In this interview spotlight, I chat with members of Journal 20 about the latest music, challenges, the year known as 2020, and more

Full Q&A along with links and music below.

Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)

A: We’re from places across Canada, coast to coast. We met in Calgary too long ago, & have wound into each other’s lives since then. 

As for the music—we make music you need to live with, that uses everything to hand to express what we want to express. We make music like we’d like to hear, difficult, pretty, ugly, easy. 

J: As conceptual as it is I think we’re aiming for something accessible and relatable. We both enjoy experimental music, and a lot of that influence made its way into this, but I think it’s still rather approachable.

What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?

A: Journal 20 is a place where we can express ourselves in the ways we want to. Music has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember, but it lives alongside visual art, literature. We keep going because these are things we love, small islands of happiness in a wide sea of surplus labour & neoliberalism. 

We want art as a way of life, not a supplement you purchase to adorn your home, a commodity that fills in for a personality. 

Jan: Art and music if you think about it are the things going down the path of “us”. Art and music don’t exist without people, and it’s more that we’re a conduit for art to come into existence that only we could make. These things live in all of us and can never be imitated because they are shaped by our unique lived experiences. In an ideal world every living person would be making art and music for that reason, and I want to hear all of it. We’re two random humans, put us together and you get a new kind of art no other two random humans could ever make. Motivation is easy to come by when you think this way.

How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?

A: Our EP is a record of the first months of lockdown, when the world was given the opportunity for meaningful social change & instead sank deeper into neoliberalism, racism, & a commodified individualism that places an empty, meaningless self-expression in front of care & actual thought. 

This music & the art that surrounds it is a mix of fantasy for what could have been and rage in the face of what is. 

We want a world that takes time. We want a world that gives rather than takes. We want a world where people at risk are respected & the well-being of others is more important than the next blockbuster or scoring useless points on social media. I know what we do won’t accomplish that, I know the limits of art. But I hope we can help others imagine the world we want to see, & by imagining bring it a little nearer. 

J: We really wanted to put something out that people would be able to focus in on and find new and interesting things the more they did that, while still being able to enjoy it casually. You don’t have to sit there in the dark with headphones on staring at the cover while you listen to these songs, but you will be rewarded with a lot of layers to sift through if that’s your kind of thing. 

Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?

A: This music needs time, needs to be loved with. The more music becomes a commodity, the more the first thirty seconds of a song becomes the only thing that’s judged.

Digital media allows music to free itself from the confines of major & minor label need for sales. It also means everyone becomes a small voice in a dissonant choir begging to be heard. Everything becomes marketing, & if you don’t have the power of an advertising agency behind you, the chances of being heard slim down incredibly. 

J: The biggest challenge hasn’t changed much for artists and musicians, and that’s getting eyes and ears on your stuff. The landscape has changed a lot and made it way easier for artists to go their own way without a label. Back in the day it was just obscenely cost-prohibitive. Today anyone can put out an album with a few hundred bucks and an internet connection. But we’re still always fighting for attention. Art and music have to compete with everything, not just other art and music. People can spend their time doing anything, and today there are more things to do than ever in recorded history. This is all possible thanks to advances in technology which changed the landscape to what it is today. Those advances allow us to release music and recoup the cost of making it relatively quickly. Honestly if we didn’t keep spending more and more money on equipment we’d probably have been profitable ages ago. It’s a double edged sword, as much as technology helps us through making equipment accessible, it also holds us back for that same reason haha.

What was the last song you listened to?

A: Artery – The Ghost of a Small Tour Boat Captain / The Anchoress – The Art of Losing

J: Billy Woods – Duck Hunt

Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?

A: I listen using whatever media the bands I love can afford, vinyl, cassettes, CDs, mp3s. Though I prefer physical media wherever possible.

Jan: Casual listening, digital can’t be beat. But for a really special time you can’t beat physical.

How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why? 

Alex: Bandcamp is the least focused on fattening itself on the surplus labour of musicians. Bandcamp is the only one that offers a future for music that isn’t limited to being a pastime for the children of the rich. 

Jan: Bandcamp is great, but I’ll just as soon buy direct from an artist on Twitter, Instagram, discord, wherever they want to host I’ll jump through the hoops they put in front of me to get the art I like.

Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?

You can find us on https://journal20.bandcamp.com. 

Anything else before we sign off?

Art is a place where positive change can happen. Whether that’s personal or societal change.