Archives

Acoustic Folk

For Each Song I Create a New Character

by Ben Richel


During my childhood in Savoie, France, most of my free time was devoted to one activity: imagination. I imagine grandiose destinies but also standard and common stories: From fishermen in the Philippines to Western rockstars, from 19th-century wars to post-collapse scenarios, from my Star Wars spin-offs to projecting myself on stage later… I could imagine revolutionary flying machines, and the same day imagine the realistic routine of the today’s French middle class (I am myself in the middle, like Malcolm!)

For me, everything is interesting.

My life has been built by imagining and connecting lives. It was obvious that one day I would invent characters, partly because expressing my whole personality cannot be done by simply embodying a predefined, cliché role given by society.

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Vita=Life, Beats=Music – The whole story of the Vitabeats 1980-2023

by Andrew Barnum

Andrew Barnum with Lissa, aka Vitrabeats


Lissa and I began performing and recording together in Los Angeles in 1980. Our first band was called ‘Live Nude Girl’ formed during the post-punk era. Angular, with arcane drum-machines, synths, guitars, and theatrical graphic visuals. I am an American-born Australian, who grew up in Sydney, went to design school in Melbourne, then after starting my career in visual communication design, relocated to the USA to freelance in design and get serious about song writing. To find collaborators, starting bands, and doing solo singer-songwriter spots around LA, while designing in the daytime.

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Lying By Myself

by Pete Hobbs aka Diving At Dawn

Pete Hobbs aka Diving At Dawn

In October 2022, I made Diving At Dawn’s 2010 debut single A Lot Like Love available on Spotify for the first time. I pitched the track to some playlists via a site called Groover and was surprised and pleased with the response; it started getting plays and picking up some fans. This modest interest in the song got me thinking about recording and releasing some new material.

Diving At Dawn has always been a frustrating stop-start affair for me. I’ve never been able to be genuinely productive and build momentum with it because I find working alone so tricky. As part of a band or production team, I’m pretty efficient, but when the responsibility falls solely upon my shoulders, I become a procrastinating perfectionist of epic proportions. The lack of productivity in my solo work has caused me a fair bit of anxiety over the years, but I’ve always been busy enough with other projects to distract myself. However, in 2022 my anxiety levels went through the roof. Unfortunately, age, experience, budget constraints, and technology have all conspired against me, thus turning Diving At Dawn into a genuine one-person band.

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The heyoka chants but who’s listening?

by The Pilgrim

Heyoka Chants by The Pilgrim


The Pilgrim is the artistic name I gave myself as a singer-songwriter and guitar player because I’ve done and studied so many different stuff, lived in many places, traveled and changed my life more than once. I’ve lived many lives in one, in the search for myself, guided by inspiration, challenging myself, learning so much and preserving my essence and sensitivity.

I live for freedom, truth, justice, compassion and altruism. I want to get moved, I want to cultivate special experiences, relationships and feelings, I want to investigate the dark sides of the soul.

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The Window Seat

by Joe Holtaway

More The Love That's Given by Joe Holtaway


They sat in that window seat for 5 days as we moved through the house as normal, 106 Erlanger Road in London. We had a pact in that house that came from somewhere deeply rooted, you could feel it in the wooden corridors, in the table, the cups and furniture, it said, you’re ok – whatever is happening inside and outside, we got you.

15 of us shared the space, the landlord, living out in the countryside, set it up years before to be a kind of sanctuary I guess. They interviewed prospective tenants and also trusted friends of friends to fill the rooms.

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Heartfelt and Light-Hearted

by Al Barnes

Heartfelt and Light-Hearted by Al Barnes
I grew up in a small town in Minnesota called Elbow Lake. There wasn’t a whole lot to do in the “sticks” of MN, so I found love in rock ‘n’ roll at an early age through my older brother’s music collection. He moved out when I was young, joined the Air Force and was stationed in England when I was in middle school, so our family took a trip overseas to see him. When I got there, he showed me his electric guitar. I picked it up, and he showed me a couple of licks. I played that damn thing the rest of the time I was there. My parents heard me playing it the whole weekend and later that year, for Xmas, I got my first guitar. I was obsessed. I quit all sports and just focused on that.

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My Title is Singer-Songwriter

by Jason Buice

My Title is Singer-Songwriter by Jason Buice

I get asked several times a day what I do for work, and this is while I’m on the job. I make most of my money as a rideshare driver, but I consider myself a singer-songwriter and musician. So when the question comes up, “Is this your full-time job?” I happily reply part-time and ask if they would like to hear my music. I’ve made some great connections this way, and it really helped me prepare for the release of my new ep “Both Sides.”

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Believe in Your Ability to Lead a Creative Life

by Maylin Lei

Believe in Your Ability to Lead a Creative Life by Maylin Lei

Credits to ilyaimy.com for providing the cover picture

My EP, When Pigs Fly, is the first body of music I’ve ever released. I purchased my first guitar little over a year and a half ago and only began writing songs after a year of learning to play guitar. However, when I found out how enjoyable it was to write songs, I knew that I was onto something.

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Girls Against The Grain

by Girl Gang

Girls Against The Grain by Girl Gang
Pretty early on in life, we both figured out that it was okay to challenge the rules. It seemed that people loved to tell us HOW the world worked, but nobody knew WHY it worked the way it did. Why did we have to wear dresses and have pink things?

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