The Archive
Launching my new Bandcamp monthly subscription option.
In the modern internet powered world most people consume their music via the streaming behemoths. It’s understandable, it’s an amazing deal for the listener.
I too listen to a lot of music, and I have two teenage kids that also want to listen to a lot of different music and so it makes sense that we always have some kind of monthly family deal running. It’s currently YouTube Music as part of their Premium plan, no YT ads, hooray! So yes, I listen to music using the YouTube Music app!
Unfortunately, it is not an amazing deal for the vast majority of musicians. I also have some music available on the streaming services but I make no money from streaming. I make no money from YouTube, Apple, Spotify or SoundCloud. In fact, on balance, it costs me money to put music on those services!
There is a lot of great commentary about this out there, I recommend Benn Jordan as a good place to start.
Luckily, there is another slightly more hopeful way to share music as a niche independent electronic musician, and that’s Bandcamp!
Bandcamp has had a shaky time over the last few years with a couple of new owners, and who knows what the future holds, but it’s still hanging in there at the moment.
Of course, it’s not a panacea, but Bandcamp pays musicians a lot more. I still make very little money on Bandcamp, but I make hundreds of times what I make on streaming services and so it’s a more hopeful place for me to invest my time!
And that brings me to The Archive.
Bandcamp has a subscription option which allows you to offer all of your new releases, exclusive subscription only releases, reductions on merchandise, and access to subscriber only messages for either a monthly or yearly fee—but not both for some reason—so I chose monthly! And you can give your subscription it’s own snappy name!
For £5 a month you will get…
ALL my future releases on Bandcamp for as long as you are subscribed.
SIX older albums that I have already made Archive only.
THREE recent releases: Modular One, Through Trains and Flight Paths.
EXCLUSIVE unreleased tracks, field recordings and longform sound experiments.
10% off PIVOT Cards and future products.
Bugs…
You could sign up for one month, take all the goodies and then cancel your subscription, but that would be mean and wrong and would make me sad, so please don’t do that! I could have opted for just the yearly subscription but at this point I feel that is a very big ask!
I’m also not sure how to square up subscriptions on Bandcamp with subscriptions on Substack. I would like to offer a complimentary Archive subscription to Whirrings supporters and vice versa but I’m not sure how best to do this yet—I’m still working on it—so hang in there!
You won’t get access to my most recent album Homegrown Apples as that is released through the Whitelabrecs bandcamp page, but after six months (September 2024) I will be making it available from my bandcamp page as well, so you’ll get it then.
I’m releasing my next album this Friday which I’m very excited about and there is a lot of fun stuff coming on the Whirrings—with new music and recordings every month! Yes, there are two Whirrings now as I just re-branded my YT channel :)
So there you have it, a great way to support the music making and field recording of an independent creator in the modern internet powered world for a few quid a month—The Archive!
Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far! 🙏