Sound & Vision (2019-04)

wide
angle stream on

THE AUTHOR

Mike Mettler, a.k.a. The

SoundBard, is the music editor of

Sound & Vision.

Bandcamp lets artists control the quality of

their output, leading to a smorgasbord of

hi-res streaming and download options.

Happy Campers

BY MIKE METTLER

At any rate, neither of these

generational markers quite

encapsulate just how wonderful

and sonically fulfilling the

Bandcamp site and service is.

Founded in 2007, Bandcamp

works with multiple-thousands

of artists and labels to provide

music fans with direct access to

digital music and merchandise

with limited interference or

outrageous tacked-on fees.

Lest you think Bandcamp is

some kind of lo-res indie-music

hostel-cum-feeder system, well,

think again. Many Bandcamp

participants provide a myriad of

hi-res download and streaming

options once you’ve decided to

make a purchase.

For example, witness the

contents of the Bandcamp

catalog for one of my favorite

avant-guitarists, Kaki King,

someone whom I’ve yet to hear

play the same thing twice in

any configuration, whether it

be classical or contemporary.

Live at Berklee, King’s April 21,

2017 live session with the Porta

Girevole Chamber Orchestra

at The Red Room @ Café 939

with Kari Juusela conducting,

offers eight different download

options, ranging from lossy

MP3 to lossless FLAC/ALAC

and WAV/AIFF. And the price

remains the same regardless of

what version you choose (more

on that in a bit). A lossless file

of “Magazine,” originally cut for

King’s 2004 Legs to Make Us

Longer longplayer, teems with

fresh drama, from the flurry

Nearby covers a lot of the right

bases, from the strings-and-

choir-driven wishing-well

aspirations of “Be Kind” to the

slow-building smoky-twangy

revelations of “By the Bed.”

Most of you reading this

know how much I love progres-

sive music, so it’s no surprise

that Stick Men—an outward/

forward-thinking trio consisting

of bassist Tony Levin, guitarist

Markus Reuter, and drummer

Pat Masteloo—was an

obvious choice to add to my

Bandcamp collection. That said,

I also wanted to be exposed

to artists whom I wasn’t yet

familiar with, so I took Band-

camp’s suggestion to give

German multi-instrumentalist/

improvisor Andreas Scoy

Böcher a try. While he’s no

Klaus Schulze—yet—the

synth-driven stereo-soundfield

ping-ponger “Rondo for Some

Sleepless Nights,” the expan-

sive opening track to Böcher’s

2014 effort Prog Rock 2.0, was

quite a promising portend of

things to come.

These are but a few of the

artists floating my Bandcamp

boat, so you get the idea. And,

as mentioned earlier, the buy-in

cost is quite appealing. Prices

vary from artist to artist and

project to project, and many

of them also have an “or more”

option. My feeling/advice here:

be as generous as you feel

you can be. The base price

for many Bandcamp artists’

lossless offerings is oen lower

than what you’ll find on other

services, and since you’re

more directly supporting their

livelihood via this portal, you’re

helping them create the best

product they can. Win-win, I say.

For me, Bandcamp is no

holiday excursion or one-off

endeavor—it’s become an

embedded part of my listening

life. Sing it, everyone: “Hello

Muddah, hello Faddah, here I

am at Bandcamp Nirvana.”

and fury of her acoustified intro

notes to playing off the various

volume swells of the string and

horn sections respectively.

Naturally, being the

inveterate and unapologetic

collector that I am, I also wound

up purchasing the Berklee CD

from that very same Bandcamp

page of hers—an option I

particularly like having at my

disposal, especially consid-

ering the fact that King herself

told me she wasn’t sure she’d

ever release this recording

physically, but high fan demand

made it quite necessary.

Aer I saw British slide

guitarist Jack Broadbent open

for Lynyrd Skynyrd and Peter

Frampton in New Jersey in June

2016, I immediately sought out

his work on Bandcamp once I

got home from the show. First,

I scooped up his 2015 offering

Along the Trail of Tears. “Far

Off Galaxy,” recorded on a

Zoom H4n handheld recorder,

is as haunting as any vintage

acoustic blues you’ll hear—a

perfect blend of the man’s

emotive, echo-laden vocals and

aces-high slide-guitar prowess.

Loving what I heard, I went back

and clicked on downloading the

remainder of his digital discog-

raphy, which consisted of 2016’s

ever-poignant Portrait.

On the hunt for more aural

challenges, I was quickly

hooked by the Denver-based

folk duo Alright Alright (a.k.a.

alrightx2) and the consistently

clever male/female dynamic

put forth by the married creative

team of Seth and China Kent.

Their October 2018 release

Depending on your personal demographic identifier—that’s my

semi-PC way of saying “your age bracket”—the word “Bandcamp”

might conjure up some vastly different imagery. To some, it may

evoke thoughts of Allan Sherman’s simple yet clever 1963 Camp

Grenada narrative, “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah.” Others closer to

the millennial designation may conjure up the not-so-innocent sing-

song voice of Alyson Hannigan in 1999’s American Pie, wherein the,

er, adventurous flautist recalled, “This one time, at band camp....”

(Decency regulations prevent us from going any further.)

soundandvision.com (^) [ 23