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Hi there,

Busy busy busy. We've been composing new music, played at Roskilde Festival and then we've decided to say "Go fuck yourself" to Spotify. (And we think you should do the same)

🌊 CARRIER

On September 14 we’ll be premiering our orchestral piece CARRIER featuring Århus Sinfonietta and Maya SB.

It’s our second time composing for Sinfonietta, but this time with a larger ensemble: 19 musicians including SVIN. And we’re pretty damn excited.

Visual artist Maya SB is creating both the visuals and lighting design. If you haven’t already seen her work, we highly recommend checking it out. This will be a truly immersive experience.

We’ve spent years developing this project and the last 10 months composing the music. Performing it at VEGA in Copenhagen on September 14th is a dream come true.

👉 Get your tickets now!

🎪 Roskilde Festival

Due to a last-minute cancellation by another act, our side project BISSESVINET was invited to play at Roskilde Festival, and what a ride it was.

Playing that stage on short notice was intense and beautiful. We loved every moment of it. Several people told us it was the best performance on Roskilde! (No shit!)

🎧 Fuck Spotify

We’ve recently decided to remove all our music from Spotify.

If you haven’t heard, Spotify’s CEO, Daniel Ek, (a very creepy guy) recently invested 600 million euros in AI military tech. A quick Google search will give you all the details, but the bottom line is this: we don’t want the pennies we earn from streaming to help fund warfare. That’s not why we started making music.

For a long time, we’ve been frustrated with how little artists are paid per stream on Spotify, and this was the final straw.

We are proud to be part of a growing movement leaving this platform, that now also are promoting AI bands other weird stuff.

Do you really want to support that??

We suggest buying our music on Bandcamp or streaming via Tidal or Apple Music, which pay almost three times more per stream than Spotify. We are in the process of uploading our music to Sleeve here. That means you will be able to listen to our music on Sleeve for only 15 DKK a month.

📱 Sleeve

For those of you who don’t know, we’ve joined Sleeve!

Sleeve is a platform for artists, where we can connect with you directly, without algorithms interfering like on other social media platforms. You can follow us there to get the latest updates and behind-the-scenes content.

If you feel like supporting us more directly, you can also subscribe for a small monthly fee to get access to unreleased demos and other exclusive content.

Being a band comes with expenses, and even a small contribution goes a long way in helping us create more music and content.

👉 Join us on Sleeve here

See you on the flip side.

Love ya!

/ SVIN

This is Wally.

I’ve decided to step a little closer to you. I’ve always believed music is about connection, not just consumption. So this is a space where I’ll begin sharing more directly, more personally, with those of you who care to listen.

Old recordings. New sketches. Stories from the studio. Maybe even some reflections on where we’ve been—and where music might be heading next.

Me in Hyde Park, London, February 1982. Photograph: David Corio/Redferns

I’m also doing this to support this new project called Sleeve. It’s a platform made by artists, for artists—a quiet rebellion against the noise and algorithms. A way to bring more value and care back to music, and to the people who make it.

It’s early days. But if you’re here, you’re early too. Isn't that marvellous?

Thanks for being part of this, please leave a comment, tell a friend. I look forward to what we’ll build together.

—Wally

Me today - Photo of me by me

We are in the process of removing all our music from Spotify

Spotify is no longer a platform we wish to be part of.

Daniel Ek’s recent investment in AI-powered military defense was the final straw. We do not want our music associated with funding war or violence in any form.

On top of that, we’ve never made a cent from streaming. With the number of listeners we have, the cost of distributing our music to platforms like Spotify simply isn’t worth it.

Still, we’ve stayed - because there hasn’t been a better alternative. Yet.

If you’d like to support us, we encourage you to buy the music directly from us on Bandcamp, or stream it on platforms that offer better compensation to artists, such as Apple Music or Tidal - at least until something better comes along.

https://svin.bandcamp.com/

https://tidal.com/browse/artist/4122364

https://music.apple.com/dk/artist/svin/472672301?l=da

All the best,
SVIN

Lately I’ve been thinking and discussing with other songwriters and composers a lot about AI and the implications for musicians and creative people. There's certainly a lot of chatter about what AI can do, but not so much about what it might undo, how it might already be "un-teaching" us in profound ways.

When I started learning guitar, figuring out how to play a new chord was a challenge. It took time. My fingers had to stretch and fumble their way into place. But that effort wasn’t wasted — it was a lesson first, and then a marvelous discovery when I began to understand what I could do with that chord in relation to the other chords I was learning. So it was a physical challenge first, and then through frustration and repetition, it literally became an important part of what I do, who I was, and thankfully, who still I am.

I used to be great with directions, had an innate sense of where things were and could follow my nose and find my way. Now usually – and often against my own instincts – I follow Google Maps on my phone. It just seems easier and takes away any uncertainty. But I sense it’s costing me something, and that is my own ability to figure out where I'm going. I am weakening a part of myself, and eventually may loose it altogether.

I’m not anti-AI. I think these tools can be incredible. But I also think there’s something irreplaceable about challenging ourselves. About following our own instincts and working through something that's hard. About wrestling with our own limitations, making mistakes and then the sense of growth and satisfaction when we find our way, whether it's creatively, or to a friend's house in a part of town we have never been in before.

If we outsource all of that — all the reaching and stretching, fumbling and learning – are the machines our tools, or is it the other way round? Whose creative life is it if each of us is not finding our own way, but the destination is being handed to us on a silicon platter?

I'll leave it there and would love to hear your thoughts.