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An In-Store Music Mystery

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Last month, an episode of the podcast Reply All aired that included a music mystery. Brian, the protagonist, recorded a jazzy version of a Christmas song with his friends, burned a few CDs, and uploaded it to YouTube. After views (and listens) never broke double-digits, he forgot about the song. And then, months later, he hears his song playing over the speakers as he shops in a major grocery store chain.

It’s a fun episode, and you should listen to it before reading any further into this post. I’ll end up spoiling it for you. Here you go:

Interesting, eh? The mystery is unsolved. The first question is: how would anyone get ahold of the song? It’s verified that Brian or his friends did not distribute the song through a service like CD Baby. Someone would need the CD or, more likely, the ability to rip music from YouTube. Next: How did the song get into the grocery store? At first, it’s naïvely thought that an employee played the music, but major stores all use music services like Mood Media (who now own Muzak, which you’ve heard of). This is mostly for licensing and rights purposes — it saves the stores from having to individually clear the rights to play music in a commercial establishment.1This leads to a fascinating discussion in the podcast about how the services select music for in-store play. For example, a song’s tempo should resemble the rate a shopper is pushing a cart down an aisle. Seriously, listen to the podcast if you haven’t. But a service like Mood Media would only acquire music submitted to them. This submission could happen directly or through a distributor like CD Baby.

There’s also an Occam’s razor theory that Brian misheard the music in the store and mistook it for his song. He’s given some entertaining tests to find out how well he can identify music. Brian passes with flying colors — he’s got an exceptional ear.

There are other theories thrown about, like the unlikely idea that the music service is pirating Christmas songs to avoid paying royalties. When you think about it, that’s more trouble than it’s worth — a large company isn’t going to spend time trawling YouTube and ripping songs, and if caught, the penalties and reputational harm would be enormous.

The episode ends with a big shrug. The case of the errant Christmas song remains a mystery. The hosts thought through every possible theory, and each is flat-out wrong or unverifiable. 

But I have a theory. It’s a theory that’s not touched on in the episode. And, if Brian did hear his song, I bet I’m on to something. I wrote the Reply All team to let them know my idea. Here’s what I told them:

My guess is the song was indeed unscrupulously downloaded and put into circulation. But it wasn’t the music supplier who did this. The clue was when the representative asked if the song could be available from an aggregator like CD Baby.

Let me now give you two examples that will help illustrate my theory:

Check out this article about a ‘music artist’ grabbing songs that don’t have many plays, downloading them, and then releasing them as his own (via 5 Magazine). 

And on my blog, I wrote about Kevin MacLeod, who makes music and lets people use it for free in their YouTube videos in exchange for credit. But then someone downloaded his songs and, claiming to be him, registered them with YouTube’s Content ID. This unsavory person was able to monetize the videos that are using Kevin’s music.

So, here’s my theory: Someone is searching YouTube looking for Xmas songs with very low play counts. I’m sure there’s a lot of unreleased, amateur Christmas music on YouTube. And, the lower the play count, the less likely anyone uncovers this scheme. This individual then downloads the songs using a stream-ripper and then collects them into a Christmas ‘album.’ Then this ‘album’ is sent to a service like CD Baby or directly to an in-store music service. The ‘album’ is released under this individual’s name — not Brian’s — to get royalties and payments from places like major grocery store chains for plays.

That said, two factors do *not* support this theory. First, I played the song off the YouTube video for Shazam. A distributor like CD Baby would usually give the music to Shazam’s database. When I tried Shazam, it either could not identify the song or misidentified it. (There was one version of the same song that Shazam suggested that had a very similar piano style, but no drums or sax.)

Another factor is YouTube’s Content ID, as mentioned above. Like Shazam, most distributors would make their aggregated music available to Content ID. If that were the case, Brian’s original video would get flagged.

But we could be dealing with someone who does this kind of thing *a lot* and knows what they are doing. Some distributors will let the artist tell them which outlets to supply music to and which to exclude. I would guess CD Baby and Distrokid offer this option. So, if the individual who ripped this music is explicitly targeting in-store play outlets and the royalties from those, the distributor could be told only to give the music to in-store play music suppliers. In other words, no Spotify, no Shazam, no Content ID. Thus, there’s even less chance to discover this scheme.

