An invitation
Dada Duende Record Club would like to invite you to contribute work for our sixth official volume for the subscription. We are soliciting musical, visual, and literary work for our next set. Each set contains a lathe-cut record, a soft cover visual and literary art book, and an 8x8 pigment print of a piece from the book. Each of our sets is prompted by a theme, and this set’s theme is: “Chanson”
Chanson definition: a song!
Characteristics of (French) Chanson
“The French chanson is recognized for several distinct characteristics:
Lyricism: The lyrics are often poetic and focus on storytelling or emotional expression.
Melody: Intricate and melodious, supporting the lyrical content.
Instrumentation: Commonly accompanied by instruments like the lute or piano in traditional settings.
Form: Often follows a strophic form, where the melody repeats for each stanza.
This genre illustrates the rich tapestry of French musical innovation, both in structure and delivery.
An excellent example of a French chanson is 'La Vie en Rose' by Edith Piaf. Despite being from the 20th century, this chanson showcases traditional lyrical depth and melodic grace.”
(From Vaia.com)
What does this word conjure for you? These characteristics can merely be a jumping-off point to get you thinking about what “Chanson” means to you. You can go ANYWHERE YOU WOULD LIKE with this theme.
NOTE: For our visual artists, we realize that this is a tricky theme for which to conjure images. For that reason, we are also happy to accept 8-10 images that you feel work well together as a series on any theme—preferably one that has a poetic or romantic feel about it—not required, though. I (Hannah) am a photographer and a music nut, and I often think of my single images as “songs” and a series of related images as my own sort of “album” (as in a record album, not a photo album). If it’s helpful, perhaps think of it from that angle. Just food for thought. ;-)
Our goal is to give you a fun, low-pressure opportunity to play with your craft and see how your work magically connects with work submitted by the other artists we are inviting to this volume. It is meant to be fun for you. We hope you will opt in (but we understand if you can’t)!
We wholeheartedly encourage you to take a look around on our site to find out what we are about. You can check out our previously published sets HERE
What we are asking of you:
Musicians: up to 7 minutes of original music inspired by or related to the theme (for example, a suite or two shorter songs). We will work with you regarding licensing and duration of use for the music. We will also work with you to record, mix, and master the music for our lathe-cut record medium
Literary Artists: 2-3 poems, or an essay, or a short work of fiction if you like. The world is your erster!
Visual Artists: 8-10 visual artworks in your wheelhouse (photography, illustration, collage, painting, printmaking, etc) to fit on pages sized 8.5x8.5 at 300 dpi resolution (if you are in or near Minneapolis and need my help with digitizing work I can do that!) — they do not have to be square, just letting you know what size page they will be on and print resolution.
One visual contribution will be chosen for the 8x8 pigment print that we include in our sets. It helps but is not at all required that you be open to us choosing your work for the print. We make a hundred of each themed set for subscribers, so we would make 100 prints of your work to be included with those (plus the artist-proof sets for each of our contributors). As I mentioned, you can opt out of this option if you do not want us to use your work in this manner.
Due Date: we would need digital copies of your artwork (visual art size specs listed above) to place in the book layout by Dec 31, 2024. Musicians can work directly with us to figure out schedules for recording and we hope to have that on track and in process by the end of December as well!
We would appreciate it if you accept or decline by December 06, 2024, to give us time to reach out to other artists if we need to.
If you decide that you want to be in on this one, you can go ahead and answer a few bio/info questions and save/upload your work HERE — you can fill out this Google form in several sessions by saving your work and returning to it later if needed, though I promise it’s not too intensive. We hate filling out forms. :)
PLEASE NOTE: should you choose to accept this mission, you do not have to create new work specifically for it, though you are welcome to, of course. We are sending you this invitation because we are familiar with your work and see things there that we feel fit this theme.
What do you get out of this?
A chance to play, inspiration, and an opportunity to work with a community of other artists who you may or may not already know. It’s interesting to see/hear/read your work when paired with another artist’s musical/visual/literary response to the prompt. We strive to be inclusive and to build a community of both established and emerging artists. : )
As yet, we are not able to pay contributing artists, but we do give each of you 2 copies of the finished set (valued at $75 per)—one for you and one to share if you choose to. For now, we are only making 100 copies of each set (plus your/our artist’s proof copies), these go to our subscribers. For more info on what we are making, see our home page and our previous sets. At the time of sending this invite, Volume 5: Sisters has just gone out to subscribers and contributing artists, and we are super excited about it! You can see some of the contributing artists for that one by signing up for our weekly newsletter (note: I will be adding an artist bio webpage for Sisters very soon).
We encourage you to take a look around our site to get to know us, especially the Dada Duende Journal/blog linked at the top of the page. Please know that if you are not able to opt in for this edition, we will happily reach out again in the future (unless you tell us not to!). You can also see some articles about DDRC HERE to get to know us a bit better.
Thank you so much for considering this!
~Hannah Lynch, photographer and one of the cohort of Dada Duende Record Club based in Minneapolis, Minnesota