Crow’s Nest 77: 112424

Permanent Turbulence Ahead

Nov 25, 2024

Well, welcome to issue #77 of Crow’s Nest. Thanks, as always, for opening and reading. Let’s get to it then.

One of my little tics in overanalyzing the language I use from time to time is that I’ve tried to reduce how much I say things like ‘Could this day get any worse?’, whether sincerely or sarcastically. This is mostly because I fear or don’t want to know that the answer is yes. I suppose this doesn’t necessarily make bad news feel any better, but it maybe prevents deeper emotional spiraling when bad news compounds. So that might explain some of the ambivalence I felt when a Tuesday-Monday week of disappointing news was capped by the announcement that Pitchfork Music Festival will not be returning to Chicago’s Union Park next summer.

I don’t want to say ‘I saw this coming’ to shield my own emotions on the subject, but most reasonably observant people would likely have selected Pitchfork as the established Chicago festival most likely to call it a day after 2024, even after Riot Fest’s relocation shenanigans. The subsumption of the Pitchfork brand under GQ within the Condé Nast portfolio earlier this year was seen by many—myself included—as the beginning of the end of the brand as a distinctive taste-maker (and breaker). As the core audience aged and a younger generation with different consumption habits took prominence, Pitchfork’s cultural relevance declined accordingly. If Best New Music used to indicate smooth sailing to a few album cycles’ worth of ~1,000 cap venue tours, Being Dead not selling out the ~400-capacity Empty Bottle demonstrates this decline. (It was crowded within but definitely did not feel exciting like a sold-out Metro show.)

Reporting on the reorganization indicated CN staff were disappointed in the lack of premiumization on offer at the brand’s flagship event. While this was stepped up a bit this year, I can see how the effort would not have been satisfactory to the suits; additionally, Black Pumas’s headlining set—their booking widely understood to be GQ’s attempt to push the fest to align with their brand strategy and preferences—flopped with what I felt was a 4 PM sized crowd taking it in. While Pitchfork remained healthily attended in general, with a sizable number of repeat attendees year after year, and those crowds being fairly open minded for the eclecticness of the lineups over the years, I can see the two being signals to GQ that we wouldn’t go along with just anything they threw at us. But they held the cards, and they did not know what to do with us or put in the effort to nudge us accordingly, so they decided to pull the plug.

The formal reasons cited for ending things are “a loss in sponsorships, rising insurance costs, competition with other festivals and “not making enough money.”” In retrospect, the lack of a consistent flagship sponsor year after year was probably a major headache behind the scenes, and the fest notably never sold naming rights for its stages, sticking with colors for them, which was an admirable display of integrity but almost certainly left money on the table. I can also see that, if infiltrating a prickly tastemaker set was previously a notable achievement for a brand, more bang for their buck can now be found in paying influencers to target less discerning consumers. And even controlling for attendance size, I’ve see far less merch for Pitchfork being worn than Riot Fest, which suggests a fickleness to brand loyalty that’s probably not worth the effort to cultivate from a brand perspective.

‘Competition from other festivals’ is an interesting one to consider. Pitchfork always seemed to be in its own lane as other city-dominant fests’ lineups homogenized over the past decade. Big ticket tours like those at Wrigley Field were cited as one competitor, which doesn’t make sense artistically, but then I recall that I’m fortunate enough that energy and time are my primary constraints on festival-going, not money. If you only have enough for one or two of them a year, Pitchfork might not be the one you and your friends flock to, especially if you’re more looking to hang out at an event and cheaper options—like the plethora of street fests Chicago has during the summer—abound.

Other significant festivals—here I’m thinking of Primavera and Coachella specifically—have been announcing their lineups earlier than in years prior, stacking them with what will be last year’s hottest acts in the hopes of locking in early ticket sales before interest shifts. I’m not sure how well it’ll work for Coachella, but Primavera has already sold out weekend passes for next May in Barcelona, on a lineup topped by Sabrina Carpenter, Chapell Roan and Charli XCX. On one hand, this is a smart business move, considering full weekend passes are roughly similar in cost to standalone shows by the headliners on their tours this year, to say nothing of everyone else on there, and giving folks months to save and plan for things (and cover monthly payment plans, no doubt) ought to make things more attractive. On the other hand, as someone who’s constantly on the hunt for new music and sounds, having everyone already in place is disappointing and fundamentally conservative in outlook. While a few artists will no doubt get much bigger over the next half year, put out new material, or be someone I start paying attention to, everyone on those lineups is a known entity. Among the labels, agents, A&R folks and others jockeying for slots or lineup positioning, do they have any confidence in their upcoming talent or willingness to take risks? No ‘You may not know this guy, but trust me, by the time they take the stage you will not regret booking them’ in their back pocket?

