Earlier this year, we reported on the news that C2C Festival (fka Club to Club) and Stone Island were teaming up once again for a new project – Stone Island Sound.
The venture aims to champion local independent music scenes, first through broadcasting curated “soundtracks” and playlists in-store and then by releasing them on streaming services and through Buy Music Club.
“This is a new project supporting contemporary music productions.” C2C’s team told us via email, “Cultural independence, avant-garde and new pop, irregular sounds and original music productions are the stylistic references that inspire and guide this project, which regards the current music scene as a multi-coloured and chaotic combination of genres.”
To source the music, the C2C and Stone Island teams went deep into Bandcamp with an open but clear brief and a focus on unearthing outsider sounds. “Considering this huge amount of music, it was crucial to have some strict guidelines to untangle it, not so much in terms of genres: our focus was rather on all the music works bridging the gap between digital and organic sound elements, and forward pop-styles.”
Like a lot of music fans in quarantine who have doubled down on Bandcamp consumption, C2C’s process of meticulous curation brought out a handful of highlights. STILL’s Prophet Riddim, coming from the Beirut benefit compilation curated by music magazine Ma3azef, Pausa by Mana (now out on Hyperdub) and oh baby, taken from experimental Manchester duo Space Afrika’s stunning audio collage hybtwibt? all come up during our conversation.
Without the opportunity to stage a festival, direct communication with artists and more in-depth research into scenes and releases has moved up the C2C agenda: “We’ve experienced new ways of communication within our network, we are now in direct contact with a multitude of artists and labels which is a great source of inspiration in these hard times.”
“We think the most exciting thing about this collaboration is how a brand like Stone Island aims to support independent music communities from all over the world, and at the same time how this project defines the musical identity of the brand worldwide and how the communication is focused on platforms like Buy Music Club and Bandcamp, one of the most equitable music vendors online.”
Moving forward, Stone Island Sound looks to grow into a record label – using their genre-less ethos as a curatorial starting point. It’s an ethos which will, ultimately, help to reshape the lineups at Europe’s finest leftfield music festival. “There’s a lot of freedom in this project, that’s inspiring our festival music curation.”
Listen to the second instalment of Stone Island Sound below. The project can also be accessed on all major streaming services including via their brand new Apple Music curator profile.
