Building a Community

Black Beacon is released today, buy the limited cassette/zine exclusively from Bandcamp. Social Media likes versus In Real Life encounters. Plants Can Dance - Open Call and next event 14th Sept

Black Beacon is out today!

We’ve had a great response so far for this collection of soundscape compositions made from the remains of the Orford Ness bomb-testing site, with its intriguing history as a British base for covert operations during the Cold War.

Our soundwalk to the ‘Ness aka the ‘Island Of Secrets’ sold out quickly but you can buy the limited edition cassettes and ‘zines available exclusively from A State Of Flo Bandcamp (and as it is Bandcamp day today it’s a particularly good time to support!).

LISTEN/BUY:

Building a Community

I’m happy to report A State Of Flo now has over 2000 subscribers. The consistent month-to-month growth and notes of positive feedback I get sent via Substack and email are nice reminders that people seem to be enjoying engaging with longer form content compared to short-hand social media.

Whilst writing on here can be rewarding, it can also be disheartening when posts get very little engagement (a similar feeling to the one where you are beaten by the algorithm on social media posts).

Digging into the stats, I’m delighted that the ‘open rate’ of A State Of Flo newsletters is around 45%, the likes I get per post hovers under 10. I know this is all relative, and I enjoy researching and writing regardless, so why should convincing myself that a thumbs up is of little importance in the grand scheme of things be this hard?!

What makes a huge difference is meeting people in the real world and hearing how much they, as individual sentient beings, enjoy reading A State Of Flo or listening to the music we put out. I’ve been amazed to find folk like who read it on my travels - as far afield as India and most recently in deepest Wales.

How about we play social media at its own game by using this simple equation:

“IRL Vs SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT” EQUATION:

One conversation with a stranger who has enjoyed reading this Substack =

250 Instagram Likes

5 Substack Likes

10 Facebook Likes

1 X Retweet

10 LinkedIn Likes/Hearts/Insightful

And even better:

One conversation with a stranger who has enjoyed the music =

500 Instagram Likes

10 Substack Likes

20 Facebook Likes

2 X Retweet

20 LinkedIn Likes

Obviously everyones numbers will be very different, but if you are a creative, how about next time you have a meaningful conversation with a random person you imagine it framed as a social media post and run the numbers.

Would it help? Is that awfully vain, banal and simply soul-destroying to view things in this way? Is this the reality of the world of ‘content’ and ‘engagement’ that we live in?

If you like this as coping strategy for the modern world, check this previous post with other ideas around how to view your creative work and running the gauntlet of sharing it with the world:

Viewing things this way is one reason why I’m very excited for our soundwalk to Orford Ness on 23rd August. We could only take 12 people (how many likes does 12 people equate to?!), and I’m looking forward to spending half a day with everyone who signed up, getting to know them in more depth and sharing (hopefully) useful knowledge and composition/listening techniques during the day.

Finally, we do have a paid tier so if you do have some spare change, you may consider upgrading to a paid account. You’ll get all the music we’ve released, some vinyl and ‘zines through the post as well as access to other projects we’ve got going on in the background.

Plants Can Dance (and Mushrooms Sing) - 14th September

As these In Real Life experiences are so rewarding, I’m on a mission to create more of them. Hence one of the reasons for us setting up “Plants Can Dance” as a monthly residency in East London.

The first event took place a few weeks ago and acted as a dry run for what’s to come. The venue looked and sounded incredible, there are ten projectors so we created really immersive visuals using forest footage that we captured. The wooden panelling, box seating and flooring meant it felt comfortable for people to sit, lie or stand.

I collaborated with Lamine Toure who runs the nearby plant shop ‘Repot’ for this first time - he brought a fantastic array of plants from the shop as well as his modular synthesiser, which allowed us to jam using 2 x biosonification set ups on our Euroracks for the first time, creating a much deeper and intricate sound from what I’ve been able to achieve with my solo performances.

The mixture of workshops and talks at the beginning seemed to work well too - we had four work stations set up so people could play with the PlantWave, Instruo Scion and Midi Spad.

Our next event will feature a collaboration with the record label ‘Music to Watch Seeds Grow By’, which is run by Dj Tia Cousins and writer Wil Troup from the excellent Ransom Note. We’ll feature two live sets from artists from the label - Stella Z and Lapalace. Read the feature on Ransom Note which has all the details.

BUY TICKETS - Plants Can Dance 14th Sept

We’re looking into a series of guest speakers too, so if you are into plant ecology, the environment, modular synthesis, bioelectrical music composition and the intersection of the natural world and the electronic one, please help us spread the word!

OPEN CALL: Artists, Academics and Activists

If you have a project that joins the dots between plant and fungi intelligence, music and the environment both locally and globally, we’d love to hear from you.

We want to make Plants Can Dance a space for learning and community as well as listening. So we’re putting out this open call for submissions and ideas that we can present at future events.

It could be a show and tell, demo, workshop, talk, installation or music performance - we’re open to all and Hideout is a great space to showcase anything and everything that relates to Plants, Fungi and music.

Simply email me - brian@astateofflo.com