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About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off
- dspearson 3y agoThis is a naïve question, but why on earth are unions isolated to one company so often in USA? Surely an industry-wide solution would be more effective.
- femiagbabiaka 3y agoIndustry-wide unions have been stomped out over time, some by direct actions from companies or the government, some from corruption, some from propaganda campaigns. It is one of the many sad parts of being in the U.S.
- wwarner 3y agoIt's not a US thing, in my opinion. The industry based unions are currently very strong and some are on strike right now (nurses, auto workers, writers, actors). To me the idea of forming a new union to target a single employer seems like a losing strategy.
- noirbot 3y agoI don't know the history exactly, but my assumption is that trying to bootstrap an industry-wide union from nothing is exceedingly difficult, while making one at a single company is much more viable. Presumably the idea would be to merge the company-specific ones into industry ones after they're more stable.
- cushpush 3y agoMusic discovery does not have many ambitious players in it due to the lack of potential upside, but I'm doing it anyway: https://remuse.co https://remuse.co
- chimeracoder 3y agoBandcamp voted to unionize in March, although they are still fighting for recognition, as Epic has refused to recognize it so far (last I checked). I wonder who involved in that was affected by the layoffs.
- djmips 3y agoAs hinted at in another comment Bandcamp was sold by Epic to Songtradr AFAIK.
- accrual 3y agoI too wonder how this will affect the platform. I've always been a fan of how Bandcamp was operated in the past (access to high quality lossless audio, directly support the artist, nice app, etc). This was interesting: > Bandcamp United is looking forward to bargaining with Songtradr in the near future regarding wages, working conditions, and benefits. It’s our hope that Songtradr honors our existing progress (including Union Security and and preserving our artist first mission in our Collective Bargaining Agreement) that we’ve already made at the bargaining table. https://pitchfork.com/news/epic-games-sells-bandcamp-amid-layoffs/ https://pitchfork.com/news/epic-games-sells-bandcamp-amid-la...
- chimeracoder 3y ago> I too wonder how this will affect the platform. It turns out that all Bandcamp United members were laid off. https://www.404media.co/bandcamps-entire-union-bargaining-team-was-laid-off/ https://www.404media.co/bandcamps-entire-union-bargaining-te...
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- JohnFen 3y agoAnd the small hope I have that BandCamp would remain a good thing after SongTradr acquired them grows even smaller.
- brink 3y agoI use Bandcamp a lot. Tbh, if I had acquired Bandcamp, in efforts for streamlining, I probably would have laid the editors off too. I've never read a single bandcamp article. Did anyone actually read them, especially enough to justify their cost?
- diggan 3y ago> I use Bandcamp a lot. Same here. I wasn't even aware Bandcamp had articles! But I basically just navigate to specific labels/artists/albums, buy what I need and resync my local backup of my collection.
- dylan604 3y agoI'm not a bandcamp user, so maybe this is an obvious question, but if bandcamp were to shutter operations, would the files in your local backup still be usable by you?
- piperswe 3y agoYes, the Bandcamp files are fully DRM-free. You can download the music in just about any DRM-free format, I always go with FLAC. The FLAC files are exactly the same as any other FLAC file, just losslessly compressed samples.
- dylan604 3y agoMaybe I should pay attention in case Bandcamp continues to stumble, and take advantage of any fire sales to which that might lead.
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- shmerl 3y agoBandcamp is where I go to buy DRM-free FLAC music. I hope they won't shut it down.
- Zambyte 3y ago7digital is another source I often use.
- ulrikrasmussen 3y agoI used to use them too, but they closed their EU store so Bandcamp is the only option for me now. Yes, Apple and Amazon might also be options, but I haven't ever done business with either and I don't intend to begin.
- piperswe 3y agoQobuz operates in (and is based out of) the EU.
- Pxtl 3y ago7digital was also bought by songtradr this year. Presumably Songtradr is making a big play on owning online music stores.
- aendruk 3y agoThis 7digital? https://0x0.st/HJov.png https://0x0.st/HJov.png I get the impression they really don’t want me to figure out how to buy music from them.
