Words by Jim Pilling.
Back in the day, music was a physical product – there was simply no other way – something that, here at Art Wednesday we are a little wistful for. Ah, remember those days, when with the music came the artwork, the inlay, the disc or tape itself, the ‘free poster inside’, the smell, the feel, that special place on the shelf next to the rest of your collection, and more than anything the satisfaction of owning records. Sadly this was all tipped on its head when music became a predominantly online, immaterial and increasingly disposable product. Needless to say, this has its advantages, but it’s not quite the same as purchasing the physical product. Thankfully we at Art Wednesday aren’t alone in the fond nostalgia we have for the times when there was more to the acquisition of music than just the click of a button. So, on Tuesday we caught up with Terence Teh – one third of Earnest Endeavours, an emerging music and art collective who are championing the idea of music as a beautiful tangible thing once again, just like when we were wee wipper snappers.
Terence kindly squeezed us in during his lunch break from his job as editor of Dazed and Confused’s global platform Satellite Voices. He brought with him a promo CD, their first vinyl release by B Bravo, and heaps of contagious enthusiasm for what he’s doing with Earnest Endeavours.
“Vinyl and magazine culture is what we’re still obsessed with… we always want to make something that’s timeless. All the stuff that we were obsessed with when we were kids – there’s still a quality in that now,” Terence told us once we’d settled at a café just around the corner from his office. “Earnest Endeavours isn’t just a label, it’s a collective made up of a lot of different people who do a lot of different stuff, and we wanted to bring it all under one umbrella.”
Much of Earnest Endeavours is about collaborating in an attempt to create something that’s more than the sum of its parts. Terence sees identity as a central piece of the puzzle in this and it’s something they work hard on; their first three vinyl EP releases will, visually, be variations on a theme and will all be designed by Aerosyn-Lex Mestrovic, creative director of the KDU. The idea is to curate the aesthetic throughout, giving a strong ‘house style’ to the releases that instantly link them to the label, much like how Parisian artist So Me’s work instantly conjures up an association with the French label Ed Banger.
“If you’re going to sign an artist, rather than just putting their work out on MP3 and putting the commitment in to saying, ‘okay, we want to sign properly, we’re going to figure out all the distribution,’ it’s really worthwhile. We’re working closely with different record stores around the world and different boutiques.” What’s more, Earnest Endeavours are really going above and beyond with the sleeve art for their releases. They are commissioning artists local to the music outlets around the world, so that the same releases will have different sleeves depending on where they’re being sold.
Alongside the musical releases will be limited edition prints, gallery shows, monthly parties, and a magazine that will serve as a platform for artists of all kinds, both on and off the Earnest Endeavours label. They don’t intend to do things by halves, either – even the promo CDs are the fruit of a number of collaborations, with no detail overlooked. “We just thought, ‘if we give this out as a promo, hopefully you’ll keep it!’” We will. In fact, we can’t stop playing it.
For Earnest Endeavours website [click here]
