Touch: Isolation

VARIOUS ARTISTS – TOUCH: ISOLATION (subscription series)

It is quite unusual to recommend music that has not been released yet. But some projects deserve an exception to that rule.

Ever since 1982, the Touch label has built a firm reputation as a label “that embraces experimental electronic music by an array of respected musicians.”
‘experimental electronic’ should be understood in the widest sense possible, also including environmental recordings of legendary quality. Their hard work over the (almost 40!) years has earned them well-deserved respect…. ánd a large supporting network of artists.

A lot of these artists are currently losing (large) parts of their income due to the Coronavirus lockdown and social isolation measures.

“The cancellation of gigs and festivals has already severely impacted our artists creatively and financially. In addition, it has denied you, our audience, the opportunity to see them play and support them. The notion of ‘independent music’ might, in effect, be pushed deeper into the self-isolation mode it is already struggling to break free from. We don’t need studios to the same extent, but we do need a stage, a physical reference and if not, a mental space with which to question the drive to online existence.”

To support these artists, Touch came up with the idea to start a subscription-based project called Touch: Isolation. If you subscribe to this series, you will get access to a series of new and exclusive (!) tracks that will be released over the coming weeks. Each track is paired with an image of Hampstead Heath during the London Lockdown. There will be 20 (or even more) – which means you pay (less than) only £1 per track. Unless you decide to pay more to support the artists of course…
After the project concludes, the proceeds will be divided between the contributing artists.

At the time of writing, seven tracks have been published: sounds from Jana Winderen, Chris Watson, Bana Haffar, Mark van Hoen, Richard Chartier, Zachary Paul, and Fennesz Sakamoto.
The remaining series will include tracks by Oren Ambarchi, ELEH, Farmersmanual, Fennesz, Howlround, Philip Jeck, Bethan Kellough, Daniel Menche, Anthony Moore, Yann Novak, Claire M Singer, Geneva Skeen, UnicaZürn and CM von Hausswolff. Perhaps even more.

Seeing this list of participating artists, and after hearing the first tracks of this subscription series, I have no problem at all recommending to subscribe to this project even though most of it has not yet been released.