Music and Love in the Shared Economy Jun05

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Music and Love in the Shared Economy

A few weeks ago a good friend sent me some music. It was a wonderful surprise, all the more so because the music was made by her daughter, one half of a new American folk duo named “Undlin and Wolfe.” What was cool was not just that she sent me some music – which was, indeed, cool – or even that the music is fantastic (more about that in a moment) – which was very, very cool. What was especially cool (okay, I won’t use that word again in this post) was the vehicle by which she shared the music.

You see, Undlin and Wolfe are making their music available via voluntary contributions. That’s right, you pay what you want to download it yourself or send it as a gift to someone else. Which means, as we said yesterday, that there’s a certain vulnerability in attempting to start a music career in this way. I mean, maybe people will pay, maybe not, maybe a little, maybe a lot. But there’s no given.

They do it, I think, because they love music and want to share both their music and their love with as many people as possible. And that combination of vulnerability, relationship, and love (not to mention music!) is what constitutes the best of the “sharing economy” we talked about yesterday.

You can find their music and first album at their Bandcamp page here. Go on, try it out, I’m guessing you’ll love it, too. My favorite – which was a very hard decision to make – was “Snow,” but they’re all wonderful and you may very well have another favorite and I’d love to hear about it.

And I’m not the only one who loves their music. One reviewer described a live performance this way:

Undlin’s steady, clear vocals and Wolfe’s expert guitar playing transfixed the audience’s gaze on stage.  I always know when I’m enjoying a show when I feel like I’m interrupting a personal moment between the performers.

I’ll put a copy of Snow (and a few others) below from their Soundcloud page so that you can listen yourself. If you’re wondering what the really interesting sound is, it’s Siri Undlin on the sansula, and instrument I’d never heard of before this song – thank you, Undlin and Wolfe! 🙂

Note: In addition to the songs on their page, you can also listen to a song as yet otherwise unavailable – “Lullabies Lost” – and actually see the two members of this spankin’ new duo in action.