transition between analog and digital technology. It just seems part of the collective madness in our evolving relationship with technology.

    Social media seems to be the only show in town. Everyone must have a ‘presence’, even when, paradoxically, you are singing a song in opposition to the platform you are using to promote yourself (as we did, and will continue to do).

    Memory Shithole by SignA

    MySpace, then Facebook, now Instagram. Where has the damn music gone? An algorithm based system operates in the background, so people post anything just to gain exposure. We end up knowing more about a musician’s smile, workouts, or pet poodle than their songs.

    I start feeling a bit deranged when I think about these things. Perhaps it is because I grew up in the 90’s when the concept of fame was completely different. After a decade of glitter and glam in the 80’s, to be an outsider was suddenly cool. ‘Success’ itself was deeply uncool.

    Nirvana were the most popular band in the world, but the celebrity culture ate them alive, contributing to Kurt Cobain’s suicide. Perhaps this explains my resistance to the idea of ‘listener interaction’, or ‘followers’.

    My theory is that Kurt understood the game, but ended up playing it against his better judgment. Undoubtedly it was easier to tour in a comfortable bus, and sleep in decent hotels, but after a while he became an alternative Madonna in the mainsteam. It was a twist of fate that has cost us all. Now every time I spot a Nirvana t-shirt in a H&M shop I think how disappointed he would be to see his face in there, especially next to a Guns & Roses t-shirt, a band he despised.

    Kurt Cobain interview

    What kind of game are we all playing were anyone is able to produce their own album in the comfort of their own living room with a computer, before releasing it as a product on every digital platform in the space of twenty-four hours?

    What happens if no one likes what you produce? A world where success is measured in clicks could be tricky to handle, especially for an sensitive young person, struggling to find their place in the world.

    On my new album there is a song called Abilità (Ability), which is about not falling apart if you struggle to reach the goals you have set. There is a sort of autoanalysis: a pathway towards overcoming the disappointments you feel at failing to achieve life, work, or relationship aspirations.

    I realise, at the end of the day, that remaining true to oneself is the only way forward. Sometimes this can be difficult, because not everyone will appreciate what you do.

    Everyone is unique and reacts differently to challenging situations, but I thought my experience might be useful to others making their way. I once saved myself from myself by making music. I am sure it will continue to save me, no matter who, or how many people, are listening.

    I love to do it and I always will.

    Massimiliano Galli is the musician of the month for December, 2018.

    Did you know that Cassandra Voices has just published a print annual containing our best articles, stories, poems and photography from 2018? It’s a big book! To find out where you can purchase it, or order it, email admin@cassandravoices.com