Evert’s newsletter is back, sort of.
If you are wondering why you got this in your e-mail, it is because about 5.5 years ago you were nice enough to sign up for my newsletter that promised interesting articles from all across the internet. And after 21 glorious editions, that sort of stopped because I didn’t know what to do with it anymore, and you most likely forgot you were signed up for it.
Now, today, this newsletter that truly hasn’t been named yet shows up in your inbox, and maybe you really weren’t waiting for this. If that is the case, just scroll to the bottom and hit unsubscribe. I’ve turned off all notifications on my end, so I’ll never know. Honestly, I don’t even know who was subscribed to this to begin with.
So, after this truly unique start to a newsletter — where I’m sure I am the first person ever to start with instructions on how to unsubscribe — and since you are still reading, let me tell you my new plan for this newsletter, or should I say my MAGAZINE (oooh aaaah).
Here I will share things that caught my attention, held it for a while, and made me want to write about them. If it so happens that you find something in here that you might like as well, great! If not, I still hope you enjoy spending 5 to 10 minutes reading about something that will most likely be weird, unconventional, obscure or nerdy — but always something that feels unmistakably like the person who made it.
You can expect music, TV, movies, books, podcasts, art, games and whatever else finds its way to me and into this newsletter.
Right now I’m aiming to give you 2 to 3 tips per newsletter (only 1 for today so you can get a little taste), and I’m not pinning myself down to a set schedule but am aiming for about 2 newsletters a month.
Sounds good? I can’t hear you, so I’m going to assume you shouted “Hell yeah!”, apologised to any people near you, and are ready to dive in with me.
Collettivo Sbermuz
Ambient Music from Genoa
That’s right, let’s start off with a bang so this thing can go viral! It’s an art collective from Genoa, Italy that only has a Bandcamp page, an Instagram account and a Youtube Channel where they don’t post a lot.
I’m of course talking about Collettivo Sbermuz, which outwardly seems to be mostly focused on making artsy ambient and instrumental music available mainly on their bandcamp site. Altough some music gets a physical release like the great cosmic rock instrumental album Space Derby by Anduela Keku.
The Collettivo has released numerous albums on their bandcamp page by artists such as Anduela Keku, Memphis, Birth Controllers and Martino di Vietro, as well as a couple of compilation albums. It is ambient that goes into a lot of directions, from slow and brooding techno tracks to guitar that wouldn’t be out of place in a (and I’m really hard not to type spagetthi here, but there it is) western.
The music of Anduela Keku introduced me to the Colletivo on one of my Bandcamp browsing sessions while I was looking for cosmic country (one of my favourite weird genres. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll get into that more in future editions). The digital releases all are pay what you want, so I did. But I quickly saw that they are selling the entire Collettivo Sbermuz discography for €0,98 and that was something my Dutch mind couldn’t let go, so a couple of clicks later I owned 17 albums of Genoa produced ambient music.
Lately I’ve been really into this ambient music that sounds like you are stepping into a room where something is making noise. Maybe it’s the hum of an old fridge or a CRT tv on a static channel. Meanwhile someone is making music in a corner, hoping they won’t disturb anyone. This itch is being scratched a lot as well, like on the live album Panspermia by Birth Controllers where 3 members of the collective do “an in depth look inside the disastrous hurricane of life, watching the enigma of existence dance the waltz of incongruity with the paradoxes of eternal disturbance”. You know what it means, and if you don’t give it a listen because you might like it.
Now not everything there is my taste, I tend to unfairly dismiss techno on genre alone, and probably not yours either. But for 98 cents I think you can take a gamble and maybe find something awesome there. There are some surprisingly well-produced records in there and there is a lot there to just sit back to and do some really deep listening.
A tip within a tip
Here’s my sub-tip: Get a bandcamp account and do some browsing there. Ignore the most popular list and all that, just think about what weird genre you like (or find out what weird sub genre that band you like is in) and listen to some stuff. Mix it up by finding stuff in your region, or a random country using the site’s search filters, and who knows what you’ll find. I can tell from experience that most of the time nothing really stays with you, but when it does, you get to write about it on your newsletter, call it a magazine, and spend a fun saturday afternoon thinking about that great discovery you did. Isn’t that really all you can ask for?
First edition done!
That’s it for this unnamed restart of my newsletter. I hope you enjoyed it. I’ve already got some topics lined up so hopefully a next edition takes another 5 years.
I’m sure there is a subscribe button around here somewhere…