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The global pandemic hasn\u2019t stunted the creativity and output of indie musicians. Far from it: especially when it comes to DIY-leaning artists who create and record their original music at home instead of in recording studios, this period of confinement has often yielded a bumper crop of new material. And one locus of musical activity is WWNBB (We Were Never Being Boring), a loose collective of artists headquartered in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
The collective came into being 12 years ago thanks to an idea from Alessandro Paderno, who records under a number of project names including Us Random Calculator. \u201cWe were all connected through a little record label in L.A., and that label closed,\u201d recalls Samuele Palazzi, co-founder (with Paderno and Enzo Baruffaldi) of WWNBB. \u201cIt looked like at the time that indie music was just not able to maintain its previous life, so we decided to do this \u2018suicide mission\u2019 of starting [our own]indie record label.\u201d The foundational concept of WWNBB would be \u201cto do it among friends and in a friendly way,\u201d Palazzi says. \u201cThere’s absolutely no [financial] gain for people working at the label; it’s just a service to the bands that we like.\u201d<\/p>\n
And as it happens, quite a few of those bands are based in Italy. \u201cPrimarily, we try to promote artists who we think are worthy in the U.S. or abroad,\u201d Palazzi says. \u201cWe try to do everything \u2013 or as much as possible \u2013 in-house, but it’s not always easy to get the word out there, especially for a collective that works with bands from Italy and the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the collective\u2019s earliest days, Palazzi lived a few hours\u2019 drive from Paderno. And Baruffaldi, a radio host, lived some distance away as well, in Bologna. \u201cBut we were all tied together by the love of music,\u201d Palazzi says. \u201cAnd we all shared the idea that music has to be something that unites [even when] there’s no economic components that are the best for a business. And I think that’s what kept us going all this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The collective is a small-scale success: to date it has been responsible for nearly 100 vinyl releases including albums, EPs and singles. \u201cI like to keep them all on my wall,\u201d Palazzi says with a chuckle. \u201cBut I don\u2019t have room any more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though he\u2019s an enthusiastic champion of the artists on WWNBB, Palazzi admits that he was surprised at the collective\u2019s early success. \u201cI say it was unexpected because of our little position in the world as a label,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe\u2019re working with incredibly talented bands and, without paying extra money for promotion, the music went out to a degree where you hear them on NPR.\u201d He says that the collective takes pride in the success of its bands \u201ceven if we’re not collaborating anymore.\u201d And before music venues shut down in response to the pandemic, Palazzi was doubly proud when WWNBB artists from Italy played live shows in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
Generally speaking, there\u2019s nothing noticeably Italian about the music made by members of WWNBB\u2019s European contingent. Us Random Calculator\u2019s Paderno is based in Caino, a village near the city of Brescia, at the foothills of the Alps. His collaborator Fabio Benni lives in Ghedia, another village about 30km away. Yet perhaps the nearest musical touchstone for the organic-meets-digital sounds of Us Random Calculator is Olivia Tremor Control, part of another loose musical confederation, the Athens, Ga.-based Elephant 6 Collective.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure about that,\u201d laughs Paderno. He says that Us Random Calculator\u2019s new album 11111001101<\/i> (that\u2019s the binary expression for 1997, the year he and Fabio met) began as a test of his then-new home studio. \u201cI was in the basement going, \u2018I want to record this guitar; I want to try this new microphone.\u2019\u201d Months of experimentation led to a cache of \u201csketches, little pieces\u201d on Paderno\u2019s computer hard drive.<\/p>\n
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\n\u201cThen the pandemic happened,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I had a lot of time home alone.\u201d He began sharing the musical fragments with Fabio Benni. \u201cI shared them through emails, and he\u2019d send the ideas back with some additions,\u201d Paderno says.<\/p>\n
The back-and-forth process continued through 2020 and eventually yielded 22 finished songs. \u201cThen I called Samuele and said, \u2018If I keep these songs in my computer, they will die, because I will forget them.\u2019\u201d The duo \u201crandomly\u201d selected ten songs and released them as 11111001101<\/i>. \u201cOn the last day of that crazy year, it\u2019s like a gift or a wish for the new year for everyone,\u201d Paderno says. A second volume of instrumentals is slated for release later this year.<\/p>\n
The gentle, melodic textures of 11111001101 <\/i>balance acoustic and electronic sounds in a warm, dreamy context. It\u2019s finely produced music that feels unhurried, the product of love and care but not too much fussing over minor details.<\/p>\n
The artists who release music via WWNBB \u2013 on vinyl and digitally using the Bandcamp platform \u2013 are a varied lot. A browse through the label\u2019s catalog unearths dream pop, shoegaze, experimental, ambient, pop-punk and more. But it\u2019s the do-it-yourself, indie ethos that binds the disparate projects together.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndie pop could be a good definition for what we are all enjoying when we listen,\u201d says Palazzi. And that style defined many of WWNBB\u2019s early releases. But these days, the collective doesn\u2019t limit itself to that kind of music. \u201cW have some things that are very<\/i> different,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
And when lockdowns began happening around the world, more musicians got busy making music at home. \u201cPeople started sending more music our way,\u201d Palazzi says. The label has several releases scheduled for 2021.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no A&R department at the We Were Never Being Boring collective. \u201cSometimes we just have a suggestion from a friend who tells us about a band that we should listen to,\u201d Palazzi admits with a chuckle. And that eventually leads to a vinyl and digital release on WWNBB. \u201cThat’s not a very scientific way,\u201d he says. \u201cIt’s not just the professional way of doing it, for sure.\u201d But the results speak for themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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