After putting out an electronic album under the name Trickfinger earlier this year, John Frusciante announced that he was going to step away from releasing music commercially.
Well, the former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist has made good on that promise, unleashing a load of material online for free through new SoundCloud and Bandcamp pages.
At present, there is a 19-minute long set of six songs recorded on a 4-track, as well as an eight-song set recorded between 2009 and 2011 at Frusciante's main studio titled Renoise Tracks. Additionally, he's shared an extended version of Trickfinger piece "Sect in Sgt" and a slew of other single tracks.
In a statement on his website, the musician expanded on his decision to step out of the realm of commercial music:
When someone releases music on a label, they are selling it, not giving it. Art is a matter of giving. If I sing my friend a song, it goes from me to her, at no cost. That's giving. If I sell you an object, we do not say that I gave you that object. Recording artists have been "giving" the public music by selling it to them for so long that we now think of sell-outs as dedicated musicians who love their audience so much that they aggressively sell them products, and sell themselves as an image and personality to this audience on a regular basis just as aggressively. Sell-outs is an antiquated term which, when I was a kid, referred to artists who love making money more than they love making music. The word indicated a lack of artistic integrity. Sell-outs suck, in my opinion. It's a shame its become so normal, expected, and acceptable to be one.
The full statement includes details about the making of the just-released content, and offers a lengthy clarification about his previous claim that, "At this point I have no audience."
"Reduced to a single sentence, it would have been accurate to say that, at this point, I have no particular audience in mind while I am making music," he wrote. "Thinking this way gives me a certain freedom and stimulates growth and change. It is a state of mind that has been extremely useful to me from time to time throughout these last 27 years of being a professional musician."
Read the full statement here, then hear the full musical offerings over at the aforementioned SoundCloud and Bandcamp pages. You'll find Renoise Tracks 2009-2011 below.
Well, the former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist has made good on that promise, unleashing a load of material online for free through new SoundCloud and Bandcamp pages.
At present, there is a 19-minute long set of six songs recorded on a 4-track, as well as an eight-song set recorded between 2009 and 2011 at Frusciante's main studio titled Renoise Tracks. Additionally, he's shared an extended version of Trickfinger piece "Sect in Sgt" and a slew of other single tracks.
In a statement on his website, the musician expanded on his decision to step out of the realm of commercial music:
When someone releases music on a label, they are selling it, not giving it. Art is a matter of giving. If I sing my friend a song, it goes from me to her, at no cost. That's giving. If I sell you an object, we do not say that I gave you that object. Recording artists have been "giving" the public music by selling it to them for so long that we now think of sell-outs as dedicated musicians who love their audience so much that they aggressively sell them products, and sell themselves as an image and personality to this audience on a regular basis just as aggressively. Sell-outs is an antiquated term which, when I was a kid, referred to artists who love making money more than they love making music. The word indicated a lack of artistic integrity. Sell-outs suck, in my opinion. It's a shame its become so normal, expected, and acceptable to be one.
The full statement includes details about the making of the just-released content, and offers a lengthy clarification about his previous claim that, "At this point I have no audience."
"Reduced to a single sentence, it would have been accurate to say that, at this point, I have no particular audience in mind while I am making music," he wrote. "Thinking this way gives me a certain freedom and stimulates growth and change. It is a state of mind that has been extremely useful to me from time to time throughout these last 27 years of being a professional musician."
Read the full statement here, then hear the full musical offerings over at the aforementioned SoundCloud and Bandcamp pages. You'll find Renoise Tracks 2009-2011 below.
