A Colony of Wild Scorpions, A Bank Can Contribute, A Hefty Year
Hi friends. My name is Duncan and this is Hello From Duncan - a regular roundup of my creative input and output. It's free, you're getting it because you signed up for it, and you can unsubscribe with the link in the footer at any time.
A few weeks ago I applied for STPLN:LAB - an incubator for creative businesses in Malmö. Last week, I found out I've been accepted for their 2024 season, so that's exciting.
The program lasts 12 months, and it covers a bunch of stuff - business coaching, help with admin stuff, access to media labs and equipment, a co-working space, and - best of all - the opportunity to meet and get to know a bunch of other creative professionals at various stages of their journeys here in Malmö
One thing I found particularly appealing is the focus on sustainability. Not in the environmental sense, but in the "not burning out" sense. I've had quite a hefty year, and I could use a bit more sustainability in my working habits.
Part of the plan is to take the opportunity to try to develop Loud Numbers further as a studio. Miriam and I have been thinking about that quite a lot over the last few months, and we've been getting advice from some smart people. I'm hoping that the added expertise I'll get access to through STPLN can accelerate that further, and that there might also be collaboration opportunities with some of the other folks in the program.
But most of all it'll just be nice to be able to dedicate some time to thinking about how all this *gestures wildly at his "portfolio career" * can pan out in the coming years, and meet others who are figuring that out too.
As is traditional, I've compiled a list of my favourite songs of the year. There are a whopping 85 of them this year, compared to just 30 last year. Maybe I'm getting less picky as I get older? I've tried to keep it to stuff released in 2023 or the end of 2022, but a few might have slipped through that were released earlier.
Anyway, here's my handpicked list - with special credit going to Boygenius, Yo La Tengo, Avalon Emerson, Grian Chatten and Antony Szmierek for appearing multiple times in it.
It's always fun to contrast my handpicked list with some actual statistics, and one small delight in December was the discovery of stats.fm - a listening statistics platform that finally begins to replicate some of the functionality of my beloved Last.fm (thanks Eva!). What it doesn't do, weirdly, is give a "last 365 days" view. So I'll stick with Last.fm for now, but I'm keeping an eye on it.
According to the stats, my top-streamed songs this year are:
- Boygenius - Not Strong Enough
- Boygenius - Emily I'm Sorry
- Jockstrap - Debra
- Sharon Van Etten - Mistakes
- Gorillaz - Silent Running
- Yo La Tengo - Aselestine
- Romy - Loveher
- Avalon Emerson - Hot Evening
- Say She She - C'est Si Bon (the only entry that isn't in my hand-picked list above)
- Yo La Tengo - Tonight's Episode
Annoyingly, none of this captures the huge amount of streaming of various ambient musicians that I've done through the Bandcamp app this year. Those stats are uncaptured, sadly. But maybe it's good to have a few things that don't make it into the data streams? Either way, from memory, my top artists there are R Beny, Lightbath, Jogging House, Celer, Elin Piel, and The Lifted Index.
As always, I would like to receive your lists too - hit reply and send me either a playlist or just some names of songs you particularly enjoyed that you think I might enjoy.
US climate campaigners Project Drawdown just published a report on the carbon emissions associated with banking, which I worked on the dataviz for. You might be surprised how much money stored in a bank can contribute to your personal emissions. Here's one of the charts that shows that (for a US context).
You can find and download the full report here.
Finally, another year means another 52 things that Tom Whitwell learned. My favourite from 2023 is the following:
There’s been a colony of 15,000 wild scorpions living in the walls of Sheerness Dockyard, Kent, for over 200 years.
That's all from me for 2023. See you in January!
- Duncan