Well, it’s the first Friday of April and you know what that means: Bandcamp is waiving their income from music downloads and giving %100 of profits to musicians! As has become a staple for the last year, #BandcampFriday has become a way for the music hosting website to give back to the music community that has made them a success since they were founded in 2007.
As usual, I have spent the month on a deep dive through Bandcamp’s search algorithms! I have been looking specifically for new music I’ve never heard, made by people I don’t know, in order to support musicians and performers outside my own network. Bandcamp is often used as a platform to support our friends who make music, but here is an opportunity to change it to be more like walking into a record store looking for a sweet album cover that pushes you to make the purchase of something new that could change your life.
Except in this case, you get to listen first!
So here are my picks for this months #BandcampFriday:
My Little Robot Friend lays out some real smooth hip hop over some classic back beats. I originally had another one of her albums pegged to buy for this towards the beginning of the month, but make attempts to update my purchase plans if the artist releases new music in the interim. After the white supremacist attack in Atlanta, My Little Robot Friend threw her own voice into the world with a new 5 track release titled #STOPASIANHATE, and it is an incredible perspective and listening experience. This isn’t a lot of fast rap, but instead MLRF leaves room for her message to hang around for awhile and stick with you. Once you get done with this release, she has about a million more on her Bandcamp page, so check them out!
Next up is DEEP TAPE by Collidescope. Self described as “A group of butterflies”, Collidescope combines noise interludes, synthesizers, pop sensibilities, and powerful earthy vocals. DEEP TAPE feels like if a soul record got thrown in a blender with the movie Labyrinth and birthed as a mixtape. I found this two piece while listen to a Bandcamp playlist featuring Kansas City performers (did you know you can make Bandcamp playlists using the third party website BNDMPR?). This ep is a very creative journey through context and texture, making use of all sorts of samples and sound clips!
Zedgar Infiniti is a Decolonial Enby Popstar from Oakland California bringing us “NBDV2”, the followup to their amazing record “Non Binary Diary Volume 1”. These releases are confessional callbacks to 80’s and early 90’s queer pop music, and each song is quite simply just a BOP. There are lots of vocal hooks, tons of harmonies, and each track lasts longer than your average radio pop song (these songs were obviously designed for when it’s 1am in a club and you don’t want the beat to stop).
“Humpday” is an up beat, reverb filled pop rock album from a Nashville artist who performs as Tummyache. Humpday is a songwriter’s rock album experimenting with sound. Her music has a sort of chill but intense REM quality to it, and backs that up with a lot of cool studio sounds that I am not 100% sure how they are made, but they sure sound cool. Humpday *feels* like it had room to grow and mature while being recorded, and that there were lots of playful moments during that period that lead to the rad record we get to experience today.
