Enhanced Sucu Music Netlabel Profile

Enhanced Sucu Music Netlabel Profile: Intro

Welcome to Netlabel Profiles, the show that explores some of the best and most diverse music on the internet today. On this episode of Netlabel Profiles we visit a region that:

• Has better greek ruins than greece
• Has the tallest active voclano in Europe
• Is credited with inventing the poetic form known as the sonnet
• Is the home of the Mafia (as made famous in the Godfather movies)
• Was the site of a riot during a Frank Zappa concert that included tear gas being shot into the audience
• Is a place where Anthony Bourdain has had major issues each time he’s tried to shoot an epiode of his travel show
• Was the birth place of Archimedes, the mathematician
• Is the largest island in the Mediteranean

So where am I talking about? And what netlabel is from this region? More about these topics after we listen to some music from our featured netlabel.

Sucu Music: Profile

That was The Stream Never Froze In Winter by an incredibly prolific artist: Cousin Silas on our featured netlabel: Sucu Music, from Enna, Sicily, Italy.

Sicily is a very interesting region of Italy. One of the things that make it unique is the people. They have a strong identity with their region: they are Sicilian first, Italian second. In fact, the majority speak Sicilian, not Italian.

There are many things about Sicily that make it unique. For example, while I mentioned the Mafia in the opening, it’s not just about the crime families that we have come to know through the movies and tv shows. There is a difference to the way businesses and government interact in Sicily.

But it’s also a land that is very rich in history and culture. Sicily can trace it’s origins back to 12,000 BC, it was home to Phoenician and Greek colonies around 750 BC until Roman destruction of Carthage some 600 years later. During the middle ages it was ruled in turn by the Vandals, Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Arabs and Normans. In 1130 the first Kingdom of Sicily came into being until 1816. Finally by the 1860’s it became part of Italy.

With this long history influenced by many cultures, it should be no surprise that a strong musical influence would bring about a netlabel with a unique and interesting perspective on music.

Sucu Music started its operations in September 2013 and aims to produce and promote stimulating music entities, both local and otherwise.

Sucu Music works primarily in ambient, experimental, electronic, and improvisation music styles, in all their possible incarnations, manifestations and hybridizations.

Sucu Music wants to be a space wherein all the relational dynamics between and among these genres can develop and interact, bouncing between fields like light in a hall of mirrors, or a network of cross-references, led only by the musicians’ creativity and artistic feeling. A space wherein the freedom of musical action is not smothered by any restrictive logic of a commercial nature.

Currently Sucu Music has 15 releases from 10 artists in their catalog. All the Sucu Music releases are meant for free downloading and published under Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike 3.0 License.

The label is operated by: Gaetano Fontanazza (project coordinator, graphic design, recording artist), Tony Colina (musician), Luca Sproviero (social, graphic design, reviews) and Vincenzo Scuderi (web management and design, radio and podcasting).

Sucu Music: Closing

Thanks for joining us for Netlabel Profiles featuring the Sucu Music netlabel. If you enjoyed the music on this show, be sure to check out Sucu Music at http://sucumusic.weebly.com/

This show is released under a Creative Commons, Attribution, Non-Commercial Share Alike license. All of the music from Sucu Music is released under a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike license.

Be sure to check out the enhanced version of this show on The CerebralRift (http://cerebralrift.org). The posting on The CerebralRift includes:

• Additional selections from the Sucu Music catalog
• Links to all the music played on this show
• Links to the references used in preparing the profile of Sucu Music
• Links to the Sucu Music website, and social media sites
• A printed transcript of this profile
• And an exclusive printed interview with Sucu Music’s Gaetano Fontanazza.

Thanks for joining us for Netlabel Profiles. This is your host SndChaser signing off, and wishing you the best of free listening!

Sucu Music Profile References

• 10 Amazing Things You Should Know About Sicily: http://listverse.com/2014/01/01/10-amazing-things-you-should-know-about-sicily/
• Quirky facts about Sicily: http://www.mydestination.com/sicily/travel-articles/72414/quirky-facts-about-sicily
• (Accurate) Sicily Facts: http://www.bestofsicily.com/sicilyfacts.htm
• Life In Sicily, Italy – Top 5 Fun Facts: http://lifeinsicily.weebly.com/fun-facts.html
• Facts about Sicily: http://www.factsbarn.com/facts-about-sicily/
• Wikipedia: Sicily: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicily

Sucu Music Links

Label Sucu Music Netlabel

Contact Name Gaetano Fontanazza / Tony Colina / Luca Sproviero / Vincenzo Scuderi

