Hello world,
This will probably be the longest post I write on here, and I thought I would introduce myself. My name is Shamik, and I have been a professional artist since 2005.
I started my Sensing Waves label when I was living in Vancouver, Canada in 2014. Over the years, I have been fortunate to curate 22 releases (singles, EP’s, and albums) by artists from all over North America. After a few years of hiatus due to me moving and getting established in the US (it was a lengthy process and during the pandemic!) I am slowly getting things up and running and have relocated to Chicago.
It’s been a weird uphill battle trying to share work from the label and favorite releases by artists I like…mostly from the constantly changing internet. Posts getting taken down due to copyright, mixes / podcast episodes taken down off Youtube or Soundcloud also due to copyright, my love for music videos being challenged by algorithms favoring portrait mode content, and short form audio/ video becoming the norm over longform art. That being said, I am pushing through. When I first started the label, it was a Bandcamp only endeavor. Eventually, when streaming became popular, most artists were excited to have their music available in more places. However, over time it became evident that streaming was something that we are all struggling to adapt to while making pennies instead of dollars. Some of our releases did well on streaming, but sales on Bandcamp went down. One great thing though was a lot of artists realized they didn’t need labels and could produce, mix, master their own music and come up with their own artwork or visuals. Am I saying my label is not needed? No, that’s not it! I still believe in helping other people release their work, and curation is still very important to me. I just like to put it out there that it’s ok to need some help from a label to see a release through, but also ok to believe in your own curation and self release.
This Substack will be used primarily to highlight music by other artists, and to have a different platform outside of the confines of social media. This label is a labor of love, and because each of our releases take time to curate, I wanted to have a space to keep sharing other music on a weekly basis. My dream is for people to find out about cool music and our releases here over time. Although Substack seems to have a focus on subscriptions and mail outs, I am treating this like a blog for now. Feel free to subscribe if you don’t find it annoying to get a weekly email. I will post on here while reminiscing about my blogger that I ran from 2008-2019. The music shared on here won’t necessarily be new. Sometimes I discover albums that have been out for awhile but still deserve attention, and I am also always revisiting my record collection and feel like reminding people about amazing albums that I think are classics.
If you want to get to know the label outside of Substack—>
All Sensing Waves releases are available on Bandcamp, and as I continue this journey to be an audiovisual label, there are several music videos that live on our Youtube channel. Scroll down to preview them here.
The 9 episodes from the Sensing Airwaves podcast still live here. I’m not sure I’ll be focusing on the podcast moving forward, due to the possibility of mixes being taken down. For those not familiar with why that happens, all it takes is one song on a mix to be signed to a big label or featured on a TV show/ movie, and then a whole mix with that song can be taken down without warning…and sometimes a Youtube channel or Soundcloud account can get a strike or be closed without warning as well. Nonetheless, the episodes are still there if someone is looking for a set of deep music.
If you want to check out my solo work, this is my website and Bandcamp. Thank you for reading! I look forward to spreading music and hope the sounds make a difference in your life.
Peace,
s.
Ps- Below are the full music videos which have been released on Sensing Waves: