stag hare ~ tapestry

stag hare ~ tapestry (inner islands, 2015) [4-tape box compilation]

«This is a collaborative project entirely compelled forward by those individuals who have commissioned the tracks. It could not and would not have been created without this communal effort. All pieces were recorded from December 2014 to July 2015. Each track was individually commissioned for creation and recorded under the inspiration and direction of each patron.» stag hare

The idea of artist making living of its art always was important – not just for artists themselves, which is obvious, but for the audience as well. Time we live now affords many new levels of communication, and if yesterday your favourite musician existed in some sort of parallel universe – unreachable, available only on special occasions, today we have a slightly different situation. Yes, there are still super-stars, but the majority of artist you admire have same facebook pages as you do – posting kittens, sharing vacation photos and so on. And you won't believe how many of them have same problems as you do. Music making for most of diy/tape/lo-fi  scene artist is an actual luxury, free time devotion often taken away from family, regular day job or simply of outside walk. Instead being as lazy, as all we sometimes do, artists are often forced to superpose. Despite the common idea that music-making is fun and relaxing, it requires much more, even if (or especially if!) you do experimental music. You can't just hold one note on cheapest keyboard and say "hey, that's drone", it will be boring and no one would like that. People invent, they always try and research. But with understanding of such topics, there are still huge difference between music-making and 'normal job'. Many new methods of artist support exists today – fundraising, patron system, simple donation buttons, but sudden growth of the cassette tapes manufacture hints that people prefer to have something more that just music files in exchange. They want a connection, communication, and it must go both ways. Holding something in hands helps that, especially if this thing was made by artist himself. 

What Stag Hare did for this project was simple – you can get 15-minutes drone track recorded personally for you just for few dollars. And for few more you can get a tape with this track directly from Stag Hare's bedroom – signed and hand-painted. This is actually almost genius in terms of modern world communication. Fast and direct. When artist releases an album, it's always about something personal – but for artist himself, while such commissioned tracks seem to be more about the person who wanted it. This is  interaction that comes to artist's mind even on subtle level: "what this guy like? what sounds good for him?"... Of course, small labels are offering very similar thing, they do limited editions and their customers are usually same people from one release to another. There is certain level of trust in it, which never existed in major label industry. I doubt that anyone gets new cars from running tape label, but when people feel this interaction it makes life easier – for the musician, for label owner and for the listener as well. Sleepless nighttime spent over the blinking synths and pedals doesn't pay bills and maybe bothers your relatives, but it must be much easier to get up early after it for regular job, knowing that there are people who appreciate and value your efforts.

Each 'Tapestry' track was made for someone, but releasing whole thing for the world by Inner Islands brings it to broader perspective. This is not about people trying to make living from their art any more. This is about life itself, unfolding its ways, evolving its ideas further to interconnectedness of everything. One small step in the search of new ways of existence of art in our world. Music artists are same as everyone else, but the music itself is something much more! A place where we all meet each other.

 

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