With Covid-19 making its way across the planet, the global societal response and shutdown has been unprecedented and massive by any comparison. In the United States, the last two months have seen a mottled patchwork of stay-at-home regulations and social distancing enforcement across the nation, and the landscape of concert production is in a particular state of freefall. Amidst tour, event, and festival cancellations and postponements from all sides of the music industry stretching into the indefinite future, musicians, DJ’s, VJ’s, and other content creators have been forced into an altered paradigm. With so much of the population mandated to stay at home, and with no avenues for full-scale live concerts to go on in the foreseeable future, the only consistently viable way to access fans, friends, and social music experiences has been through the internet. Thankfully, gamers, bloggers, knowledge enthusiasts, and general content streamers have been utilizing platforms like Twitch, Discord, VRChat and YouTube to reach their audience for the better part of the last 15 years, working out the kinks on internet tech that we now rely on to stay in musical motion. The switch from the stage to the stream was only momentarily jarring for the electronic music community at large, with some movers and shakers having already been developing/operating their own stream series’ and services for a number of years (we’re looking at you, LostInSound).

However, as the inevitable saturation of the medium takes hold for appreciators and creators of electronic music alike, the question of fiscal security and the material value of unreleased music becomes the center of the conversation. Donations have been somewhat of a financial bedrock for artists who engage through streaming, but it’s long term efficacy as a purely donation-based system is unquestionably doubtful. Some have been experimenting with pay-per-view systems, and others have been rolling out larger inclusive digital packages of recorded concerts and memorabilia. Regardless of the methodology, the underlying want to strike a survivable balance between instant, unfettered global reach and financial sustainment is no less than pervasive.

As the wider community has rallied around this new format of music appreciation, immersion, and consumption, The Rust Music began the Featherbed Sessions in order to provide a direct platform for content creators to engage with fans old and new. Nearly two weeks ago, we teamed up with Jade Cicada and Tenorless to craft a meticulous, explorative musical and visual experience. Enlisting the additional firepower of Detox Unit and Theron Prey, Resonant Language and DRO1D, Smigonaut and The Void, Base2 and Steven Haman, and Schmoop and Cullen Hassel, each pairing crafted a curated DJ set in line with a specific theme. From Jade’s cinematic expedition, to Smigonaut’s jazzified jaunt, to Base2’s classic downbeat throwback set, the entire six hour experience made for an emulsified journey into the inspirations and deep selections of a team of top calibre music and visual producers.

Their combined creative energies were aimed at raising funds for Direct Relief, a non-profit organization putting fresh Personal Protective Equipment into action across hospitals and emergency rooms in the United States. In the aftermath of the evening, Featherbed Sessions VI raised nearly $8,000 in donations, reaching the screens of over 21,000 people across the globe. While those numbers are cause to celebrate in their own right, the pot gets even sweeter; Jade Cicada and Tenorless have decided to release their full hour set in perpetuity, and have gone on the record discussing a bit of the process behind developing their curated Featherbed installation.

You can find the set broken down track by track in this Spotify Playlist

Jade Cicada

The Rust: What was the process for deciding the musical direction of the evening? Did you know who you'd want off the bat?

Jade Cicada: I consider everyone on this lineup to be some of my best friends. I talk to pretty much all of them every day, so they were obviously the first people who came to mind. I also have a really small private discord group with producer homies, and I asked all of them to see who was down. I really trust their abilities and their tastes, and we all discussed directions for each other’s sets together.

The Rust: Why choose to go with DJ sets?

Jade Cicada: With so many people in isolation, I basically wanted to curate a really diverse evening with tons of new artists for listeners to latch onto. I hoped that this would expand the crowd’s horizons beyond just bass music. That’s why we included full tracklists and Spotify playlists, in the hopes that people would go out and support these artists with a stream, a follow, a purchase, etc. Which sort of segues into the state of the music industry right now. The music industry has been constantly shafting artists over time. Gigs became the musician’s main source of income, and the best way to present new material to people. Streams tend to further de-value original content because it’s free for everyone who doesn’t feel like donating. I feel that if everyone is constantly doing streams, relying on donations, and playing loads of unreleased original material, it runs the risk of further devaluing the art that they put so much time and effort into.

The Rust: Can you speak about some of the inspirations behind your ambient performance?

Jade Cicada: My first true musical love was classical music, and that’s always really stuck with me. So as soon as I started to discover these cinematic ambient type producers, I was in awe. Combining awesome sound design, fantastic sound staging and imagery, felt piano, strings, and beautiful chord progressions and melodies really hits me emotionally more than any other genre of music I’ve ever heard. I try to incorporate a lot of these elements into my own music, and you might notice I tend to begin and end a lot of my original sets in this manner. I never get the chance to do a purely harmony and melody driven set, mainly because I simply don’t have an hour to fill with original cinematic ambient tunes yet. All the music that I played has touched me deeply and inspired me in one way or another, and I hoped it would do the same for the listeners in this time of uncertainty.

