Circadian Rhythms: A Blueprint For the Future?

Transcription

1 Circadian Rhythms: A Blueprint For the Future? Profiles - Sunday, 09 July 2017 Everything in nature has a circadian rhythm, dictated by day and night. Everything has a plottable rhythm it's about life and duality. We take these ideas and put them into this brand to express a million things. It's about an idea. Speaking to Luke Blackwax about his concept label Circadian Rhythms is an enlightening experience. It s clear that he s fiercely intelligent this is a mind constantly asking questions, dissecting subjects. And it s this tendency to question everything that saw Blackwax turn his NTS Circadian Rhythms radio show into, first of all, a record label and then expand it into the multidisciplinary cooperative concept it is now. At its heart, Circadian Rhythms is a movement, not an enterprise. The label is a constellation of creative output; art, clothes, design and music are anchored together by a philosophy of making beautiful things with minimum negative impact on the world. Born from a need to sustain the thing they love music in a world where mp3s are worthless, the group at the core of Circadian Rhythms came together through serendipity. Blackwax and the clothes designer William Green, for instance, met outside a club. Each release from the label is built around a concept. The last drop had a theme of metal running as an undercurrent throughout. From a metal-themed record, the material was physically woven into the clothes themselves and lent inspiration for the visuals. As Blackwax explains, I had an artist doing stuff with metal, a designer making clothing and then we got sent this music by Toasty, who's this old school dubstep head, and he had this EP called Metal and I was like 'Jesus Christ, this all ties together.' We met with Blackwax in London to find out about his business model of the future.

2 We take a single stimulus music and we create all these things around it which can fund and sustain our creative output without compromising on our ethics Why didn't you just keep Circadian Rhythms as a musical entity?luke Blackwax: I never wanted to be in music. It's all about being creative and supporting people being creative. That's what I m really interested in because I've realised music is, for the most part, a con-game it makes money for a very select few. Either you aim for the commercial market and have a lot of money behind you and be tied into compromising situations or be fully independent and struggle. And, let me tell you, the struggle is real. When you're an independent record label it's usually just one guy with his phone dming people and getting music they mostly have zero budget for creative projects. So I started thinking about ways to sustain what we do without compromising. I had all these people around me who could make something happen this guy can make clothes, this guy can do web design it was like Why aren t we working as a collaborative force to create something? We wanted to build an ecosystem which could fund things ourselves. We take a single stimulus music and we create all these things around it which can fund and sustain our creative output without compromising on our ethics. It s an extract of my own personal philosophy around the economy and the future of work.

3 Do you feel a responsibility to improve things?luke Blackwax: It's not about responsibility, it's just what I believe in. I worked in digital marketing and I thought it was bullshit. I didn t want to be part of those systems, so I went independent. Unless people understand that there's an alternative, and there is an alternative, they stay stuck in the mindset that they've got to get money from elsewhere instead of finding ways to create things themselves. The idea of making the clothes was that music doesn't make money mp3s can be reproduced infinitely so ideas of supply and demand go out of the window. The value of music is determined by corporate entities and the only people making money are those at the very top, so artists can't finance a video or anything that makes them legitimate or interesting. Content is king, after all. That's the bullshit you hear in marketing all the time, but it becomes true when everyone repeats it. Music just isn't enough so how can you recentre and make people support music without buying it? You get them to buy into a larger idea. If you can offer consumers a choice and let them know they're supporting local artists and their own community directly and there's no exploitation, you're giving them an option that doesn t exist otherwise. That's just good business. I believe the model we're trying to make work is a model for the future.

