The Organelle Project: An Interview with Beth and Meg of Dial Up Records
By Sam Weisenthal, Contributor
Meet Beth and Meg
At the beginning of the first covid-19 lockdown, Beth from Dial Up records bought an Organelle to turn a boring lockdown into a creative pause. Little did she know this purchase would spiral into making the first volume of tapes founded on the idea of sharing instruments with local artists. Working with a group of Brooklyn-based musicians in their network, Beth and Meg created a compilation tape where every artist uses an Organelle in a song in one way or another. I spoke with the duo about collaboration, access to creative instruments, and finding inspiration during such a mundane and isolating time.
How did you guys meet each other and how did you meet each of the people on the project?
Beth: Meg and I met at Wesleyan University while we were there for undergrad. We were friends for all four years. We were both in bands and we both had a radio show. At some point, we had a show together and were guests on each other’s shows.
Meg: In my mind, our radio show together solidified our friendship. Radio is such a great way to spend an uninterrupted hour on campus with someone at night.
Beth: By senior year we were both working on the board of directors together at the radio station.
Meg: Other people on the project are other Wesleyan alums that we knew the same way we knew each other - we played shows together or they were a part of the station or the studio.
Beth: There are a handful of people here who I knew from working at Baby’s All Right doing doors. But for the most part, these were all friends who we knew were in the area or we anticipated might be interested in a collaborative project like this - musicians who might be sitting on work or waiting for an excuse to make something.
As music fans are there distinct moments where you hear a synth, or an organelle specifically, that inspired you to make music with this kind of instrument?
Beth: Oh yeah, definitely.
Meg: I feel out of my element when I pick up a new synth or a new musical tool, especially sequencers and instruments that you can program. I love music that uses those tools--LCD Soundsystem specifically is one of my favorites for obvious reasons. I want to make music like that but I don't always necessarily know-how. The organelle can be complicated, but you can also turn it on and make things really easy by playing around.
Beth: It’s funny because Meg’s song on the project really does sound like LCD Soundsystem, in all of the best ways.
I was definitely inspired to get the organelle by songs that I listen to. When I first ordered the organelle from Critter and Guitari, it was at the very beginning of the pandemic. It’s an expensive
synthesizer, so I was debating for a while before I finally splurged on it. When the pandemic hit I was like, Oh this is the time for me to invest in something - a synthesizer to play with while I’m bored in my room. Like Meg, synthesizers and music theory have always intimidated me.
I was listening to a lot of ambient music during this pandemic, a lot of Ana Roxanne for example, or I really love Gia Margaret, and I thought that was a really cool direction to move into. Ambient music was the only thing that could calm me or felt good to listen to.
The organelle doesn’t look like some keyboards or a sequencer pad that looks impossible to approach, it almost has its own simplified, colorful shape and form. So it felt like a safe bet to experiment in a way that felt more accessible than a lot of heavy music theory requiring instruments.
Your song was super soothing to me.
Meg: It reminded me of being outside when I hadn’t been for a really long time.
Beth: Meg’s footsteps are actually on the song. They’re from a hike we took with our friends.
Beth you mentioned that the organelle is a very expensive piece of equipment. From my perspective, I think the project makes an instrument that runs for a lot of money accessible to a lot of people. When thinking about the project, how were you considering access to creative tools for your local musical community?
Beth: I think what made this project work was the idea of sharing. I showed Meg and our friend Jake the Organelle, just because they’re musicians and I thought it might interest them. And then we thought it would be nice if everyone could have a shot at using this synthesizer to write music at home. Plus, we are all feeling a lack of creativity and inspiration during the pandemic, so it felt like we all had a shared goal, which was to make a song and put something out in the world.
Meg: If you walk into a music store and you don’t know a ton, or you’ve been made to feel like you don’t know anything about equipment, it can feel too intimidating to make a purchase. Being given something like the organelle, and then being able to sit with it and not be watched while you try it is so rare. There’s no pressure to know how it works immediately when you’re alone. It made the project fun to know that everyone was touching and experimenting with the same thing.