- Zambyte 3y agoThis 7digital: https://us.7digital.com/ https://us.7digital.com/
- piperswe 3y agoQobuz is another option, but I always prefer Bandcamp because Qobuz's UI is pretty bad and it constantly corrupts my session such that I need to clear the site's cookies to do anything.
- basisword 3y agoI’m not sure how I feel about this as regards the product. As a user, I’m happy for it to just be maintained. It doesn’t need new features, it doesn’t need editorial stuff, it just needs to continue functioning as it has done for a long time. As long as there are enough staff to fix bugs and keep it running…that seems like a good thing. Better than the risk of people changing it for little reason.
- radlad 3y agoIt's worth noting Bandcamp was sold to Songtradr last month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37695035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37695035 This doesn't seem like a good thing to me, as a user.
- basisword 3y agoYeah I was aware of that. I can’t see a reason to buy it and layoff staff other than “maintenance mode” though. Songtradr do licensing so having that catalogue available to them seems very useful.
- silenced_trope 3y agoApparently staffers are trying to unionize. Assuming they want to run it maintenance mode and have it not burn a hole in their pocket, they probably want people not pushing for raising wages, benefits, etc. in the future or now -- they'll likely sell off what remains to private equity or maybe try to get AI to run the show.
- piperswe 3y agoStaffers did unionize, the union is trying to negotiate with the new owner.
- freedomben 3y agoAt what point is a shop a union shop though? Is it when they vote to unionize, or when the union receives recognition and a collective bargaining agreement? (That's not a rhetorical question, I'm genuininely interested in it from a philosophical and/or legal point of view)
- throwaway290 3y agoIt was not spectacular for a while according to musicians who sell there, and decision to sell out was just icing. Will there be a good faith player in this niche for once?
- radlad 3y agoI wonder what challenges Bandcamp faced here. Is it really that management wasn't serving the market in good faith, or was there a problem with profitability?
- amrocha 3y agoThere's no indication that they faced any problems at all. Epic bought them when investment money was abundant, they probably made an offer that the owners couldn't refuse. A year later, cash is harder to come by, epic sells off businesses that aren't core. Songtrader, facing the same market conditions as epic, sees layoffs as a cost cutting measure regardless of profitability.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoAccording to what musicans? where? What is it the icing on top of? ps. I'm a very tiny musician on BC. I know of no changes that altered BC's utility for me as someone with an album there, or as an avid purchaser of recorded music.
- throwaway290 3y agoFriends run a band professionally (aka music is their job), they say it's scammy in how they charge their fees, leading to very small or zero revenue compared to other platforms. They say Bandcamp is good at selling physical merch including vinyl, but not digital music
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoI have no idea what their experience is, but is absolutely not my experience on BC (selling digital music) nor that of anyone else I know. They have the best margin-to-artist of any music distribution system I am aware of.
- winternett 3y agoAs a musician once on there, I joined, spent a lot of time carefully designing my page and uploading my catalogue, and then I paid $20 a month for their premium service for absolutely no traction on the site beyond external promotion I did. The UI on BandCamp has been vastly outdated for ages now, it was very hard to navigate and find new music by genre. i only go there to buy music if I have a direct link. It's a pre-soundcloud site, and even soundcloud (with a superior UI) was going broke years ago. I was unaware they had a staff of developers, I envision most of them were on the bench most of the time. Bandcamp doesn't even allow YouTube video embedding for music videos, which is a huge mistake alone. Music platforms should be heavily promoting any independent artist that pays them a monthly fee... They seem to think that monthly subscription money form hard working artists is simply for extra file storage above free accounts. I can't wait until something far better with an artist focus comes along, and no that is not Spotify.
- hamburglar 3y agoI’m not sure where you got the idea that the premium service included promotion. Last I looked, the subscription simply unlocked some specific features. If you just paid for it and hoped that meant your band was going to be promoted, you threw your money away, but that hardly seems like bandcamp’s fault.
- ezconnect 3y agoHe's thinking of engagement and discovery like youtube or the old MySpace experience for independent music creators. People land on the page and discover new artists and easy discovery of new ones.
- hamburglar 3y agoOk, but still, that isn’t something bandcamp claims to do. How can one be upset they didn’t get that?
