Songwriting, Crypto and Lockdown Life

Hey!

How’s it going? I’ve been very quiet for about three months now so you might not even remember who I am anymore. Sorry about that!

Where should I start really? Well, I mean 2020 and Covid and lockdown. Nothing new there. Here in England we have been back in full lockdown since the New Year.

In fact this month I’ll be celebrating a full year in lockdown. So when we got told to go back to full lockdown on New Year’s, it wasn’t really that big of a deal. I was never out of lockdown anyway. 

The vaccination rollouts have started here now and over 30% of people have had theirs already. That means our lockdown restrictions are starting to slowly ease. We’ll see how long this all lasts, but some kind of an end is in sight.

New Songs Taking Shape

But, it’s not all slog and wait. I’ve been head down working on my next record and it’s starting to take shape nicely. As I’ve hinted before, I’m going old skool industrial with these new songs. (Here’s a teaser if you want a taster). They incorporate many elements from my Velcra days, while still being totally me and overall I feel the sound is a very logical next step from Villainess. It’s definitely going to be a rock record, whereas Villainess was dark synth pop. I’m really excited and pleased with how it’s all panning out.

And that’s really the reason why I’ve been so quiet. I’ve been wanting to share the process and let you behind the scenes a bit more as I work on these new songs. But when I write, my head is only in that place and I can’t focus on much else. Maybe I’ll have a bit more headspace and time to do that now that we’re starting to get out of the lockdown hermit space.

Audiotarky

I got invited to join a new music service called Audiotarky. I thought the idea was quite interesting so I joined. It’s a music streaming service that runs on cryptocurrency called Coil. If you don’t know much about crypto, then think Bitcoin. There are lots and lots of other currencies in addition to Bitcoin, Coil being one. Audiotarky allows users to stream music and pay on the time that they stream. It’s also big on privacy, so it doesn’t collect a ton of data on its listeners like other services do (better for you, I think).

I think this is the future direction for many digital services. Audiotarky is just one of many services that Coil supports. There are a bunch of other creative services that it powers up - online magazines and news sites, comedy, gaming, etc - and helps creators to get paid.

Sure, I’m not expecting there to be a squillion users with coil wallets streaming my music, but I’m super fascinated with where this new technology can take us. 

Maybe you’ve heard about the artist Grimes who just sold $6 million worth of digital art in non-fungible tokens? That’s a new way of selling art that doesn’t have a physical form. And another example of the experiments in the intersection of art and tech. Crazy stuff. I love it.

Anyway if you want to check out my page on Audiotarky, it’s here: https://www.audiotarky.com/$/artists/jessi-frey/

And if you’re an artist who wants to join, just hit reply and I should be able to hook you up.

So yeah, just wanted to drop you a line to say hello, and I'm alive, and I've got new music coming soon (promise!).

Hope all is well with you!

Jessi.