Beth: Going off of that, some projects and organizations that have appeared on my radar lately that I find very inspiring are these groups where people share instruments because they know how hard it is to have access to certain instruments. Synth Library is a great example of that.
It’s a lot of breaking down barriers around gatekeeping both in terms of social pressures with wanting to try it out and also economic barriers with the expense of the technology and the knowledge.
Beth: Exactly.
Why was it important to you guys to put the songs onto physical tapes instead of allowing it to exist purely on the internet.
Beth: During this pandemic, one of my simple joys has been building a record collection more intentionally than I have in the past. That has started to include tapes, and there’s this one album I love, Ana Roxanne’s debut. I was looking at it on Bandcamp and I noticed how gorgeous the tapes were, the album artwork was beautiful and specific to a tape.
I felt like a tape is a great way to make an album in a DIY way that feels valuable and tangible. To press on vinyl you have to get it pressed at a plant which is so expensive and kind of impossible to do, but you can make your own tapes pretty easily. For this project it was so rewarding to get that done, and I wanted it to be a tangible thing that people can hold and save and have it be a part of their collection.
I think there’s something to be said about having a physical incarnation of something when buying something on Bandcamp. And having a physical object brings people together, much like the organelle, since so many artists on this don’t already know each other.
Beth: Exactly. The essence of the project feels a lot more valuable in having a physical copy that you can hold yourself. A playlist and the way we stream music now is just an ensemble of random music you compile, and I feel like people would pay more attention to this if it had a tape, it just feels more special to me when I can hold something in my hand.
The album artwork for it is so fun but also intriguing, what kind of direction did you give to the artist and what vibe are you trying to achieve with the visuals.
Meg: The characters and the lettering are very typical of Declan’s style. He’s so creative and talented, his color choices are amazing, and we honestly take no credit for the direction. To me, it reads as an illustration of this synth being broken open and new life being explored inside of it.
Artwork by, Declan Moy Bishow
Beth: He also plays on a song on the album. The album artwork is one of the coolest parts of the project I think, it captures it all so well.
Meg, how did you come up with the idea of including a downloadable booklet with the compilation.
Meg: I wanted people to be able to say something specific about the process if they wanted to. Especially in a collaborative album, those details can get lost in the shuffle. I wanted the booklet to be a place where someone could talk about the process for someone who loved their song. I also wanted people to have the opportunity to share their other music. Maybe you find a band you love because of the organelle project. I hope if we make more projects like this in the future, it would allow people to discover local musicians near them, who may not be playing shows - especially not now, or maybe ever. I’ve also been learning a lot about Figma, which is what I used to make the booklet. It’s a great free alternative to Illustrator which I think is harder to use.
I really vibe with what you’re saying. I’ve never written a song before but I worked on this song with my partner Iris who’s in the band Bluish. I was really curious to hear about how other people did this versus how we did it. It was me who had never done music and Iris who does music full time, and so we naturally came at the song from really different perspectives.
Meg: Totally, I also just wanted to know for myself. I didn’t ask people to talk about it in any specific way. In the booklet, you’ll find how certain musicians used the organelle, but you’ll also find people's personal takes on their songs - some of which are weird, or tongue and cheek, or earnest - which all connects to their music.
Sam: How did you guys choose Public Assistants as the organization that the proceeds are being donated to?
Beth: We definitely wanted to donate to a Mutual Aid fund - we wanted to do something local because for the most part we’re all based in Brooklyn. Public Assistants recently started advertising that they were being evicted from their spot on Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights, which is actually close to where I live, and they are a really great organization that’s supporting people in the area. It’s also a creative organization, which seemed like a perfect fit as well.
Meg: It felt right to give money to a fund in Brooklyn related in some way to the arts. We are making music here and we live here and we want to impact our community.
Beth: The digital album is going to be “name your price” and then any money that we get from tapes or the prints, or if people are buying the digital album for $10 even if they don’t have to, will go to Public Assistants. it was clear and understood at the beginning that it would be donated somewhere and not coming back to us.