The individual could also have a direct account with the in-store music supplier, bypassing normal distribution channels (and thus also Shazam and Content ID). If that’s the case, this person does this a lot — the in-store music services will only deal directly with labels and artists submitting content regularly. 

This secret person could be a ‘professional’ — supplying lots of unreleased holiday music ripped from YouTube, repeatedly played over the season (which, as noted in the podcast episode, is getting longer and longer), and collecting royalties. 

That’s my theory, but I suppose we’ll never know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#Worktones: Ralph Kinsella, epic45, M. Sage

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It’s been a while since I rounded up some #Worktones that are inhabiting the home office via a pair of strategically placed desk-top speakers. Here are three albums that provide a calming concentration in these frazzling times.

Ralph Kinsella is a Scottish guitarist hailing from Dumfries and Galloway, a region primarily known to some (me) as the filming location of The Wicker Man. He reached out to the blog with a ‘check out my music’ email. I do listen when emailed (unless I’ve been bcc’ed, in which case I don’t), but I rarely receive delightful surprises like what Ralph had in store. His Abstraction EP is a gorgeous 5-tracker filled with soft, layered tones and subtle shoegaze moments. The guitar is front-and-center but awash in reverb and delay and accompanied by electronics and atmospherics. I’d describe Ralph’s EP as bright, gentle, and optimistic — as if Sarah Records released ambient music. I’m especially welcoming this sort of music into my life right now, and I can’t wait to hear Ralph’s future efforts. The Abstraction EP is a free download on Bandcamp, so there’s nothing to stop you from grabbing it. [LINK]

Continuing with more UK-based guitar ambiance, I was happy to discover We Were Never Here, the latest release from epic45. Rob Glover and Benjamin Holton, who make up the core of the band, started this project in 1995 while still in their early teens. epic45’s discography is a dozen-plus strong, and, sadly, I’m not familiar with any of it. But I take it this beatless and vocal-free album is a slight departure. A limited compact disc version of the album came with a booklet of photos of “familiar suburban and semi-rural ‘nowhere places’ that exist between large towns and cities.” The music matches this description, as these songs evoke vast, stumbled-upon locations — not the intended destination but compelling nonetheless. The sound is lush and memory-inducing, and, in addition to the occasional guitar, a menagerie of instruments, textures, and field recordings float from track-to-track. We Were Never Here is music for movies you watch with your eyes closed. [LINK]

M. Sage is a #Worktones veteran, and I previously remarked on the ‘happy accident’ spirit and sense of emergence I picked up from his music. Cattails & Scrap Tactics is his “collection of fragments, sketches, environments, and atmospheres,” compiled for Bandcamp’s June 5 artist-appreciation day, with all proceeds donated to Chicago’s My Block My Hood My City organization. I can hear the sound of an artist experimenting and wandering, but these are hardly rescued discards. It’s an album of thought bursts, welcoming attention and standing still as a complete document of the creative question. And it’s often beautiful and filled with exciting ideas. You’ll spot a guitar here, too, alongside a bevy of unidentifiable and mostly peaceful sounds to tickle the eardrums. If you’d like a download, you might be too late — the album was only available for purchase on June 5 as a special one-off. But it’s still streaming on the site — and that might be only temporary, too, so listen while you can. [LINK]

🔗→ Follow me on Bandcamp

The Promise of Unending Knowledge

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• Here are two audio snapshots of recent protests. First, Radiolab offers a short meditation on Nina Simone’s sad, unbroken thread line to today’s injustices, profiling a remarkable concert she gave three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. And via his S/FJ newsletter, Sasha Frere-Jones shares a recording titled ‘Five Minutes June 3 2020.’ The audio — taken from the streets of New York City — is both exhilarating and terrifying. It’s also sound-as-art, a collage of moods and voices that rings in every feeling part of you. [LINK] + [LINK]

• HBO Max shows why escaping to the indie web is looking better with each passing day. It’s about time for a federal version of the CCPA. [LINK]

• I stumbled across this excellent NY Times piece by Peggy Orenstein from 2009. She writes eloquently about her struggles with the addictive qualities of the internet. I’m charmed by this mythological metaphor for our shared dilemma:

