New compilation out now - Fragile States - ambient / experimental / electronic works to soundtrack these weird and perilous times
Stream, download and donate this Bandcamp Friday
Our new compilation Fragile States is out today - a collection of ambient / experimental / electronic works that seeks to soundtrack these weird and perilous times.
The Fragile States cover artwork features a painting by Tahlia Palmer, aka amby downs, who contributes an unreleased work for the compilation, alongside alsi, Ambient Lights, Bradfield Dumpleton, Chloë Sobek, Freya Berkhout, Hantu, ilex, James Hazel, JWPaton, K Wilson, Madeleine Cocolas, Madenda, Melanie Velarde, Mookoid, Nina Buchanan, Okuesha Kills, Puscha, Reuben Ingall, Salllvage, Sebastian Field, Silonics, Third Space, Timothy Fairless and Travis Cook.
Fragile States is available on Bandcamp - and it’s Bandcamp Friday TODAY from 7pm AEST. You can 'Name Your Price' to stream or download the compilation, and all proceeds will be donated to both Seed Mob, Australia’s first and only Indigenous youth-led environmental organisation; and Firesticks Alliance, who provide Indigenous leadership, advocacy and action to protect Country through cultural fire and land management practices. During Bandcamp Friday, the platform waives their usual 15% revenue share, allowing more proceeds to flow. Note, today’s Bandcamp Friday starts at 7pm AEST and ends 7pm AEST, Saturday (3rd December) - that’s a good time to buy!
In Fragile States, we return to Ambient Music’s origin story. Ambient Music was defined by Brian Eno as “atmosphere ... a surrounding influence”, and designed to induce “a space to think”. Fragile States aims to capture the atmospherics and influences of today's environments, and in doing so, highlights the notions of “doubt and uncertainty” that were so present, and so prescient, in Eno’s work.
Although he sought to make his Ambient Music “as ignorable as it is interesting”, such a stance is not at all viable or desirable in these times. Rather, Fragile States proposes a ‘conscious ambience’, one which is entirely in lock-step with our social and political malaise. It is not music to be ignored, it is music for connection and purpose. Atmospheres for change and action; for tuning in, not tuning out.
Stream, download and donate at newweirdaustralia.bandcamp.com/album/new-weird-australia-fragile-states-nwa022
Thanks as always for your support - stay safe and fly the freak flag high.
Stu x