The essence of this project would have felt really ingenuine if we were getting any money out of this.
Totally, you’re not making a business - you're promoting community.
Beth: And for fun!
A lot of the musicians I have spoken to recently are struggling to find a sense of community with other people, even in Brooklyn. It makes sense for touring musicians who have communities outside of this city, but even for people who are based exclusively here are having a hard time figuring out how to collaborate or work on the same project with other people. I think this is a really interesting way of going about creating that.
Meg: It hasn’t been easy to talk to new people or meet new people organically right now, but this has just enough structure that there are moments of really sweet connection. I dropped off the synth outside Prospect Park to someone who I hadn’t met before. It felt so good to talk to someone about not knowing how to make music in this moment - or even just the weather. That was a huge win for me with this - seeing people safely outside and just checking in face to face.
Beth: I don’t think that this would have happened if we weren't in the conditions that we’re in. The feeling of exchange combined with a common thread amongst a group of people was a really rare and great experience to have.
Meg: I also found the time pressure really helpful, and I think a lot of people would agree. I’ve had a lack of motivation to make music. I've been sitting on an album I’ve been making with Sam (of Cousin Luke). We haven’t released anything - but we finished this song. Giving someone else constraints is such a useful tool because you can’t always successfully do that for yourself.
Sam: Given the fact that you’ve known a lot of these people for over four years now, I imagine that you had an idea about what kind of songs they would make. What kind of songs were you expecting to receive and how was that different from the final product.
Meg: I’ve been pretty surprised. There were a few people who were in the music scene but maybe never played a show or only played guitar, and then they made these elaborate songs - that’s really exciting and felt personal and intimate and special to get from people who don’t share their music that often.
Beth: I was expecting a lot of wacky songs - which I hoped for. I wanted a bunch of people to step outside the box of their genre because they were handed a new variable. I think it
worked out really well on the album because some people on the album make really gorgeous smoky old folk - almost vintage-sounding folk music, and the organelle had a really lovely spin there. In contrast, Ezra, for example, submitted one of the coolest creations, it’s just full of
noises and sounds. It’s awesome to see the spectrum of how people created under the constraint, I think it made it a well-rounded album with a lot of surprises
Do you plan on making another album, and if so do you have any concepts in mind?
Meg: We would definitely love to do this again with another instrument. I’d love to expand to people that we don't know next time, and I would love it if people wanted to come back and do it again.
Beth: It would be ideal if when we released this there was enough enthusiasm that people we don't know or aren't our direct friends wanted to work together.
Meg: Or if someone, like a company, wanted to gift us some synths, that would be perfect. If so, they should reach out to us!
I’ve always wanted to try the Teenage Engineering OP-1 Synth, it’s so expensive but it’s my dream that it would be graciously gifted to us.
Beth: Any new Critter and Guitari, we would be so happy to test something out for them.
A casual plug.
Beth: I think we’ve accomplished our goal of finishing this project... but it would be really cool if people who are outside our direct friends wanted to work with us. Also, in twenty to thirty years, if one of these tapes washed up at a record store - that would be incredible. One reason I wanted this to be on tape is for it to be a part of someone's collection - this cool unique ensemble of songs that you can’t replicate anywhere else.
Imagine if one of the people on the tape got famous and this was a rare edition to one of their first releases.
Beth: People would sell it on Discog for like $1,000.
Are there any further things that you want the world to know about the project?
Meg: I want people to enjoy listening to this, but I also want people with limited musical resources to feel like this is something they can do. I’m also in the film world and letting others use your gear is possible but so rare. If someone were to listen to this and realize they don’t use an expensive thing sitting on their floor, but they could lend it and know it’s coming back to them, that would be a great outcome.
Beth: This was a really fun and rewarding project and we’re so lucky that we got to collaborate with all of the talented people who contributed songs and got the album to where it is now. In the beginning, it was a pipedream and it still amazes me we were able to make it happen. It’s really cool to see it complete. The project provided some inspiring opportunities during this very mundane and boring era for creativity.