Not long ago, I started an experiment in self-binding: intentionally creating an obstacle to behavior I was helpless to control, much the way Ulysses lashed himself to his ship’s mast to avoid succumbing to the Sirens’ song. In my case, though, the irresistible temptation was the Internet. […] Those mythical bird-women (look it up) didn’t seduce with beauty or carnality — not with petty diversions — but with the promise of unending knowledge. “Over all the generous earth we know everything that happens,” they crooned to passing ships, vowing that any sailor who heeded their voices would emerge a “wiser man.” That is precisely the draw of the Internet. [LINK]

• There’s a nice profile of my friend Craig Snyder in the latest edition of Byta’s #HowWeListen series. Yes, he talks about how he listens (and what he’s listening to) and gives a lovely shout-out to yours truly and my weekly newsletter. But my favorite part is Craig talking about how records and the spaces they’re in (‘the room’) should fit each other:

I used to have a big vinyl collection but I’ve now slimmed my collection down to a case that holds 200 records. I remember going into one of my favorite bars called Tubby’s in Kingston, NY and noticing their vinyl collection. I remember asking how they curated their collection and the owner said, we picked out our 200 favorite records that fit this room. No matter which record we pick, it feels right. I also had an experience in an Airbnb in Montreal where there was a small vinyl collection. As I looked around the apartment I realized that these 50 records were the perfect collection for this particular place.

These two experiences made me rethink accumulating records. If I buy a new LP, then one needs to leave. That’s my goal with my 200 LPs. They’re the soundtrack of my living room in the Catskills. If I lived in a different house I’d probably need a different set of 200 albums. [LINK]

• Here’s a moody instrumental tune from Yorkshire’s worriedaboutsatan. It creeps up on you without being creepy.

• Lake Holden’s looking good this morning → [LINK]

Getting Nostalgic with the Spot Lyte On Podcast

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I had an enjoyable conversation with Lyte’s Lawrence Peryer last week. We got nostalgic about learning about new music in our formative years — especially challenging for me as a teenager in the middle of Louisiana. I told him about hanging an electric antenna out of my bedroom window and how crappy equipment made me a better DJ. Then, we talked about why there should be niche streaming services, how people are forgetting Frank Zappa, and that Sandinista! isn’t the best Clash record to start with. I used the word “fascinating” a lot.

Oh, and we recorded this sprawling conversation. It’s the latest episode of the Spot Lyte On… podcast, and you should give it a listen. It’s fun.

At one point, on the subject of indie music discovery in the mid-80s, I mention a fanzine called The Bob1Sadly, I can’t find a history online to link to, but contributor Fred Mills talks about it in this interview.. I call it my ‘music bible at the time.’ I can’t express enough how vital this mag was for me. It brought this sixteen-year-old punk rocker to The Velvet Underground, after all. Anyway, after we spoke, Lawrence sent me this link on Etsy. Someone is selling four vintage issues of The Bob. I remember all of these — I read them cover-to-cover, and probably more than once, when they were brand new. Seeing these mags in this photo delivered that melancholy pang of remembering that youthful period of discovering that music means something. You know the pang I’m talking about. Sigh.

For someone who professes to avoid nostalgia, there’s a lot of nostalgia in this podcast. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Disintegration to Integration

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Green Gravel

The author Robin Sloan is fascinated with how art changes (and often deteriorates, but in a beautiful way) when transferred across mediums. For example, from physical to digital to physical to digital — he calls it a flip-flop.

Robin recalls the origin of William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops, based on a melody recorded off the radio, forgotten, rediscovered over a decade later, and digitized from a corroded analog tape. A performance of the melody, broadcast on NPR, increased Robin’s obsession. He gives this recorded interpretation to a neural network that reinterprets the melody even further. It’s no longer disintegration — it’s integration.

Exploring further possibilities for this simple melody, Robin requested participation from his newsletter readers: “After I published the first version of this post in April 2020, I invited anyone reading to join me by playing or singing the melody once through using whatever instrument (including their voice) and recording device (including their phone) was closest to hand.”

Robin has released the outcome, a beautifully haphazard collaborative piece he’s calling “An integration loop, pt. 2” (part 1 was the AI-assisted interpretation). A number of people sent in renditions of the melody. That number included me, playing EBow guitar, heard just past the halfway point.

Robin: “In my imagination, each contribution is a rung in a ladder out of the pit of confusion and loss, all of us both (a) carrying the melody forward and (b) being carried by it, up towards something new, something whole.” So simple, and laced with so much meaning. Read more about this project and listen to the final (?) result at the [LINK].

