a mass gutting of pitchfork was announced yesterday. the publication will be folded into gq (what?), and apparently half of the staff has been purged. this came after condé nast said in december 2023 that everyone at pitchfork would keep their jobs. my understanding is that, as it went with bandcamp, much if not all of the union bargaining team was laid off.
read the pitchfork union-newsguild of new york press release about the layoffs.
viewed in the context of recent mass layoffs across the entire music industry—not just in music journalism, even spotify laid off a ton of employees at the end of 2023—it somewhat feels like the fall of pitchfork was the last shoe we in the music biz all feared and half-expected would drop, perhaps the strongest portent yet that digital music media is more or less fucked and never returning as we knew it.
and that might be fine in the end, but we’re at the beginning of a new upheaval, and far from the end. in such times of instability i find it helpful to remember that when we find ourselves proclaiming some strain of “someone should do something about this”—someone usually already is, and you simply have to find them and team up. tone.audio has an interesting vision for a one stop music streaming and community platform, and they’re seeking devs and contributors! and i recently donated to flaming hydra‘s kickstarter for their worker-owned publication featuring some wonderful writers and editors. there’s also new feeling, a promising co-op publication based in canada. there’s a lot out there and you don’t even have to squint that hard to find it!
speaking of participating in things that are bigger than yourself: i recently started buying e-sims for a donation drive for gazans struggling to stay online during the full communications blackout caused by israeli bombardment. it seems like we have fewer reliable donation and direct support options by the day. but i figure if i can help at least one person stay online.. that’s real support right? the e-sims are given for free to gazans, and appear to have become a crucial part of the local communication infrastructure, especially for journalists and medical workers.
our scant few readers will, i think, be elated to know that bas relief will be playing february 16, 2024 at montreal’s casa del popolo.
this will be our first show together in montreal since a december 2017 mini-fest at café atomic. we’ll be sharing the night with laced, gonima, and new jersey’s corey mastrangelo.
laced is one of my favorite producer/djs in montreal right now, as it seems we share an affinity for microbeats and melodic arrangements. the uptempo rhythms and skittering delights are so deeply my shit. at times heavenly, at others darkly euphoric. so stoked to hear more from laced!
gonima is an old friend and so a mentor of sorts. all of gonima’s rhythms are rendered askew, chopped and programmed in such a way as to be untethered from typical electronic gridbeats. it’s reliant on downbeats, but the space between is always stretched or warped or compressed or otherwise glitched as fuck. the melodic components are as enticing for me!
corey mastrangelo, another old friend, is a songwriter/guitarist/composer/producer/home-recordist with an ear for blissful compositions that pry open post-rock and electronica, reassembling innards into textured scapes that make me feel like i’m soaring over green continents in an airship.
see you at the gig ✌