4 We want to make something that looks and feels like a commercial entity but is actually built around a cooperative structure that puts artists and the environment first

5 Can you explain what that model looks like?luke Blackwax: We want to make something that looks and feels like a commercial entity but is actually built around a cooperative structure that puts artists and the environment first. The label is me, Last Japan, fashion designer William Green, graphic designer Jase Coop and visual artist Dylan Tushar. We produce everything in house, outsourcing manufacturing to local businesses in London. It s all self-financed and we use the money we make to keep investing to create something bigger for everyone involved. There's an understanding that everyone has shares in this company and we want to bring in more people as and when possible. I'm writing a model so other artists and collectives can follow it and I'm making all of our finances public so people understand the real costs involved in doing things properly, whether it's a capsule collection or record.how do you make people understand that Circadian Rhythms isn t just another commercial enterprise?luke Blackwax: We've never really cared about people noticing us. I don't care about being a personality in music or fashion. It's about how can we do something interesting that challenges the status quo. If people don't clock it now, they will clock it eventually. We're not trying to be flash or make a big fuss we're just doing something we feel is right. I m a firm believer that s the way you really do it you burn out otherwise. If you build something consistent then people will eventually understand it. So your clothes aren t just label merch?luke Blackwax: Our clothes are not product in a traditional sense. They re a manifestation of ideas. I love fashion. I love clothes. I don't care about hype. I like comfort, technical construction, durability it s about being conceptually interesting. The aesthetic makes it accessible. We re young and this is what we like to wear. I have never owned a suit and I never want to. The t-shirt we make is functional it s gender neutral and comes in one size to fit all body types. We sell our t-shirts for 80 and they cost us 40 to make. All of it is made locally with our friends at Tottenham Textiles, paying skilled workers a fair wage. We sell directly to reduce cost to the consumer. It s an idea that really should be the norm. We're dealing with small batch specialised products and that's how I see future economies working and businesses surviving. Most brands are only thinking about money and how to make products as cheap as possible. There are no considerations for the people making it, the environment or the wider context in which it s consumed. We want to change this. It's not sustainable to be exploiting labour elsewhere to produce cheap shoes there are so many problems with the current system it s hard to know where to start. Where the real innovation will happen, like always, is in public entities that put people first. We've got to rethink the whole market and our understanding of everything. I don't care about money. I hate money. I just want enough to live with dignity so I can do creative things I care about. Circadian Rhythms is probably too ahead of its time

6 Subcultures existing in a real way can't happen because no one wants to work with each other. Instead of being like, It's all about me, I want to change it to, It's about all of us What's the reaction been like? Luke Blackwax: We never showed anyone what we were doing before we released the whole concept people were blown away when they saw it. We got really big support. The beauty of it is that it doesn t even need people from the music scene supporting it! We were getting Acronym collectors and techwear nerds talking about it it was getting shared on private forums from people who were completely unfamiliar with our work. We had people saying, like, release goals all that stupid stuff. I want those people to see the wider context and understand how we did it. Everyone's competing in this global internet space to be their own brand it s fractured and deeply individualistic. It's a reflection of the capitalist society we live in and it baffles me. Subcultures existing in a real way can't happen because no one wants to work with each other. Instead of being like, It's all about me, I want to change it to, It's about all of us, because scenes and cultures are built by people pushing together not pulling apart. We can bring people from all different backgrounds and professions the message is if you come together you can make brilliant things.

7 What do you see for Circadian Rhythms in the future?luke Blackwax: It s great that we're a bunch of people who met randomly, came together and created this stuff without ever having to compromise. We do what we want and that s what s most satisfying. People can't afford to take risks, so you've got to show them it's a risk worth taking and that you'll make something ultimately more real as a result. We also want to use it as an outlet for our politics. Whatever we do, we want to start discussions and be reactive to our environment. We've got to use our platform for positive change. It's so rare. Our lives are full of contradiction and it's the one safe space we have where we don't feel we're doing something wrong. That, for me, is the success metric. We're creating profit and reinvesting to deliver meaningful art. It really is working. And our taste in music is ultimately what unites us.for more info head to circadian-rhythms.com and follow Circadian Rhythms on Twitter.Video direction: Romain Cieutat.

8 Words by Alice Nicolov View Original: