Direct feedback to artists/publishers

[FreakAnimalFinland]

I sent one artist email and wrote a bit longer text. Not "review", not "analysis", just complimented the release and also mentioned about meaning of how it is related to me.
He mentioned I am the first one to send any reaction for this item that came out already years ago! I felt like what the hell?

These days when there is not that many zines that review things (compared to volume of stuff that could be reviewed), but also no blogs really. Social media, that COULD be that, most often isn't. Or you'd need to be part of specific platform to see posts. A lot of people preferring sending their friends, perhaps whatsup groupchat message about specific release. Therefore, even significant release disappears in cyber-silence.

Like I mentioned with merch topic, I am sure I have discussed this many times before, but maybe from different angle. There was reasons why SI zine stopped publishing reviews, but there are also reasons why some could be there in form or another. Reviews of www site, well, we'll see! This forum, most certainly active people dropping good reviews & playlist comments all the time. I think its good thing that forum is public, accessible via regular www, and you can find old posts pretty easy. Most people are not so obsessive that they'd go google "what people say about my work", but still feels odd that one would commit perhaps years of hard work on something (noise book for example) and then get no feedback whatsoever.

I used to send more direct email comments to artists, and should perhaps do more of that. Question being, do you ever send comments, compliments, "review", whatever feedback to labels or artists you liked? Are you expecting reply, or just sending it out.

And furthermore, did you get feedbacks? With a lot of introverted and odd characters out there, most often getting compliments can be like "uhh.. ehmm.. thanks.." and don't know what else to say. I recall those funny discussion on early WCN where they mention about punishers who start to take a lot more time that one has.

In genres that originally was largely about communication, it feels that such aspect has become smaller? Or become invisible to outside?

[Birthdeath]

I write to artists a lot if there's something I like and it stands out. Plus, if I have something interesting to say. When it comes to stuff I've released, you Mikko is pretty much the only one who wrote something. Referring to my Folkstorm split. Sure, I haven't released much so far, but it's always a boost when someone actually takes the time to write something.

[Krigsverk]

I have been around for a while and released a decent amount of things throughout the years and honestly; the silence and lack of ANY feedback on some releases has increased over the last ten years for sure. This is also true for any other artist I would think as I have a hard time finding reviews or thoughts on a lot of new releases in noise/PE etc. Not sure why, but this place is one of the few last bastions of feedback still around. Love the review section here - a source of much info I would never find otherwise. May it stay alive and active for years to come!

[Andrew McIntosh]

Question being, do you ever send comments, compliments, "review", whatever feedback to labels or artists you liked? Are you expecting reply, or just sending it out.

And furthermore, did you get feedbacks?

The lack of feedback was the absolute bane of my attempt to try networking with people. The number of times I'd send sound to people who'd respond with, "yea, I got it, I'll let you know what I think", and that was it - any wonder I ended up getting jack of it. A bit of honest "I didn't like it, sorry", would have been more appreciated. No one's obligated to respond to anything, I know that, but I once liked to think that there's such a thing as manners when someone makes an effort to get in touch. I've since been disabused of that notion.

Mikko, you wont remember this, but I wrote to you and sent you a tape of what I'd recorded so far around the middle of the 1990's. This was part of around five or so tapes and letters I sent out to people who had been interviewed in a zine I can't remember the name of, mostly a punk/hc thing but did a little section on Noise at the time. First time a first-time Noise maker tried to make efforts at networking. You were the only one to respond, not only with feedback but a copy of "Europe After Storm". You were the first person in the international Noise scene to bother responding to me and to keep up correspondence and that made the difference to me. I don't doubt to many others as well.

There were others since then, of course. After a while I came to realise that many Noise heads weren't scenester snobs but people passionate about the sound. And that's the difference. There's people who bother, and people who don't give a shit. I dare say I've fallen in the latter category from time to time, but when I was serious about networking I made the effort. At that time, it meant something to me. A lot of the times all I wanted was the correspondence, to listen to what people were making and sending to me, and to give and get feedback.

These days I have no idea how prominent or not it is, but before the internet and even when people were adjusting to the internet, communication was the key thing. Also these days I'm too jaded, but if people today are still making that effort, fucking good on them.

[k.p.g]

People should absolutely realize their work made any sort of impact in listening.  Being silent accomplishes nothing.  If a release is good and I can find a contact, I like letting the artist know directly.  The playlist comments certainly help to get the word out publicly, but I think being able to tell someone directly how great their work is something people in the greater noise network should take more advantage of.

From personal experience, I never know just how widely some release in edition of 30 or less has reached until someone tells me directly that they enjoyed it.