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- wutwutwat 3y agoBandcamp is an odd site. It's existed for a very long time and is simple (or was when I last used it a couple years ago) in terms of application requirements. Basically what I'm saying is it feels very much like a rails app you could build in a weekend. Direct upload mastered files to s3 from the artists, activejob to convert to various formats and throw back to s3 via activestorage, subdomain model scoping for artist pages, stripe integration for payments. Bandcamp has always felt like it should be someone's lifestyle business, like gumroad, and never seemed like it was trying to be a "business" that needed to add features or obsess over hyper hocky stick growth. If it tanks it's because it should have stayed as a weekend side project lifestyle business and never been bought by someone that wanted to convert it into a money printing machine because it never can be that type of business. With that said, if they do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 :)
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago> With that said, if they do do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 :) The back catalog of independent music on that site would be a huge loss. Every single artist would need to find and agree on that mythical hobby site, it would have to be able to handle the rapid growth if they were able to re-locate. I agree it should have stayed simple, but we continue to believe that things should grow forever or die in the doomed attempt, so we will never have nice things.
- diggan 3y ago> With that said, if they do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 :) The technology probably could be replicated in a weekend, but as always, Bandcamp is more than just the technology. Labels, artists and the community trust(ed?) them as a place where people got treated more fairly and it wasn't focused solely on growth of the platform. To replicate that same thing that Bandcamp created might take the same amount of time, ~15 years.
- adventured 3y ago> With that said, if they do tank, it can seriously be replaced by someone in a weekend, maybe 2 It can't. The classic HN mistake here is to think the difficulty in replacement is engineering / building it. That's pretty much never the actual case. Engineering it [0] is the easiest part of building a replacement. [0] this part: "Direct upload mastered files to s3 from the artists, activejob to convert to various formats and throw back to s3 via activestorage, subdomain model scoping for artist pages, stripe integration for payments."
- diggan 3y agoJudging by the Bandcamp United's (Union about to form at Bandcamp) feed, it seems they were nearing the completion of their initial steps to ask SongTradr to recognize and negotiate with the union. The "Last Call" post was made just 4 days ago: https://union.place/@bandcampunited/111219165521125342 https://union.place/@bandcampunited/111219165521125342 Wonder if it ever got started or SongTradr tried to nip this whole thing in the bud?
- NewJazz 3y agoCould this be considered a union busting action? Especially if the union was planning to negotiate for remote work. Edit: previously said strike breaking instead of union busting.
- stronglikedan 3y agoPerhaps not, if the union is not yet recognized.
- OkayPhysicist 3y agoA union does not need to be recognized for anti-union actions to be illegal. There are a lot of protections in place around the protection of the worker's right to unionize, and if you get anywhere close to infringement you're in for a world of hurt. If the union / workers attempting to form a union can demonstrate that the company knew about the union, and show that the action adversely affected the ability of the workers to unionize, then they definitely have a pretty strong foundation for a lawsuit.
- lesuorac 3y ago> if you get anywhere close to infringement you're in for a world of hurt. I wouldn't hold my breath [1] about that. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+nlrb+violation https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+nlrb+violation
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- artursapek 3y agoInterest rates can’t go down soon enough innit
- WXLCKNO 3y agoFacts may be different but it doesn't feel like any lessons were learned. 10+ years of free money and excess and less than two years into higher rates without any significant market correction for stocks or housing we should lower interest again?
- rgrieselhuber 3y agoThis can’t be a hard business to replicate right?
- nerdponx 3y agoTechnically possible, but Bandcamp is like Myspace was, and like Purevolume was before Myspace. It's the default place for small independent artists and labels to post and sell their music.
- constantly 3y agoNo. And neither is Twitter, Facebook, or Threads. Anyone can replicate all of these apps in a weekend. If you’re talking about the difficulty of attracting a bunch of paying users, building trust in your platform, working through payments and fraud, then yeah it’s monumentally hard and takes a long time.
- drewbeck 3y agoI don’t see Bandcamp having nearly the same network effects as those social media sites tho. Yes there are some elements — trust I think is the big one — but there’s very little if any relationship model on Bandcamp.
- toomuchtodo 3y agohttps://nitter.net/modernistwitch/status/1713962311579234428 https://nitter.net/modernistwitch/status/1713962311579234428 https://archive.today/KY8rh https://archive.today/KY8rh
- Night_Thastus 3y agoI'm really bummed. I love Bandcamp. It's the only place I can buy music FROM THE MUSICIAN with very little overhead, and download a high-quality lossless track. Amazon only lets me buy crap-quality MP3s. Apple is opaque about it, putting either lossy AAC or lossless ALAC in the same M4A containers. >:( The only good alternative is Qobuz, which is frustrating to use and charges absolutely massive overhead. But unfortunately it feels like Bandcamp keeps getting screwed over somehow or another. Most people these days want to stream, not to buy and download. :(
- dfxm12 3y agoOne can stream on bandcamp, through an app or the browser
- fsckboy 3y agocan one stream a mix of music sourced elsewhere and bandcamp music? If people have to keep switching apps, I think that's going to limit the appeal to people who are a bit more serious/intentional about every "listen". There's a lot of those, but it's still a minority.
- npteljes 3y agoWhile not automatic, YouTube Music can do this. You can basically upload your own music. Create playlists that mix yt songs and songs in your collection. You can upload on one machine, and access the uploaded song from anywhere, so you're basically using their cloud.
- jbaber 3y agoWait, really? Won't I get accused of pirating my CDs? Is it officially okay to rip my CDs to a cloud provider?
- npteljes 3y agoI can tell you that I wasn't accused, but that it's also for private consumption only, no way to share the songs, so they might not be that strict. No idea though. You can read about the feature here: https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/answer/9716522 https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/answer/9716522
- AdmiralAsshat 3y agoHas anyone ever tried writing something into their company's sale contract that says 100% of staff must be retained for some duration of time to prevent new overlords from doing exactly this? Obviously in Bandcamp's case this probably would not have helped, since they had already "sold" themselves to Epic before being offloaded to Songtradr. I'm just trying to think of how one could reasonably, enforceably stop an acquiring company from doing this to the acquired company as soon as the ink is dry on the acquisition.
- metamet 3y agoThis does happen. One strategy the acquiring company will use to sidestep it is enacting an internal reorg, where staff are assigned to new roles they may not want to fulfill, passively encouraging them to find employment elsewhere.
- Pxtl 3y agoGod damn. Bandcamp is where I get my music wherever possible - they're an amazing platform and product and I like the fact that my purchases are going to support the actual artists instead of vanishing into the Google or Spotify machinery. I knew it was possible after the Epic sale that they'd get screwed, but this worse than I expected.
- freedomben 3y agoThis was my first reaction, but on thinking more I think this might end up being positive. Bandcamp is where I look first for music, and increasingly new releases are never there. It's great for music released in the mid 2010s, but it has without question been slowly dying. Hopefully somebody who cares is going to resurrect it. I'm probably being too optimistic, but it's a nice psychological blanket
- philipov 3y agoAnyone got a link that doesn't involve the company formerly known as Twitter?
- politelemon 3y agohttps://kotaku.com/epic-games-bandcamp-layoffs-songtradr-fortnite-music-1850931222 https://kotaku.com/epic-games-bandcamp-layoffs-songtradr-for...
- chunk_waffle 3y agoAnyone have some good alternatives for downloading loseless and DRM free music from artists? For Japanese artist I use ototoy.jp but that's a small subset of my library. Guess I better get what's on my wish list while I can!
- callalex 3y agoThe iTunes Store never went away and fits your description.
- diggan 3y agoHow much of my money goes to the artists when I purchase with iTunes Store? If I recall correctly, Bandcamp gives ~80% usually to the artists, except on Bandcamp Fridays when they give ~90% to the artists (waiving their own fee).
- callalex 3y agoI don’t think it’s a fixed amount, it’s negotiated and not public information.
