‘Through the Soil’ Organizers Talk Discord, Lo-fi, and Working With Phil Elverum
By Alyana Vera, Contributor
Who knew a music Discord and two enterprising fans could birth a massive compilation featuring the likes of SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE, Hovvdy, Horse Jumper of Love, and 65 other musicians? Although not much information about Through the Soil—a charity compilation benefitting the NAMI COVID-19 Mental Health Support Fund—was made available until it opened for pre-order, all 250 of the limited edition cassette box sets sold out in just 18 hours.
We caught up with the organizers behind Through the Soil, Andres Villogas and Steven Danglis, to talk about the response the compilation has received, how they met on Discord (this interview was the first time either of them had heard each other’s voices), and what inspired them to donate the proceeds to NAMI.
Through the Soil is available now, exclusively through Bandcamp. 100% of the proceeds go towards the NAMI COVID-19 Mental Health Support Fund.
I saw the compilation got covered on Pitchfork and Brooklyn Vegan; how have you felt about the response to this project so far?
Steven: The outpouring from the community says something about who we're trying to represent here, the DIY community. All of this is coming from this grassroots effort, that's what this is all about.
Andres: We both are just really appreciative of all the feedback and support we've been getting. It's really amazing how much this project has been resonating with so many people. It's amazing to know that we were able to bring about this thing that people are really enthusiastic about and to bring all these artists together.
Steven: I didn't expect this. This is kind of niche music, a lot of it's sad music. To see this huge amount of support makes us feel like we did something really cool.
I had actually wanted to ask, when you first started the project, did you already know that you wanted it to focus on lo-fi and bedroom pop artists?
Andres: The answer is yes and no; I think it just happened to come around that way. It was never a marketing thing.
Steven: That’s how we connected, that's why we're friends. We both have a love for this particular kind of music.
I read that you met on a music forum; what was the conversation that sparked this friendship?
Steven: Andres and I participate in a bunch of different chat rooms on Discord. I think we were in a couple [chat rooms] and you just start to see someone's name a lot.
Andres: Yeah, neither of us ever used Discord or anything like that before. I guess the pandemic makes you seek out other people to talk to. I used to go to a lot of house shows and concerts pre-COVID, and I guess that part of my life was missing. So going to Discord and music chat rooms, eventually you see the same names and this small little friendship started forming. Sometime around September or October, I actually started befriending some other artists that would eventually be on the comp. There was this little chat room that started where it would be just me and a couple other indie artists, and I invited Steven to that chat room and this whole thing exploded.
Steven: It wasn't a big chat but I would say a good percentage of them were people who actively released music. There was an idea like, "Hey, there's a couple musicians here, a comp would be cool," but no one took the lead. Andres and I talked about it in private messages and just started recruiting people and sending random unsolicited emails. We just kept working on it everyday for hours and hours at a time. I'm a bit older than [Andres]; I'm an old millenial, they’re a young millennial. One of our goals was to show, not a progression, but that this is one scene that has grown. This lo-fi DIY thing goes back to the 80s, if not before that. So we pooled our knowledge and built a time capsule that shows the multiple generations of this cool thing that's been happening in music for decades now.
What was one email confirmation that surprised or excited you the most?
Andres: So there's two names. For me at least, the first email that we got that surprised me was Sam Ray, the front-man of teen suicide and also Ricky Eat Acid. Getting him on board was something that I was really proud of, and he was just so supportive from the very beginning. Gaining his trust and knowing that he was on our side in this project really helped us build credibility that we were serious about this project.
Steven: That was a name that helped make it real. The two biggest names that were the biggest surprises for me as a musician, Martin Newell from The Cleaners from Venus and Phil Elverum. I didn't even think that artists on that tier were even possible. I was like, "that guy even has an email address? We got in touch with him?" So Martin and then Phil Elverum, who said yes to doing the art and putting his name on our project. He's my favorite artist, just someone that I have the most respect for and inspires me to make art. I think if you scroll back through, all of our chats from that one particular couple of hours were just "Wow."
Andres: Yeah, for me that would be the second name. I know that he's not the type of person who is particularly comfortable with fans saying these sorts of things, but I think he's just the sort of artist that is very real about his intentions. You can't help but admire the way he goes about crafting his work and producing his work. I'm a big photographer and I know that Phil has done that too; I have all of his books. So being able to ask him to do the cover art for [Through the Soil] and him being very receptive was a huge, mind-blowing experience for us.
Why did you decide to call the project Through the Soil?
