It's been a bit over a week since we had a very special SydneyMusic party at Crosstalk Records. Which means it's a bit over two weeks that we decided to do put the event on. A very fun, very last-minute thing. We were stoked with the turnout - super cool.
Every SydneyMusic party has this brief: "DJ what you'd want to have playing at your own house party. No pretension, just vibes". The team really understood the brief and brought such a great selection of tunes along - people like artist manager and organiser myers, electronic musician and producer Chonzu, multi-disciplinary artist and musician Szem, DIY party organiser and DJ Arsonist and musician and party organiser Mphilly. Max Quinn and Bilby performed previously unannounced 15-minute live sets as well - lovely, effortless contributions. So wonderful!
We also had a few spontaneous guests at the end - Looks did a live performance of some dnb-heavy hyperpop he'd been working on, Gooseball played some sublime downtempo tunes, and Chonzu and myers went head-to-head late into the night. I'm sure there was more.
We invited people to donate to SydneyMusic in return for this free event (result: we just broke even) - and we all got to enjoy a wonderful little moment that felt really special. SydneyMusic die-hards, local passersby and a whole bunch of awesome musicians and scene enthusiasts came together to connect with their scene and enjoy themselves.
SydneyMusic's not doing great financially. We haven't yet had the breakthroughs that we hoped for in this first quarter, and it's left me back to the drawing board a bit. It's nonetheless been good to invest in editorial, and try some new things. We've really worked hard on partnerships and figuring out a new approach, but the grind is tough. If you want to help us get through this period of uncertainty, we'd greatly appreciate it.