Shine a Light

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First off, as previously mentioned, today is ‘Bandcamp Friday’ — the platform is waiving its cut of revenue with 100% going to the artists. Here are some suggestions where you can throw your support today:

  • Pitchfork’s list of labels and artists directing Bandcamp revenue to Black Lives Matter organizations [LINK]
  • A list of black artists, producers, and black-owned labels on Bandcamp [LINK]
  • Resident Advisor’s list compiling both, with an emphasis on electronic music [LINK]
  • If you’re into ambient music, here’s a Reddit thread listing ambient artists of color that could use your support (h/t Terry Grant) [LINK]

Like most of you, I was feeling dispirited and down yesterday. The constant barrage of evidence that this country is falling apart weighs heavily. And the gray skies and rain weren’t helping. I had an interview scheduled in the early afternoon and didn’t know if I was up for it. I was looking for some good news, and anything would do.

Unexpectedly, Warren Ellis provided that bright spot with a shout out on his blog, perhaps in response to my shout-out to his blog on Tuesday. It’s a nice boost to get mentioned under the ‘Isles of Blogging’ tag. I’m proud to inhabit my little beach-side hut.

One thing I learned: Ellis has a lot of readers. There are a lot of new eyes peering at this speck on the web (hello), and I picked up a healthy amount of newsletter subscribers. Shining a light on a fellow toiling soul is one of the best parts of operating in an independent space, whether you’re a band or a novelist or a painter or a blogger. It’s a lovely feeling when you’re the recipient.

I mentioned Ellis’s newsletter — Orbital Operations — only a couple of days ago. It’s something I look forward to each Sunday. One of its regular highlights is the heartfelt words of encouragement closing each email, a needed end-of-week reminder that things eventually will be cool. I’ll shine a little light back by urging you to subscribe.

My interview was with Lawrence Peryer for the Spot Lyte On podcast. I talked about growing up in Central Louisiana, the challenges of finding underground music there, the historical threads of influence that connects musical artists, utopian streaming models, Kraftwerk (of course), and lots of other things. It was freewheeling and fun. Though I think we intended to include music industry shop-talk, there was very little of that. The podcast hits the pod-ways next week. I’ll give you a preview by linking to a record from 1981 that comes up at the end of the discussion: the mind-blowing “Outside Broadcast.”

Side-note: I enjoy gabbing on podcasts. If you’re interested in having me gab on yours then please get in touch.

I also mentioned a podcast interview with Derek Sivers. It’s an episode of Yo Podcast — an uplifting listen that will give your brain a break from the world-on-fire for an hour. Specifically, I mentioned and clumsily explained this part where Derek answers the question: Hendrix or Bowie?

Jimi Hendrix is like Charles Darwin. Darwin, he presents “The Origin of Species” to the world and it blows everybody’s mind. But now the theory of evolution is common knowledge, so to read the book, “The Origin of Species” now, is not so impressive. So Hendrix presents the “Star-Spangled Banner,” full of feedback and more sounds from a guitar than anyone had heard before, and it blows everybody’s mind. But now, every kid in the guitar store can do the same thing. So to hear the original, is not so impressive. I think it’s kind of the same with Stravinsky and the “Rite of Spring,” it’s actually kind of unfair that they’re revolutionary contribution is diminished with time.

But David Bowie is like Josephine Baker, exotic and desirable in their time, and exotic and desirable now. And same thing with Claude Debussy’s music. Like, David Bowie, Josephine Baker, and Claude Debussy, all of them stood outside of the culture. Their art didn’t infiltrate the culture and culture didn’t assimilate or adopt it. And so time doesn’t diminish their allure.

The podcast audio and the transcription are on Derek’s site.