I’m no expert in insurance markets, but in an inflationary environment and increasingly known risks of such events accumulates, I can see that line item making for tough decisions on if those costs could be managed or passed along. ““Not making enough money”” begs the question: for whom? One would assume the fest would not have gone on for 19 years if the dollars coming in were not covering expenses, but raiding an established property of sustainable success and/or growth in favor of short-term profits before the enterprise collapses and the raiders move on is one of the most unfortunate realities of modern capitalism. Again, seeing it coming does not make its demise go down any easier.

While the fest’s end is disappointing, being the cornerstone of most of my summers since I was 16, I do feel optimistic that the wider Chicago music scene will weather its loss. Things seem resilient, and while Pitchfork helped get talented musicians on stage who may not otherwise have found a booking, many of the street fests can land comparable acts. I’m not fully enamored with single-stage setups, but the Salt Shed has the capacity and willingness to get artists with significant but somewhat nebulous fan bases together. Maybe instead of making the trip to Union Park, I could like go to the beach or do a weekend trip … to a place? Storm clouds seem to be permanently on the horizon, but those willing to look for safe harbor should be able to continue on.

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The anonymous figure(s) behind Lost Trax re-emerge with another 3 tracks from their latest trip to Planet 303. Or maybe the 303rd dimension? Either way, the sci-fi inflected acid techno here has to be as rewarding for home listening as it would be on a massive soundsystem, with a melodic sense and general variety several notches above most of their contemporaries. Quantity remains low, but quality is high, always an excellent combination.

Tracy Wilson might best be known for her work fronting Dahlia Seed, in addition to Turntable Report. An early bout with COVID left her with vocal damage, and ultimately she continued making music with her partner Kenneth Close as Outer World, reconfiguring the material she helped promote—notably psych pop and yé-yé—into an intriguing mix somewhere in the post-Broadcast realm. Here, the group pays tribute to 60s psych group The United States of America with a cover of ‘Coming Down’ coated in a deliciously lo-fi avant-garde sheen, backed by their own ambient/downtempo outro.

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Montréal post-punk outfit La Sécurité are heavy on the motorik-ity, dance-y side of the genre. More actual party than political (party) rally, they’ve got their fair share of eclecticism and whatever the je ne sais quoi of Frenchness or being Quebecois adds to the mix. This is their first single for their new label Bella Union so I’d expect more from them soon, including a stop here that isn’t opening for The Go Team.

I really feel like I should learn Portuguese or French, and not solely because I feel like it would enhance my appreciation of music in those languages. Though it would definitely help me with that, you don’t need it to appreciate a record like this one from Rio’s Dora Moerlenbaum. The daughter of musicians who’ve played on records by figures including Gal Costa and Ryuichi Sakamoto, there’s no generational loss on display here with airy yet complex playing and arrangement throughout. Another great MPB record whether you’re on the beach or just dreaming of it beneath perpetual winter cloud cover.

Los Angeles spiritual jazz figurehead Carlos Niño produced and mixed this record from the contemporary indigenous Mesoamerican group here. It’s a flute heavy record, as you might imagine, full of psychedelic, ecstatic droning that you know I’m a huge fan of. I’ll leave it at that and let the record do the rest of the talking that’s needed.

I was debating whether to include Xen Chron’s latest EP in this issue as it was solid but didn’t hold up to his Some Tracks, Vol. 2 from a few issues earlier … then discovered I had cut that one before including it. My own decision making process baffles me sometimes. Anyway, both of these are solid techno records, the latest a snapshot of the just outside of Boston producer’s contemporary production for a high-concept Italian label, the aforementioned more a grab bag of tunes from the preceding 2 decades of his work. Dig in.

This new record from the enigmatic producer John Roberts is a bit out there. Most of these tracks feel like sketches, centered around piano motifs, Autechreian burbles and ambient noises, and even Fluxus-style chicanery in there too. Proper deconstructed music that hasn’t gotten reconstructed for the club like it was last decade.

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