Email sucumusic@gmail.com

Website http://www.sucumusic.com/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SucuMusic

Twitter https://twitter.com/SucuMusic

SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/sucu-music

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/sucumusic

LastFM http://www.lastfm.it/label/Sucu+Music?ac=sucu%20music

Google+ https://plus.google.com/107706391568695852693/posts

SonicSquirrel http://sonicsquirrel.net/detail/label/Sucu_Music/1766

Sucu Music Interview

1. Introduce yourself / yourselves.

Hi I’m Gaetano, I work as a graphic designer in a publishing house for a living. Me and the other fellas managing our netlabel are all musicians too and music lovers. We fell in love with cc sharing culture and netlabel spirit, that’s why there are some days we spend hours and hours to feed our passion

2. How did you decide that you wanted to run a netlabel? (Did anyone or anything inspire you to do this?)

As musicians, some of us released music with other netlabels in the past years. We found there is a big and interested audience around the netlabels world. We found that this is a true way to share independent music free of any classic music industry mess.

3. Why did you decide to release your works under a Creative Commons license?

It is important to share your art for free, and it is important to protect the property of the artist’s work too. CC license is the answer since its appearing on the web.

4. How much time do you spend on running your netlabel?

Well it depends. Sometimes there is other stuff to deal with, you know, work, family, other music projects and so on. That’s why we decided to release about an album every 30-40 days. We want to take our time, trying to make things as best as we can.

5. Have there been any projects (ie netlabel related, but not necessarily about a release, like maybe you set up a concert / festival / etc.) that are especially memorable to you?

We set up a nice Sucumusic fest, last November, in our town. Some of our local artists performed and Stephen Briggs connected with us from New Zealand, performing live via a video streaming service. It was beautiful. Almost all of the audience didn’t know anything about the netlabel world. It was an opportunity to spread the web sharing culture in a real event. People suddenly knew there was a chance to legally download great music for free.

6. Is there a long-term goal for your label?

Hmmm… I don’t know, we just let the things flow…

7. Are you involved in anything else other than producing music? (IE, videos, CD’s, wallpapers, t-shirts, etc.)

Yes, we make music, we are fond of art, poetry, novels, comics, photography, bike, beer, cocktails and… let’s stop here, ok?

8. Any cool stories about projects / releases? (IE, they got used in someone else’s movie / video, or something similar.)

Not yet, not a release of ours, but some of our artists have seen their music remixed in other CC projects, both audio and video, short movies, live soundtracks, commercials…

9. What is your take on the future of music? (IE, do you think streaming will be more important than downloads, do you think the major labels will go bankrupt, do you think more people are turning to netlabels than traditional music sources, etc.)

Making and distributing music is actually changing… deeply. The preexisting system of earning money with music just broke out. The artists have to reinvent promotion and rebuild the market, starting with a following audience. It’s interesting and sad to see how the big get bigger and the small get smaller. The gap has increased.. Well I don’t know about the majors, I only see that who deals with the old system, will slowly drown down. Both major and indie artists now count more on live shows than on record sellings.

That’s why netlabels have good opportunities. Even in the low-cost on-demand streaming world we’re living in. Even if someone says that the netaudio is an old thing that made its history 10-15 years ago.

We do not believe that netlabels are simply an old fashioned underground way of music sharing. Of course, in an everchanging system, netlabels have to change something, and projetcs supporting netaudio as webzines, portals, blogs and so on, might be enpowered and increased. I can’t decide if streaming is better than download. I only see that streaming is gaining its field against downloads, as mp3 did with CD and CD did with vinyl and cassettes… I think it’s inevitable that one’s personal music archive in the future will be made by playlists “on the cloud” rather than bookshelves full of physical media.

Is it a sad thing? I don’t know. I rarely listened to my father’s records and my son doesn’t listen to my CD’s or mp3’s at all… One’s personal music archive is a fading heritage, I’m afraid.

10. Any upcoming projects / releases / events you would like to mention?

Nothing special at the moment.

Sucu Music Playlist

Artist Title

Cousin Silas The Stream Never Froze In Winter

Claudio Quartarone Strange in Town

Gandolfo Ferro Leaving the Earth

TNKS Theatrical

Gaetano Fontanazza Woods In Pink

Manb Lomo

Francesco Lenzi La Quiete d’Oro

Purple Mountain Peal Enochian

Stephen Briggs fin

Art Electronix X-Ray

Gaetano Fontanazza I’m Asking Again

Stephen Briggs nebbie mattutine

TNKS Introspective

Cousin Silas High On The Hill

Manb From My Point Of View