- diggan 3y agoYou're right. The numbers I had in mind were averages: > on Bandcamp Fridays, an average of 93% of your money reaches the artist/label (after payment processor fees). When you make a purchase on any other day (as millions of you have, with more than $1 billion now paid directly to artists), an average of 82% reaches the artist/label. https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-fridays-update https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-fridays-update
- callalex 3y agoOh I was talking about iTunes. Now we’re both learning something new :)
- locusofself 3y agoSad to see what has happened to BandCamp. My only gripe with BandCamp is the 128kbps streaming of full songs without purchase. If you are hell-bent on allowing full songs to be streamed before someone buys, just go all-in and allow full quality.
- freedomben 3y agoThe purpose of that is to allow previewing before purchase, which IMHO is a wonderful feature and is the big reason I used to use Napster. If I liked some of the songs, I'd buy the album. I do the exact same thing now on Bandcamp. https://get.bandcamp.help/hc/en-us/articles/360007902173-I-heard-you-can-steal-music-on-Bandcamp-What-are-you-doing-about-this- https://get.bandcamp.help/hc/en-us/articles/360007902173-I-h... https://newmusicstrategies.com/but-if-they-steal-it/ https://newmusicstrategies.com/but-if-they-steal-it/
- sleepybrett 3y agogotta get it done before november, companies catch a lot of shit if they do layoffs in november or especially december.
- thefascistleft 3y ago[dead]
- iainctduncan 3y agoBackground, I work in diligence for software aquisitions. There are a lot of assumptions on this thread. I don't know the answers in this case (not sure if anyone does?) but I think it is naive to assume that Bandcamp was wise to be employing all these people. While acquisitions tanking a company with stupid decisions are super common, it's also super common for companies who are trying to look like they are growing (for future funding or acquisitions) to have way too much staff (and thus, high a burn rate) instead of running a sensible, profitable business. It is not necessarily a good thing that they have tons of employees - sometimes it's entirely motivated by putting lipstick on a pig in order to look like a runaway growth success thing. Songtradr is in the music infrastructure business. I think it's quite possible they are cleaning house to make Bandcamp a more viable business that is actually focused on their core business. Doesn't seem impossible to me that Bandcamp was way off base trying to make too much written content when really, it's about selling music. But I'm spitballing here, anyone know more about whether Bandcamp was bloated?
- NewJazz 3y agoIsn't the pre-IPO / pre-acquisition playbook to cut staff lower than the optimum level to show profitability? But I'm spitballing here, anyone know more about whether Bandcamp was bloated? Bandcamp was shown to be profitable quite recently. Hard to justify slashing staff in half with that in mind.
- theolivenbaum 3y agoFrom what I see, it's exactly the opposite. It's more like we hired all these people because we're growing so fast, so please give us money
- heleninboodler 3y agoThat doesn't sound like a powerful negotiating position, though; it sounds like desperation. Why would you do that intentionally?
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- moneywoes 3y agoReading about a lot of layoffs today from Linkedin Bandcamp and more. Hope everyone lands on their feet.
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoBandcamp was fucked as soon as Epic bought them. We didn't know the specifics of how it was going to be fucked, but we knew it would happen.
- dzhiurgis 3y agoHope they keep Scene Report (0). I don't visit it too often, but when I do - it's such a good way to discover new styles. 0: https://daily.bandcamp.com/scene-report/ https://daily.bandcamp.com/scene-report/
- 6stringmerc 3y agoTotally personal opinion after a limited attempt or two with Bandcamp…to me it was the Etsy of music.
- micromacrofoot 3y agoUntil we have more information it seems that the Epic purchase royally screwed a company that by all accounts was operating just fine previously. I really hope someone spills the beans on this whole fiasco.
- tessierashpool 3y agoI hope the same thing, but they have six-month severance packages and NDAs, so it might be a while.
- kvetching 3y agoWhy does Bandcamp look like it hasn't been updated since 2012? How many employees does it need if they aren't changing anything?
- regularjack 3y agoYou could probably clone in a weekend anyway, amirite?
- JohnFen 3y ago> Why does Bandcamp look like it hasn't been updated since 2012? Because it doesn't need to be. Personally, I really like that their site hasn't been brought up to be in line with the current trends. That would make the site worse.
