I Binge-Watched a 13-Hour Arthouse Film

Just for this week's Media Diet recommendations

Look, I never had a plan to build growth and scale.

My idea was to follow my curiosity about experimental and outsider music, hoping that a few readers would value my coverage enough to support zensounds with a paid subscription.

Those subscriptions support my fluctuating income as a freelance writer – aside from consulting, teaching and penning the occasional piece for legacy media. (Two of these three activities aren’t exactly well-paid either.)

I’m spending a lot of time and effort on this newsletter, so I’ve been thinking about tweaking my publishing schedule to make it more attractive for readers to convert to paid. Here’s what I’ve come to decide.

Moving forward, there will be two posts per week.

• The Saturday post will remain free. It’s usually a long read in form of either an artist interview, a feature or an essay. In the archive, it will move behind a paywall after a couple of weeks. No changes here!

• The second weekly post – which usually comes on Tuesday – will be paywalled from the start. This contains a round-up of weekly recommendations in experimental music, literary fiction, indie cinema and non-mainstream culture, including a section with links to online articles and videos – quite similar to the old Media Diet section, but expanded and more in-depth. You’ll find the first issue below.

What does this mean for you?

You don’t need to do anything.

As a paid subscriber, you will receive a second weekly email on Tuesday with my recommendations. Thank you for your support. It truly means the world to me!

As a free subscriber, you’ll keep getting the free post on Saturday. Don’t get annoyed by the second weekly email which contains a paywall – just delete it if you’re not interested. If you want to read the full posts as well, I kindly ask you to take out a paid subscription.

Please note the yearly rate is discounted by 17%!

With your support, I’ll keep this space ad and sponsor free and 100% independent.

No trend following. No poptimism. No compromises.

Stephan

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Welcome to the first issue of the new and expanded Media Diet round-up!

After the paywall, you will find my listening, reading and watching recommendations for the week:

• An enjoyable slab of ambient post-hardcore from the UK,

• a complex piece of contemporary fiction from one of the best living writers on the planet,

• a monumental Argentine indie film that I recommend as binge-watching material in lieu of the next Netflix series,

• plus a few links: a post about an early 20th century Italian Futurist and his influence on noise music, a heartfelt obituary for an underground NYC rap legend, and recently unearthed live footage showing an IDM icon going all Jaco Pistorius on a Tokyo crowd.