Once again, dawn brings a bluish-gray over Lake Holden this morning = [LINK]

Too Much Popcorn

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• I’m listening to Stephen Vitiello’s Buffalo Bass Delay, which Sasha Frere-Jones recommended in his terrific S/FJ newsletter. The Bandcamp description says that Stephen’s recordings are “site-specific — marked by relationships to special places, reworking and echoing an often harsh and barren reality.” The sounds on Buffalo Bass Delay were found in Buffalo, NY, including “the sounds of distant sirens and traffic on nearby Route 5, and the mournful heaving of passing locomotives.” It’s a lulling mixture of field recordings and swaths of bright ambient music, one interchangeably taking turns in prominence over the other. Buffalo Bass Delay was recorded in 2003 and feels fresh, remastered and reissued recently on the Room 40 label. It’s adding a needed calm to my workspace today. [LINK]

• The Brazilian film Bacurau follows in the steps of Parasite as a statement about class inequality, addressing localized themes in a way that feels global. The movie is a shape-shifter for making you think it’s one thing — a magical-realistic portrait of a town’s quirky inhabitants — and then becomes something else entirely. Or even a few things, as multiple genres and influences get mixed-and-matched to varying success. It’s enjoyable, but I admit I was left a little cold at the end. A Jordorowsky-meets-Tarantino experience sounds fantastic in theory, but I can’t say it worked, despite the strong positive critical consensus. The magic of someone like Bong Joon-ho is a rare ability to mix political messages with popcorn entertainment where one doesn’t overwhelm the other. Though I do recommend Bacurau overall, I think it has a little too much popcorn. [LINK]

• Bandcamp continues to capture the goodwill of the artist community through its charitable moves. As you probably know, the platform held artist support days due to COVID-19’s disruption of the touring industry. Those now-monthly happenings see Bandcamp waiving its percentage of revenue to give artists the full sales amount. In the wake of tragedy and turmoil, the much-needed spotlight on racial injustice has inspired Bandcamp to action this Juneteenth. Promised to become a yearly tradition, on June 19th Bandcamp will give 100% of their revenue to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “We’re also allocating an additional $30,000 per year to partner with organizations that fight for racial justice and create opportunities for people of color.” Good on them. Meanwhile, Spotify inspires tweets like this from its employees. [LINK]

• Speaking of rankled employees, Facebook is inspiring some of its own to make statements like this. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber doesn’t hold back: “Facebook’s real risk here, as I see it, is getting branded as the social network for racists. Talent retention is the top challenge for every tech company. We’re going through history, right now, and Facebook is on the wrong side of it. No one wants that on their resume.” [LINK]

• Today’s Lake Holden sunrise photo = [LINK]

#Worktones: Onlee’s United Isolation Ambient Mix

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https://soundcloud.com/onlee/united-isolation-ambient-mix

Our ‘strange times’ lockdown has inspired many artists and DJs to create ambient mixes. These mixes help calm the thoughts and nerves of others, especially those not used to working from home for long stretches. But it’s safe to say these mixes also serve the DJs creating them — something is reassuring and meditative in compiling a set focused on texture rather than beats.

My good friend Boris, DJ’ing as Onlee and running the cool experimental techno label Lichen Records, has undoubtedly delivered on both results with his United Isolation Ambient Mix. It’s nearly four hours long and reaches into selections that aren’t too dark or dramatic but never dull. There’s no tracklist, but, honestly, keeping tabs on the songs would distract from treating this as one long evolving soundscape.

I’ve played this in the home office for the last few days, and it’s effectively kept rogue brainwaves at bay. So, yes, this mix is a suitable prescription for strange, unsettling times.

Marc Méan’s Collage: Imperfect in the Best Way Possible

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Long before Brian Eno dreamed-up the term ambient music, there was “Furniture Music.” Coined by composer Erik Satie in 1917, “Furniture Music” intends to “make a contribution to life in the same way as a private conversation, a painting in a gallery, or the chair in which you may or may not be seated” (Satie’s words).

There’s a story of the debut of “Furniture Music” (or more correctly “Furnishing Music” — ‘musique d’ameublement’). Satie performed it during the intermission of a play, and the audience was encouraged to mill about as they usually would during a theater break. Instead, and much to Satie’s frustration, the audience stayed seated and listened. 

Marc Méan is a Zürich-based musician who has found inspiration in Satie’s “Furniture Music” 100+ years later. It informs his fascinating album Collage, a set — and cassette — of two twenty-minute compositions that vibrate from ethereal soundscapes to lightly percussive sound design. It’s experimental in sound and process and, though “Furniture Music” serves as a launching pad, like Satie’s intermission music Collage leaves the listener more attentive than passive. 

“[Satie’s] approach fascinated me,” Marc says. “Before that, I was playing mostly jazz and improvised music, which required me to be active and personally involved as a listener and as a performer. It’s music where you have to be highly reactive to everything around you, where everything happens fast, where one prefers evolution to repetition. I wanted to find an approach to music where I could slow things down, where I could stretch time, be more passive, find simplicity.”

