Mull It Over 010: The Single File
On this Bandcamp Friday - the debut of a new feature looking at our most outstanding single and EP releases from the past month. Featuring Chalk and KNEECAP.
And another Bandcamp Friday is upon us.
Introduced during the days of the pandemic as a way to help artists who could no longer ply their trade, Bandcamp now waives it’s revenue share on the first Friday of each month, in what has become a rare win for both artists and platforms alike in this brutal commodification age of art and music. Notwithstanding the news in late 2023 of Bandcamp succumbing to acquisition and an essential gutting of it’s core staff (I wrote about it here for XSNoize Music), the fact we can still participate in this monthly celebration of independent music, in March 2024, is indisputably a positive thing.
So, to celebrate, I’ve decided to launch a new monthly feature as part of the newsletter. The Single File constitutes a monthly curation of all the notable single and EP releases across Northern Ireland (that I’m aware of - though I would trust me), over the past month or so. The reason I mentioned Bandcamp is that, for as long as we are lucky enough to have it, I will be publishing The Single File on Bandcamp Fridays, in the hope that anyone who reads the publication will be directed, that week at least, to an artist’s page to purchase a song or EP, subverting streaming giants like Spotify or Apple Music in the process. I don’t mind stealing bread, and all that.
Of course I’m being hypocritical. Almost every musician is. My own music is on Spotify. I whore out the Mull It Over Spotify playlist under each article I publish - but this is not borne from superfluity, but from necessity. The simple fact is Bandcamp Fridays are putting money directly in artist’s pockets. For that reason, in this feature I will (where I can) include links to the artist’s Bandcamp page where you can listen to and/or buy the songs directly. Failing that, the Spotify playlist is still below, containing the same songs. It’s not as explicit, but you can still support these artists on those platforms too. It would be cool to check out Bandcamp though; their editorial section alone is a treasure trove of fascinating ideas and sounds from around the world. Spotify has Joe Rogan.
So without further ado, in this inaugural edition of The Single File, here are the songs you need to hear, from Northern Ireland, right now:
Franklin - Bebby
KNEECAP - Sick In The Head
PiNKSLiPS - Ambidextrous
Chalk - Conditions II
Lucy Gaffney - Locked Up Never Fade
Not available on Bandcamp
Virgins - s o f t e r
Rews - Addicted To You
Not available on Bandcamp
King Creeper - Tastes Like Lightning
Cavalier Attitude - Three Lights Out
Not available on Bandcamp
The Breeze - The Whores Of Life
That’s it for Issue 010 (!) of Mull It Over. I’m honestly surprised I made it past the first one. I really can’t thank all of the subscribers enough. Thank you so much. To everyone else who is reading, thank you too. You don’t have to be a subscriber but it strokes the ego and, to be fair, you can just delete the email anyway when it arrives in your inbox.
I hope this is the first of many issues of The Single File. So have a listen to some of the tracks above (or below) and maybe even let me know what you think in the comments.
If you’re new - There are nine back issues of the newsletter for you to get stuck into!
Happy Bandcamp Friday!
Thanks for the Virgins add