Web3 is a playground for music industry veterans like Alixkun. Alix is the founder of Web3 music collaboration platform and community everwave, where members create together, share collective ownership of the work and get rewarded for contributing on a global scale. He’s also the co-founder of Jazzy Couscous, a Tokyo-established record label rooted in a love for Jazz and the music movements it has spawned. With the project, Alix explores the treasures Japanese music has to offer through different re-issue projects. Jim had the pleasure of sitting down with Alix for a conversation.
J: Let me kick in the door. How does everwave work?
A: everwave is conceived as a DAO. We originally built the product with the idea in mind that the product itself should belong to the people who create the value on the product.
When you arrive on Everwave, the app interface is an audio player, and you play the ‘wave’. The wave is a creative concept that we use. You play the wave and you listen to the music that's been produced on the wave. If you feel inspired by what you're listening, you can decide to participate into the wave.
A wave starts with an original musical idea. Imagine you’re in a studio and you have two or three musicians that start to jam together and they don't know really where that's going, but they have a motif and they're jamming around that motif. This is track one of the wave, and people can add new elements to the wave. Theoretically, there’s an infinite feedback loop between musicians and producers who grow the wave. At some point, we ask our community, are you okay with the wave? If yes, we stop the wave and ask our community to choose for their favorite versions which will be released on DSPs and minted as NFTs on our marketplace.
What’s next is we invite well-respected artists to kickstart a new wave. So, for instance, with a jazzy piece, imagine if we invite Herbie Hancock to kickstart a new wave with piano solo. That would be an amazing opportunity for every jazz musician in the world to be able to create music with Herbie Hancock.
J: What are the main benefits for musicians to use everwave?
A: Keep in mind, everwave isn’t meant to replace the traditional way that musicians make music nowadays. It's a new space for them to explore and collaborate. When you're a musician, you're going to come and you're going to drop your elements, but you have no idea how they're going to be used in the future. This unexpected feeling is very interesting for musicians because you kind of have to let go of the creative direction, but it gives ways to really super beautiful results down the line.
On the revenue side of things, I would say it's less important in the sense that we're not really revolutionizing the way the revenue is distributed. The main revenue source for music is still DSPs and licensing. So it’s traditional label work, and on top of that we have the NFT offering. 90% of the revenue goes back to the creators and 10% goes back to the DAO treasury which is controlled by contributors.
J: And then next to all of this, you are also still running Jazzy Coucous.
A: Still working on it. Actually, I've been working with this artist from Taiwan called Zy The Way. They're preparing an album, which we’ll release next year. They're 60–70% done with the tracks. I've been working with Mark de Clive-Lowe and DJ Spinna to do remixes of two tracks that we picked up from the album. And we're going to do a limited edition EP, trying to achieve that handmade feeling, maybe add silk printing. We’ll release it right before dropping the album. It’s very exciting because their quality of songwriting and production is really good.
J: Oh man, to this day I still play Ron Trent’s remix of the Zy The Way record, which you gave me when we met at the FWB x everwave event in Paris. Great memories, great music. What’s in your current rotation?
J: You've been around in the music scene quite long. What's your favorite memory from a music experience?
It was in 2009, I think I went to that festival in Japan called Metamorphose, and I saw a live DJ set from Nujabes. It was like one year before he died. And he was with the sax player that he often plays with called Hiroto Uyama. And that was already insane. But then he went into house, and some Detroit house and techno classics, like Hi-Tech Jazz. I was like, what the fuck? This is too good. I almost cried. It completely blew my mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWue4E4xRmY
Any things you're planning on seeing in the coming period?
I just bought a ticket, something I do very rarely, but when I really want to see something, sometimes I just bought a ticket for myself. And I go to the show by myself. I'm going to see Japanese artist called Akiko Yano. She plays piano. And she was kind of like the unofficial fourth member of Yellow Music Orchestra. There's also a video where YMO plays at Soul Train in the US, in the early 80s, and she’s there. You can find it on YouTube somewhere.
J: Yeah, fuck it. I do that sometimes as well. I'm one of the only guys in my friend group that's into old school, grimey Hip-Hop. And then Conway the Machine came to Amsterdam, but nobody from my friends knew who he was. So I just went by myself and actually, it's nice to just go on your own. You can come and go, whenever you want, and kind of force yourself to socialize with strangers that are into the same thing.
A: Exactly. There's positive aspects to going to a live event by yourself. I’m really looking forward. Will send a video in the Javelin Telegram when I’m there.