The inspiration came through the acquisition of an unusual electronic instrument. Marc explains, “It all began when I acquired Peter Blasser’s instrument the Ciat-Lonbarde Cocoquantus. It is a weird synthesizer-sampler that has a life of its own.” 

Originating in Portland and partly hand-crafted out of wood, the Cocoquantus is a sampler combined with looping delays and multiple analog synthesizer engines for modulation. Blasser himself describes the Cocoquantus as “not for the faint of heart: but once you speak its language, nothing else is quite the same.”

“Peter Blasser’s instruments don’t come with manuals,” Marc says. “Nothing is labeled on the instrument, so you have to explore it yourself. And I have never been someone who likes to practice for the sake of practicing. I always need to work in a musical context to learn something new. So while taming this new instrument, I recorded all my experiments.”

The process developed into a creative game (or, as I like to say, a tiny accident). Marc explains: “I like the idea of organized chaos, of controlled randomness in my work. The more I surprise myself in the creative process, the more interesting the music will be to me afterward. In the end, I felt that the material had a strong unity because of the gear I used. The Cocoquantus has such a strong personality that it binds the recordings together.” These exploratory pieces were combined to form the backbone of Collage. 

The resulting album is a lovely and imaginative trek through experimental ambiance. There are haunting piano moments, teasing through snatches of melody transmitted from a distance. Distinctively electronic antics appear, manipulated bleeps and clicks that soon give way to luminous passages. For all of its digital manipulation, Collage is warm and organic sounding, and the two twenty-minute stitched-together compositions don’t sound stitched-together at all.

Though there are elements of ambient ‘drone’ music, Collage‘s pieces develop and subtly change, sometimes offering surprises for the listener. “I can’t help myself but to have things evolve and have some drama,” Marc says. “The two sides are designed as a response to each other. One doesn’t need to listen to both sides back-to-back, but I would recommend listening to each in its entirety.”

I get this impression even as I listen to Collage as a digital stream on Bandcamp. The nature of the tracks, their grainy sound, and 20-minute lengths make Collage imaginable in a cassette format. Marc embraces Collage on cassette: “I like when music can be tangible; when music pairs with an object. It grounds things into a reality in this era where everything is virtual. Also, analog tape was used during the recording to transform and give color to certain elements. So for me, it makes sense that Collage is available on a physical medium.”  

Thus Neologist Productions has issued Collage on cassette, limited to 30 copies. The artwork is beautiful and visually fits the tone of the music. And, as Marc points out, the cassette may be the best way to experience Collage: “Because of the physicality of the cassette the listening experience is different. Cassettes sound different than a digital medium. Cassettes are lo-fi in comparison, they wobble a bit, they age, they are imperfect in the best way possible.”

Listen to Collage on various streaming platforms or on Bandcamp (where you can also purchase the limited edition cassette).

Sweet Jesus: Steve Cobby’s One Man Cottage Industry

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Steve Cobby - Sweet Jesus

A lazy Friday in May revealed a righteous surprise. Without warning: the arrival of Sweet Jesus. This event wasn’t a religious awakening, but for fans of Fila Brazillia, it was like unexpectedly finding an apparition burned onto the morning toast. Steve Cobby, one half of the aforementioned Fila B, had dropped his latest solo album — yes, Sweet Jesus — on Bandcamp.

The album opens with the ringing strings of a gently played guitar. The thing that always struck me about Fila Brazillia’s oeuvre is its innate organicness. Though considered an electronic band, the duo (Cobby in cahoots with David McSherry) wasn’t afraid to toss in the odd guitar riff, live drum kit, or shite harmonica. As out-of-place as folksy fingerpicking might sound on Sweet Jesus, it’s all part of a modus operandi that’s a long time in motion.

Recognizable elements of Cobby’s velvet-textured production come into play — the intro of “Chauffeur De Camion” brings to mind at least a couple of Fila B’s mid-90s moments — but it’s the renewed intersection with a prominent guitar that inspires imaginative shifts. Notably, there’s “Feline Plastique” which incorporates a rhythmic Latin shuffle alongside a wealth of melodic riffs and optimistic tones. And jazz features more than we’re used to, allowing the guitar to explore on extended cuts like the Liston-Smith-laid-back-space-jam-ish “Truer Than Words.” Introspection rarely feels so sunny.