- jmuguy 3y agoI’m not sure what the experience is with other niche genres of music but I’ve found more black and death metal on Bandcamp in the past month than has ever been recommended to me elsewhere. I get the impression that HN posters who don’t use Bandcamp just see it at some place where a band can make a MySpace profile - but it has a serious network effect going on. For instance, the label 20 buck spin, has a boat load of artists on there. For metal, their profile page on Bandcamp is worth more than a 100 algorithmic playlists on Spotify. https://20buckspin.bandcamp.com/ https://20buckspin.bandcamp.com/ I hope Bandcamp can survive this layoff. It is a real resource for music lovers and artists, not a glorified front end for flacs on S3.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lawgimenez 3y agoAs a listener of hardcore and punk since I was a teen, Bandcamp is the place to be. It is the only site where I can get music from my local scene too even though I don't go to shows anymore. I am grateful to Bandcamp, hope someone will acquire them that truly knows music business, etc.
- lethologica 3y agoThanks for that link! I’ve recently gotten into metal (Holy crap what an awesome genre of music I’ve neglected to explore my whole life! I feel like a kid in a candy shop hearing all of these new amazing sounds) and started learning guitar because of it. Having someone share their curated music is way more powerful in my opinion than some algorithmically generated playlist.
- proxiful-wash 3y agoI get the impression that people want evil tencent to succeed, but this really has no place in the free world. thanks for reading.
- AdmiralAsshat 3y agoNo Pentagram? Dang, I thought they'd have at least one album by the band that wrote the song for whom the label is named: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6V-EhW8xCk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6V-EhW8xCk
- zaps 3y agoSwitching to full-on Dirty Hippie mode here but, goddammit why why WHY can’t we just have nice things without profit motives or acquisitions or shareholders or growth hacking and just enjoy the ride and the gifts that these kinds of resources give to the world? Why is the default setting “always sell out”? IUMA was the Bandcamp of the early aughts. It was THE place to go for discovering new exciting music that you never knew could exist, the equivalent of listening to pop radio all the time and then one day turning the knob left to the local college station. (“What is this?” “It’s NEW.”) This was what the internet was FOR—accessing the inaccessible. Then some corporation bought it and smashed it into ash. I get it, really. I’m naive af. People need to eat. Infrastructure isn’t free. Licenses need to be licensed. But fuck, I’d rather these sites never existed in the first place than have my heart broken like some middle schooler seeing their crush dancing with the rich kid.
- diogenes4 3y agoThere are known methods to retrieve power from the jaws of capital.
- iainctduncan 3y agoThey do exist, but yeah they are rare. Both Ableton Live and Reaper refuse to take outside investments or sell. The Live owners are famous for telling them to screw off. Major reason I use both of them. The music tech business is getting rocked by acquisitions recently.
- intalentive 3y agoReaper rocks. I love that the installer is so small, shows that nothing is in the code but what's essential. I also love that they allow scripting within the DAW, and that they ported to Linux, and I love the payment model, and and... Just an amazing company all round.
- gu009 3y agoWorth noting here that the main guy behind Reaper is Justin Frankel, creator of Winamp - would seem like he doesn't really need or want outside investment.
- heiseann 3y ago[flagged]
- hakdbha 3y ago[dead]
- meeb 3y agoFor anyone who wants to make sure they have a local copy of all of their Bandcamp purchases: https://github.com/meeb/bandcampsync https://github.com/meeb/bandcampsync (Disclaimer: author)
- flexagoon 3y agoThe amount of times I confused Bandcamp and Basecamp is insane
- DrReachAround 3y ago[flagged]
- pauldenton 3y agoTheir careers may be over but they have memories to last a life time This one time at Band Camp indeed.
- meeb 3y agoBandcamp is the only music service I purchase music on and do so regularly. It will be sorely missed if it gets modified or mismanaged into oblivion.
- sodikaina 3y ago[flagged]
- kundi 3y agoWe've been building a curated (for now) alternative for electronic music to Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Mixcloud called https://formaviva.com https://formaviva.com If you're a musician and music lover who enjoys new independent music, we would love to invite you to join our community. We're also hiring: https://formaviva.com/jobs https://formaviva.com/jobs PS: I'm one of the community members