The Rust: Can you talk about the charity you selected to receive the donated funds from the event?

Jade Cicada: Pretty much all you hear about during this whole situation is how incredibly unprepared our government was for this kind of event. We wanted to find a way to support the medical community who desperately needs the PPE to continue to save lives. We also took a vote in The Swarm to see what charity fans would be most willing to support, and the fans decided PPE for medical professionals. That was my first choice as well.

The Rust: What is the benefit of curating experiences for live streams versus curating experiences for concerts?

Jade Cicada: Well, typically when I’m curating a concert there’s a lot more people involved, and a lot of the work gets passed onto other people. I basically discuss with my manager who I’d like to have out for the event, and he’ll make all the moves contacting those artists’ agents. With this live stream, it was pretty much me and Joe (Tenorless) overseeing everyone, and trying to manage artists is kind of a nightmare (big ups to all the managers out there dealing with us lol). Making sure 12 different people are all on schedule and have everything finished on time is super stressful. I much prefer curating live concerts because all I need to do is look out for myself and focus on my own set, and let my manager handle the rest. There are some nice things about live streams though. I really enjoyed being able to sit down and watch everyone’s sets. I’m never able to do that at curated concerts for one reason or another. It was also really touching to see people’s reactions in chat. It’s one thing to see people jumping around in the crowd having a good time from a distance, it’s another to see people’s thoughts in real time. It was really quite beautiful to experience everyone’s stream of consciousness as the night progressed, and see how happy and thankful everyone was. It was also hilarious to see people complaining during music that made them uncomfortable, and the confusion when my set had hardly any beats.

Tenorless

The Rust: How often do you get to handle the musical material before the performance itself?

Tenorless: Not often. There’s been a few performances where i get to sit down with the musician beforehand and plan things out, but the majority of the time i'm just as clueless as the audience as to what song comes next.

The Rust: What kinds of choices do you make when creating a visual experience in the studio versus on the stage?

Tenorless: On stage I have to strategize and make split second decisions on what content to drop when during a performance. With this set I had about a week, so I was able to make those same decisions over a much longer timeframe and put more intention into the final product. I think there’s a sort of magic to live performance in general that can’t be replaced, but by making this at home I had time to edit footage like a movie and match the cinematic soundtrack Skyler put together.

The Rust: How do you source your non-original material?

Tenorless: I’ve recently started incorporating art from the public domain in my work, so much high quality, freely remixable content can be found by exploring online art archives. For example, in this set I used plant illustrations from an old japanese science journal, reference tables from a 1700’s encyclopedia called cyclopædia, and stock footage of natural landscapes to blend with digital textures. Other than this, the set was 100% original content.

The Rust: Can you talk about the charity you selected to receive the donated funds from the event?

Tenorless: PPE for medical staff is a need that is constantly increasing as this crisis continues, and our country's hospitals are getting hit especially hard. So many medical staff across the nation are on the frontline every day fighting the pandemic, and without proper protective equipment they are forced to put themselves at even greater risk. Direct Relief’s response to COVID-19 has been incredibly impressive, by tackling medical supply chain issues through GIS maps and demographic research they ensure the protective gear they provide gets sent to areas that are expected to need it most. The more well-thought out a non-profit’s strategy is, the more efficiently they use their donations to reach their goals, so this played a big factor in choosing Direct Relief.

The Rust: What is the benefit of curating experiences for live streams versus curating experiences for concerts?

Tenorless: When making visuals for concerts the format is fairly set in stone, the musician plays an hour of music on stage, i provide an hour of visuals behind them. If we are playing a venue we follow the same tried and true system of experiencing live performance that has been around since the early days of theater. Though this system works rather well, it naturally begins to metamorphose once the factor of physical space is removed. There isn’t currently a standard format for live streaming music, which can lead to many unique outcomes: last month I went to an incredible concert in minecraft, this weekend i'm watching friends play a dome show in VRChat. I think what excites me most about the internet at the moment are the artists who are taking this opportunity of social distancing to push the boundaries of how audiovisual art is traditionally consumed.

As the progression of the world’s state of lockdown remains in flux, there’s no clear consensus on when we will be able to gather in our traditional massives, burns, clubs, and parties. The question of survival for musicians, visual producers, and their innumerable supporting crews is fresh on our minds and in our conversations, but the resilience of the community at large has proved to be undeniably potent. As the acclimation to a future even more deeply rooted in digital mediums and instant access takes hold, the live music experience is undergoing a 21st-century revolution, and acts like Jade Cicada and Tenorless are taking the opportunity to redefine their approach to delivering their creative visions to the hearts, minds, eyes, and ears of their respective fans and friends. While we’re all still gathering our bearings in this period of uncertainty, our ability to navigate this new paradigm will hopefully strengthen day by day, bringing on new and exciting experiences in the wake of new and turbulent challenges.

FOLLOW Jade Cicada: Bandcamp / Spotify / Facebook

FOLLOW Tenorless: Facebook / Instagram