The mechanics of the release of Sweet Jesus interest me, too. Steve Cobby is no stranger to independent labels. After a stint with the major-aligned Big Life via his band Ashley & Jackson, Cobby played a part in the formation of no less than four different independent imprints. Déclassé is the latest, launched in 2014, and is the home of this new effort. But it appears a one-person operation, making the surprise release of Sweet Jesus an intuitive experiment.

Steve documented the launch of the album in real-time, live-streaming the click of the ‘publish’ button on his Bandcamp account, followed with a listen of the album accompanied by an affable and enlightening commentary.

I’m always curious about artists who thrived in the independent sector pre-Napster and how they operate now. It’s no secret that I’m one of those artists. Though I get excited about the potential of today’s DIY freedom, the changes remain a constant struggle of adjustment. Cobby’s embrace of the Bandcamp and live-stream platforms led me to believe he’s a lot more confident than me in the modern landscape. But, after an email chat, I see he’s playing it by ear like the rest of us.

Says Steve: “[These tactics were] borne of desperation and curiosity. I prefer to be just creating. I never anticipated being an owner-operator at such a late stage in my career, but necessity is invention’s mother. The times have moved a great deal. I wouldn’t say I’ve moved with them 100%. But I have autonomy so I can try out things signed artists might struggle with. The live-stream idea, for instance, only came to me about a week before the planned release on the 10th and the night before I was still tweaking tunes and mastering. I cannot envisage that scenario being duplicated many places where a committee is involved.”

How long did it take to figure some of this out and how rough was the transition?

“2004 to 2014 was a fallow decade for me. Couldn’t get anything to traction with the collaborative releases put out on the labels I co-owned. Once I went completely solo in ’14, consolidated all tasks to myself, and went direct-to-customer it was revolutionary. The light appeared at the tunnel’s end, and I began to earn money again. I’m a digital busker now, and almost everything that goes in the hat comes home. I think this is more like the many-to-many publishing model we’ll move towards. You’re sustained by a very bespoke coterie that you’ve curated.”

But, that’s liberating, right? So much nicer than being under the thumb of a label I’d imagine.

“I would much prefer financial security to be honest. My one man cottage industry is simply the only way I can get my material to market without interference. Certainly far from an ideal. I did enjoy the liberation of delivering an album completely ‘fresh’ and sans promo. But I’ve not worked within the traditional label machine since being signed to Big Life in the late eighties. They were pricks who wanted to dictate what we did and who we worked with. But If I was signed to an open-minded label, then I don’t see why I couldn’t make the same decisions I’m making now. Who knows.”

Whatever liberation there might be, a lot of artists are finding that Bandcamp is an essential tool for achieving it. Not only is it often used as a direct-to-artist platform, but Bandcamp also encourages artist fandom rather than passive playlist loyalty. I asked about Bandcamp’s role in Steve’s ‘one man cottage industry,’

“Bandcamp has been key to my turnaround. It’s the platform that delivers uncompressed and compressed downloads as well as streaming whilst taking the smallest cut of any retailer. This release was a Bandcamp exclusive for the first six weeks to help promote some more traffic that way. I’d still bother without it, but the returns would be less as all other online portals are serviced through an aggregator. “

I wondered: was Sweet Jesus‘s surprise release date set in stone and was there any temptation to push it back? And, as Steve was tweaking and mastering the album less than 24 hours before he clicked ‘publish,’ would he ever go back and update any of the tracks, Kanye-style?

“The beauty of the surprise deadline is it can be moved on a whim, but I was confident it was coherent work. I’d set that deadline for myself to avoid over-procrastination. As for reviewing post-release, the egg is fried. I don’t beat myself up once material is published and I would only ever re-upload a track for a technical reason, never creative.”

Despite the backed-into-a-corner nature of a self-release (and I can relate), I’m heartened and inspired by the freshness and ingenuity of Sweet Jesus, both in its playful roll-out to Steve’s fans and its bright, sanguine, and thoughtful sound. But, without any constraints, how would Steve Cobby release this album differently?

He answer: “To fifty thousand subscribers.”

Follow Steve Cobby and his Déclassé label on Bandcamp to help him get closer to that number.