I didn’t really have the focus to get this post up prior to it all happening as a heads-up, so it seems a little self-congratulatory to be posting it after the fact. But I wanted people who stumble across ASIP to know that what is happening in the world right now surrounding Black Lives Matter and the social injustice (to put it lightly) is something I feel obligated to help with in whatever small way I can.
I mentioned this on Twitter a few days back, but one of the things I notice with ambient music is, it's so easy to not know the person behind the music due to its (comparatively) low cultural presence in real life. To be honest, I often think it’s what makes the community and genre strong in many ways, as the music will always come first over trend, fashion, looks or background, but when something like this shines a light on an issue, I see it as both an opportunity and a necessity to dig deeper past the music.
For example, the comparatively low amount of shows within ambient music; opportunities to meet other musicians/industry peers; and more importantly our media coverage compared to other genres, all contribute to a genre which is largely hidden away in bedrooms, studios, on the internet or at best - in a dark room of 50 people where talking is frowned upon… More often that not, reviews of ambient music focus on the artwork, record and of course, type of synthesizer used more than the artist behind it.
As a result of me being a part of this small world of (largely white) music, I struggle to name many black ambient musicians and need to do better at both digging out the artists behind the music at times, and indeed representation of POC on the ASIP label.
Additionally, last Friday Bandcamp waived their share of revenue once again so I took the opportunity to sell some of my own personal Test Press copies, and along with our label revenue for the day, we managed to raise nearly $2500 which was donated to the NAACP Empowerment Programs.
Thank you to everyone who purchased something from our Bandcamp store that day, and the 20 generous purchasers of the test presses which made that amazing number as high as could be.
Bandcamp will be waiving their revenue share again on ‘Juneteenth’ and while we don’t have any plans as yet for this day, it’s a great day to support labels, artists and ensure money is invested in a worthwhile cause.
Thanks for reading.
Below I’ve compiled a few links to explore ambient music by black creators. I debated doing a specific mix to help with this, but I feel like it’s been largely covered off in much more detail within these links should you wish to dive in and support. I was happy to provide a few suggestions where possible and spend a lot of time educating myself at the same time. I will however say, my favorite find from all these lists was this album by Kenyan artist, KMRU.
