When we launched back in May it was during a significant cultural moment in crypto. Protocols and services emerged and new ideas where thrown into the world in a positive frenzy over this pivotal moment for culture on the internet. It was also in the midst of a pandemic that still ravages leading to new restrictions and lockdowns to the detriment of culture workers everywhere. The pandemic has affirmed the need for new ideas and diversity of modes in the ways we curate, distribute and fund music.

The turn of the millenium “information wants to be free”-movement yielded some great innovations in terms of how to think about copyright and file-sharing. People like Lawrence Lessig who pioneered alternative licenses like Creative Commons unlocked new ways for creators and artists to distribute their music freely and legally on the terms they saw fit and even pass those privileges to their audiences. A generation of DIY musicians and audiences could suddenly engage in ways that seemed impossible after nearly a decade of the music industry trying to sue their way out of loosing control of distribution. These new licensing models were necessary and vital to support an emerging remix culture where blogging and bootleg remixes were playing a larger and larger role.

Much of the work around building Derive has been figuring out which models work and and which don’t when we’re talking about music and web3. Since our launch in July we have been tweaking and discussing this issue at length while the web music space has hurled by the window at an ever increasing pace. Auctions for 1/1 music NFTs have hit new record highs and as people are fractionalising these unique digital assets into token backed parts, we are arriving, through a detour, at a format that the industry is all but too well-versed in: Music as collectibles.

I've often used the term autonomy when I've tried to describe what it is about Web3 that excites me so. Autonomy to me is the ability to act, to evolve and react to the things around you. In music it means being able to change modes, have new ideas and test them, work on new styles and explore novel approaches to your praxis. For me, everything about being a recording artist is equally important; the ways in which I conceptualise thoughts into music is just as important as how I present them to the world in writing and visual style. The way I present my work means something.

To front the third of four genesis chains we bring you Anja T. Lahrmann, a composer, producer and musician who has been performing as Excelsior since 2015.

Derive is founded on the premise that the ways in which we create, share and convene around music should spring from the creators, their work and their audience. It is an attempt at locating positive alternatives to the commonplace modes of operation in the music industry. Alternatives that are sustainable and transparent and work for both the creators and their audiences.