Music is sacred to us, I know... So when will we start treating it as such?
In times of piracy, poor quality youtube uploads and nonexistant depth in most mainstream music, maybe it's time we took a different route for releasing our works of passion to humanity. A route of trust - to build a following of dedicated fans who will start supporting your work in the future - not because you made them but because they chose to.
All music in this post can be found on Ektoplazm.com, a small selection of some of my favorites across multiple psychedelic genres
What is Ektoplazm.com
Ektoplazm is a music hosting and community platform for high quality audio productions, aiming primarily for the smart genres in electronic music.
The site features a large variety of hidden gems in music - uploaded under creative commons to break the old shackles of label-dependancy and bureaucracy in publishing and playing music. The founder DJ Basilisk describes Ektoplazm as “the world’s largest distributor of free and legal psytrance, techno, and downtempo music.”. through the integratedness of many styles in psychedelic music, the genres selection on the side is extremely broad.
Anyone can download your tracks without the obligation to pay.
As some on the site have claimed:
“Free music for free people”
While it may sound like "wasting" your quality production for no income at first, I know of many artists who have put their releases on Ektoplazm before they became quickly noticed and outright revered in the scene. Faster than any single pay release would have done for them. At least considering the small budget most artists start out with.
You could see Ektoplazm as prime tool for building your prestige as an artist - to foster new connections with people who generally dig your music and who want to help it spread after you have made a timeless release - freely accessible to all. The accumulative effects of this cannot be estimated in monetary compensation - especially in times when there are so many artists trying to promote themselves online, often spending lots of money or getting into questionable deals with labels or alleged promotion strategies.
I say: get a quality following now, and have that working in your favor over time.
Even artists who have started on Ektoplazm before eventually moving on to release on their own labels continue to get massive prestige through their Ektoplazm releases. Globular would be one such example - when he first released on ekto I had never heard of him, but I loved it. A few years later his music had travelled across the psychedelic scene and I was super happy and surprised when I stumbled upon him playing a live set at a psy festival in the Netherlands.
Today he consistently fills the entire chill floor.
Community support
Every album and EP on Ektoplazm can be voted on, giving the release 1 out of 5 stars. This can be done without logging in which I find really good to catch people's reaction to any given release, without making them jump through unnecessary hoops on a new site.
There are also filtering options where you can sort the month's most downloaded releases or view single genre categories. Through this and the lively comment section there are effective ways to give your releases the conrete feedback you need to excel with your next production and to build a new network in music.
You can also add links to your donation pages, making it easy for people to support your work financially. Crowdfunding secures the platform's independence and continuous service.
Needless to say, there are many musicians and producers on ektoplazm, just like there are music lovers who "just" come to listen to something fresh.
Like Cybernetika
Multitude of genres, ever increasing
Conscious ambient tales of immersion?
Mindshattering psychedelic trance?
Sacred drum'n'bass?
Ektoplazm is adding genres constantly to cover all aspects of the psychedelic sound spectrum. Its active community can be invaluable in trying to find new cutting edge productions far ahead of the mainstream or to refer to other tracks off site.
The site also offers a quality threshold - anyone can apply for upload but not all relseases will be accepted. Which can be frustrating to new producers, but useful to those who would otherwise get drowned in low quality competition, not having their music gems heard.
It helps to keep the site efficient and alive - the team is constantly quality controlling every submission made to the site and building its reach.
Ektoplazm is also a goldmine of visual artwork of the psychedelic sort as many releases feature amazing designs of transcendence and mind exploration.
Music you probably haven't heard before
If you wish to browse Ektoplazm's genres for some music you didn't know existed you can use the tags on the left side on the main page.
When my first release finally makes it to Ektoplazm, I shall let you guys know^^
In the meantime we can enjoy the great music that already exists on there without any obligation.
I should really write Basilisk an email to start a steemit account ;)
He mixed a 5 hour introduction set which you can find here:
If you want to help out Ektoplazm you can "simply" make a legendary release or tell your friends, buy a shirt and visit their Patreon page below
Thanks for stopping by <3