Steven: We had a lot of names, but it was quite hard actually. You don't want to get too cheesy. We're supporting a charity so I felt like we had to be kind of serious. This isn't a joke, it's mental health that we're talking about. We arrived on [Through the Soil] because there's some ambiguity there. I think it represents this sort of trans-generational aspect. We're talking about soil, it's fertile and composed of the remains of what has come before it. So there's that element of artists building on artists building on artists, creating a cohesive scene. But it's also a thing that represents growth, like personal growth in terms of mental health. But in the end I want people to read whatever they want out of it.
Andres: I do want to emphasize how hard it was, it was really the most difficult part. Emailing artists and getting all the legal stuff sorted was easy in comparison to deciding on a title.
Why was it important for you and the artists you worked with to donate 100% of the proceeds to the NAMI COVID Mental Health Fund?
Steven: We wanted to do something for charity and mental health was on our list. It wasn't immediate. What happened was my sister-in-law is a nurse practitioner and I was talking to my brother about this thing. We're in the middle of a pandemic still, and at the time we were deep in it. We didn't want to be tone-deaf when a lot of people were suffering. So acknowledging COVID-19 was important to us. My brother told me that my sister-in-law had been seeing a lot of mental health implications in her practice. So we started exploring charities that had some kind of tie in there, and NAMI had a fund specifically for that purpose.
Andres: I can’t speak to Steven’s experiences but for me, I've suffered through depression and I'm on antidepressants, so from the beginning I always had in mind mental health awareness being one of the causes that this would be supporting.
How have music communities in places like Discord helped you navigate the pandemic?
Andres: I think that [community] is especially important for this scene more than any other music scene.
Steven: This is personal music that people are doing. A lot of times it's music done in a bedroom, produced in isolation, and then shared intimately with another group.
Andres: This scene relies so heavily on house shows and being in a very intimate space and sharing these very intimate songs. What I had noticed that a lot of these artists had done and are still doing free Instagram shows. Being a part of these Instagram shows connected me with a lot of artists and brought my spirits up, and reminded me of the charm and intimacy that this scene revolves around.
You have a wider variety of artists on this comp that span both popularity and locale. What's the one thing in your opinion that unites all of them?
Andres: This compilation celebrates this artistic mindset that's based on modesty and finding unexpected beauty in imperfection. I would argue that every artist on this roster has put out music that highlights this sincerity and revolves around this artistry that's self-made and honest.
Steven: There’s no filter; it’s directly from the artist’s mouth, a lot of times recorded in an amateur setting.
Andres: They’re not doing lo-fi because it’s the cool thing, they’re doing it because that’s their set-up and limitations, and they are still able to produce beautiful music despite it.
Steven: There’s texture to it too, a texture to this imperfection. You can hear the dog barking in the background, it’s like I’m there with you.
In the press release, you describe yourselves as "regular people without industry ties." What would your advice be for other people in a similar situation who are interested in launching their own compilation?
Steven: You can do it! It's doable, it just takes time. Don't underestimate the power of an unsolicited email. Just be honest and sincere and you can actually do this. If you want to do a comp, please do! I want more comps.
Andres: Put in your all, that's something that the artists are able to see. If they see you're putting 100% effort in, they'll do it back. It's a show of appreciation going both ways.
Steven: It does take a lot of time, so just be ready for that. Do it because you really want to do it. It is fun; you get to talk to artists you really like, and that part's really cool.
Andres: Yeah I know that I stayed up multiple days until 4 am just working on something, whether it was laying out the artwork or researching how to send press releases.
What have you learned as a result of creating Through the Soil?
Andres: I think I’ve gained a huge amount of appreciation and admiration for labels, especially indie ones. They’re churning out releases every other week and that’s amazing to me because this is a lot of work. This whole project was a five-month boot camp on how to run a DIY label.
Steven: Which we have no aspirations of. For me, my relationship with music had dropped off. I haven't participated in a scene as actively as when I was younger. I've been talking to some of my buddies about this thing and we're all buzzing; we remember why we used to do this when we were younger and this feels so good. I want to be active again in whatever capacity and just be creative and support music. That's a self-growth thing. Being an active participant even when you're an old dude like me with a family feels really good.
Andres: This has been a huge passion project for both of us. I've enjoyed every single minute of it and it's definitely rejuvenated my love for music.
Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you want to mention about the project?
Andres: I just want to thank everybody that helped create this with us.
Steven: We’re just two of close to a hundred people that really worked toward this thing. All we did was send out emails. The compilation is still 100% the artists. Those people are the ones who should really be taking the credit for this.
