Now Collecting Music/Art Submissions for a City Compilation.
The Shifty Bits Cult are doing some great things in the name of this city of ours and they won’t stop until everyone knows about Fredericton’s incredible arts scene. Is there anything they can’t do? They’ve thrown festivals, organized a successful town-hall style meeting of the minds, have appeared on Vice Magazine’s Noisy blog and now they’re pairing audio and visual elements together to make a unique compilation to help voice their love of all things Fredericton with the rest of the world. We’re lucky to have them.
“The idea for the compilation actually came from a great conversation I had during Shivering Songs with Trevor Murphy from Pigeon Row,” said Penelope Stevens, artist, musician and Shifty Bits Cult member. “Trevor knows and cares a lot about the Fredericton scene, even though he hails from Nova Scotia. I met up for coffee with him to ask what we can do to increase awareness of our sick scene on a national level. I kept saying shit like ‘It’s so awesome here. Why does nobody outside of Fredericton care? I keep telling everybody that it’s the best city in Canada, but nobody believes me!’ And to that, Trevor essentially said, ‘It’s a lot harder to tell someone how great something is than it is just to show them’. GREAT FUCKING ADVICE!
“It’s kind of like Jesus and Doubting Thomas,” said Stevens. “Jesus had to stick Thomas’ fingers into his gaping wounds before he’d believe that he was alive. We’re just taking a page out of Jesus’ book.”
The Details
The group are putting together a compilation project and submissions are open to any visual artist or musician that lives in the Greater Fredericton Area. Artists can submit a maximum of three (3) submissions, to be curated at the discretion of The Shifty Bits Cult. At least one entry from each artist will be included, given the following considerations:
For music submissions:
- Song was recorded in 2013-2015
- Recording quality is reasonable to great
- Song is 30 seconds – 10 minutes long, and original
- At least 75% of the band lives in the Fredericton area
- Artist contributes to the Fredericton arts scene in some way
For artwork submissions:
- Image quality must be 300 ppi
- Should not be text-based (unless paired to a specific musical piece)
- Should demonstrate some level of artistic effort
“The interesting thing about the compilation,” said Stevens, “is that it’s not purposely representing a particular genre or demographic, and that it incorporates our visual artists seamlessly into the presentation of the package.
“We’ll pair each song with the art submission that best represents that song. That means that each song on the compilation will have a unique album cover that the listener will gain access to when they download the comp.”
The Shifty Bits Cult will curate the project and all submissions. At the present time, the end result will most likely end up as a downloadable file, but not just any downloadable file – one that’s 100% Fredericton.
“At this point, it will be only available for download online, but we’re in the process of checking out funding opportunities to make some cassettes. We’d also like to print a tiny zine of artwork to go with the cassettes, so we’ll see. Fund us, government! Also, if anyone has any good compilation names, e-mail them to motherhoodmusic@gmail.com
Submissions are accepted until April 3rd, with very few exceptions. For more details and to submit work, check the Facebook event for complete info.
The Shifty Bits Cult promotes and supports independent, emerging, and/or experimental artists. Priority will definitely be given to artists who are making an interesting contribution to culture.
