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maceagon voycemusician + writer + builder
As a child MacEagon had a debilitating stutter. He was a hopeless bearer of his own last name. Over time, it became difficult to trust his voice, but through singing, he found a way to sidestep his speech.
He studied vocal performance and composition at Carleton College, singing his way through his stutter while beginning to find solace in the written word, transitioning into a career as a music journalist (Vice, Nerdist). For many years he hid his voice behind his pen, until he discovered (and later interviewed) the stuttering composer Alvin Lucier – one of the premier names of the 20th century avant-garde.
That conversation was the beginning of a long, slow embrace of a painful and defining part of himself. Eventually, he found his way back to his voice and his own music. Drawing from brooding melody makers like Angel Olsen and Thom Yorke, as well as prodigious vocalists like Jeff Buckley and Joe Cocker, the Minnesota-born & London-based singer-songwriter layers his powerful voice and poignant lyrics atop melancholic folk rock, captivating audiences from Brooklyn to Brazil.
He studied vocal performance and composition at Carleton College, singing his way through his stutter while beginning to find solace in the written word, transitioning into a career as a music journalist (Vice, Nerdist). For many years he hid his voice behind his pen, until he discovered (and later interviewed) the stuttering composer Alvin Lucier – one of the premier names of the 20th century avant-garde.
That conversation was the beginning of a long, slow embrace of a painful and defining part of himself. Eventually, he found his way back to his voice and his own music. Drawing from brooding melody makers like Angel Olsen and Thom Yorke, as well as prodigious vocalists like Jeff Buckley and Joe Cocker, the Minnesota-born & London-based singer-songwriter layers his powerful voice and poignant lyrics atop melancholic folk rock, captivating audiences from Brooklyn to Brazil.
Transom
“Transom” arose during the pandemic, and it's the first track on a forthcoming EP called meridian -- a record about the pains of trying to be true.
Growing up, my stutter forced me to turn inwards. In time, a rift emerged between myself and the image of myself, and they grew in tandem until I could no longer tell them apart. I am MacEagon. He is Moon Man.
"Transom" is the beginning of a reckoning, peering through the window above the door into a room that feels familiar but isn't quite right. Expressed in flourishes across the piano, it's the realization that I was playing a supporting role of my own life.
I released "Transom" in honor of Piano Day, the holiday inaugurated by the pianist Nils Frahm in 2015. It's the 88th day of each year -- one day for each key on the piano.
Minted on Catalog.
Growing up, my stutter forced me to turn inwards. In time, a rift emerged between myself and the image of myself, and they grew in tandem until I could no longer tell them apart. I am MacEagon. He is Moon Man.
"Transom" is the beginning of a reckoning, peering through the window above the door into a room that feels familiar but isn't quite right. Expressed in flourishes across the piano, it's the realization that I was playing a supporting role of my own life.
I released "Transom" in honor of Piano Day, the holiday inaugurated by the pianist Nils Frahm in 2015. It's the 88th day of each year -- one day for each key on the piano.
Minted on Catalog.
Time [demo]
"Time" is a another track from the forthcoming EP meridian. It's a conversation with the broken self, an attempt to navigate an infinity of paths, to carve out a passage that can reconcile differing voices.
credit: Gareth Lloyd
credit: Gareth Lloyd
FOLK + Girl from the North Country
FOLK is a new collective focused on exploring folk relationships & methodologies to build a new commons infrastructure. We just launched a first-of-its-kind (we think) experiment called This Machine Kills Copyright: Bob Dylan and the Resurrection of Folk Traditions. You can listen to the song from the above NFT here.
TL;DR
The Experiment
Wrestling with legacy concepts of ownership – and a memetic Internet culture that's increasingly at odds with them – and the legal murk of new Internet technologies, I recorded, distributed, and sold a Bob Dylan cover to challenge the system of copyright and propose a new course that redistributes wealth from one folk to many. (I also wrote 9,000 words about it.)
TL;DR
- Copyright helped enable a transformation from music of the folk into music of a folk, incentivizing artists like Bob Dylan to use the folk canon to elevate his own mythos.
- Dylan borrowed and created in the folk tradition, invoking an "everything belongs to everyone" spirit -- all while copyright helped him accumulate massive personal wealth. Because outside of folk, everything does not belong to everyone.
- Dylan recently sold his music rights for $600 million. Clearly he's a superlative songwriter, but (especially) in the context of a transmissive music and an “everything belongs to everyone” spirit, it makes no sense for one folk to have all that wealth.
The Experiment
Wrestling with legacy concepts of ownership – and a memetic Internet culture that's increasingly at odds with them – and the legal murk of new Internet technologies, I recorded, distributed, and sold a Bob Dylan cover to challenge the system of copyright and propose a new course that redistributes wealth from one folk to many. (I also wrote 9,000 words about it.)
Stay in touchI won't bother you often, and when I do, there will always be music 🌻
