When I first chimed in to encourage @icaria36 to go ahead with this project, I mentioned the idea of doing a selecteh for kiwi music. Problem is, for now, most kiwi artists are still hosted on DataFarming platforms, not the fair music services Selecteh was set up to champion.
For now, I’ll continue to promote the social music concept and services to kiwi musicians, in the hopes of getting to the point where a kiwi music selecteh is viable. As well as helping @icaria36 as best I can with figuring out which music hosting ought to be included in selectehs, and how to efficiently find new releases on them.
@strypey Thank you so much for your support since the first moment!
After roughly a couple of months I continue being convinced that sticking to the list of fair platforms is key, not falling for the Bandcamp/Soundcloud temptation.
Also, when someone has made the effort of publishing to Bandcamp / Soundloud on top of whatever Spotify etc via a paid distributor… they have everything ready to create an album on Mirlo / Subvert / Bandwagon. Copy & paste and upload mp3s + cover, it will take them 15 minutes if so, at no extra cost. The point is that they understand why, and if the reason is that finally someone might review them…
What is debatable is the factor of the artists selected being in the Fediverse or not. For Electre Selecteh I have set it as a requirement, which has caused the “loss” of some good albums but also got some curious minds to create their first Mastodon, and in a couple of cases to reactivate one that they had dormant since years ago. But in other cases making this a requirement woulf make finding a critical mass of selectable music almost impossible in the short term.
But no matter what, selectehs only communicate on the Fediverse. This might become a factor of attraction perhaps.
One potential advantage of a narrower scope like Aotearoa (vs “electronic music”) is that the sense of community is likely to become sooner and tighter. And if the selecteh is considered cool and useful, word spreads more easily.
Sorry, this is getting long. I suggest you start collecting silently, a few weeks, and see what you find? You could start with the reviews on the Fediverse as they come, and if there isn’t enough beef for a monthly, maybe see whether a quarterly is feasible? I think the wait is worth it if the end result looks like Electre Selecteh 1 (which according to feedback causes a good impression even before people actually listens to the music).
You’re very welcome. I love to see people start new projects, and I love it even more when they actually get to launch (I’m still working on breaking the habit of starting more projects than I can follow through on).
100%. What I’ve found with fediverse.party is that it helps to have a clear set of criteria published somewhere, as well as lists of what’s in and out. For Selecteh that’s going to be important for giving authors a benchmark against which to compare any new music hosts we discover (eg SignalFlow). Also, when the criteria and the thinking behind them is clearly documented, there’s a solid basis for discussion if someone thinks they need tweaking or updating.
Well, any artist on a FunkWhale, BandWagon or Mirlo service is already in the fediverse, right? Or are we insisting artists have a separate social account as well? In my social music vision, all fair music hosts would eventually follow Mirlo’s example and add AP interop, so an artist’s account there can also be used for a fediverse social feed.
I’ve already been doing this, sort of, for a kiwi CC music wikipage and for my interview on the Deep INsessioNZ show a few months ago. That’s why I’m pretty sure monthly isn’t an option yet.
How important is the regularity to the spirit of what a Selecteh is? I could definitely put together one a year. Would that be adequate as a starting point? Hopefully, as you say, its existence would motivate more people to investigate fair music hosts and the fediverse.
Yes, but a lot of the music featured on Electre Selecteh comes from Subvert, and there it’s a different story. Many artists have never heard of the Fediverse, some are curious and ready to try, some curious but not now, and many are not interested.
Not important. I think what is important is to stay true to your filter of criteria and taste, so that only music that fits your criteria and your taste goes through this filter for what is casually reviewed on the Fediverse posts. Those posts can come whenever you have them, and they constitute the basis of the actual selecteh publication. For that publication it is important to follow the guideline and sort. I think this is what makes a list of recommendations and selecteh. Not the periodicity.
Maybe you could start with an account on https://f.selecteh.org to start accumulating reviews and followers? And whenever you think you are ready for the first selecteh, we setup the Ghost instance for it.
Brilliant. I’m pretty sure I can achieve a ‘year in review’ post each year to start with, and grow from there. I used to write a quarterly newsletter for the local rainbow gatherings, so I’m pretty confident I could pull that off once I’m resettled (see below).
Cool. Full disclosure, it probably won’t happen quickly. I’ve got bunch of life admin and decluttering to finish before moving to a new town, and a couple of family events to prepare for and travel to (family being so far away is part of the reason I’m relocating). When I have time for focused online work in the next couple of months, it will probably mostly go into long-overdue fediverse.party updates.
But I will keep Selecteh in mind, and talk to friends in the music communities here about it. Maybe try to write my first ‘year in review’ style post in late Nov/ early Dec, or failing that in late Jan/ early Feb, after I get home and recover from the New Year’s rave I work at
(I’m still working on breaking the habit of starting more projects than I can follow through on).
I think what is important is to stay true to your filter of criteria and taste, so that only music that fits your criteria and your taste goes through this filter for what is casually reviewed on the Fediverse posts. Those posts can come whenever you have them, and they constitute the basis of the actual selecteh publication. For that publication it is important to follow the guideline and sort. I think this is what makes a list of recommendations and selecteh. Not the periodicity.
