Sylvan Esso: The NPR Music Interview

NPR Music

The episode features an in-depth conversation with Sylvan Esso members Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn regarding their decision to return their music

Key takeaways

• Sylvan Esso removed their catalog from Spotify to protest CEO Daniel Ek's investment in the AI weapons company Helsing.
• The band's fifth studio album, Ow ∞, was released on their independent label, Psychic Hotline.

Main topics

• Spotify catalog removal and return
• Psychic Hotline record label

Notable quotes

I would really rather not have my life's work be on a platform that supports robots that can kill people.

Conclusion

The interview offers a nuanced perspective on the ethical and logistic

Transcript preview

Speaker 8 (0:00) This week on Up First, we talk about the economy. Trucks, trains and tractors run on diesel, which is now priced at record highs with less than 50 days until the midterm elections. So the next six weeks are going to be intense. Let Up First get you through it one morning at a time with three stories you need to know each day. Listen to Up First on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 1 (0:27) Hey everybody, it's Robin Hilton from NPR Music, and today we are sharing a special one-off conversation with the band Sylvan Esso, the electronic pop duo from North Carolina, and it's about a topic that affects just about every music fan out there. So you may remember last year there was a bunch of indie bands that removed their music from Spotify, which of course is... the dominant music streaming service. And they took their music down because it came out that Daniel Ek, the head of Spotify at the time, had deep business ties to an AI weapons company. So Sylvanessa was perhaps the most visible artist to take their music down in protest. They've been an established act for over a decade. They've been nominated for a Grammy. Their music has shown, you know, really broad appeal. But one year after that decision to take their music down, Sylvan Esso has returned with two pieces of news. The first one is that their fifth album, Ow Infinity, is out now on the band's own record label, Psyche Hotline. And as of September 18th, all of the band's music is available to stream again on Spotify. Speaker 5 (1:52) Oh Speaker 1 (2:06) If you don't know Sylvanesso, Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn are the two musicians behind the project. They're also a couple. And both of them say that this was a really frustrating set of decisions. That at every turn, it felt like they had to choose between independence and sustainability. But they also say they learned a lot and still consider the experiment, the decision to take down their music, It was a success, they think, in some ways. So to find out more, we asked Brian Burns, a reporter at NPR member station WUNC in North Carolina, to sit down with Nick and Amelia and talk about what independence means to them for music in the streaming era. Here's Brian. Speaker 6 (2:55) With the rollout of this album, it looks like you've been having a lot of fun. I just recently watched the video for Sledge, which is essentially just Amelia. flying through the woods and I think there might be a camcorder or something glued to a car. Speaker 5 (3:16) Yeah, Speaker 3 (3:17) we duct taped our two camcorders to the roof of our car. And so Nick was driving and I was hanging outside of the backseat passenger window. Speaker 2 (3:25) We've been having a lot of fun with the lowest tech video. Speaker 3 (3:29) Yeah, Speaker 2 (3:29) it's been so nice. It's been so fun. Speaker 3 (3:32) Yeah, this time around we just decided we only make them ourselves. And I think it's led to some of the most exciting visuals that we've made for a record. Well, also it's Speaker 2 (3:42) like... regardless of what anyone else thinks, I'm having the most fun with it. I think I've ever had, you know, I hope other people like it, but that's secondary to like, we are having a blast. Speaker 6 (4:06) The first song we heard from this record was Hot Slob, and that, I think that song caught a lot of people off guard because it is such an abrasive, loud rock song by Sylvan Esso, but also the video you shot at a beloved roadhouse outside of Chapel Hill called The Kraken. Speaker 2 (4:24) Tell me whose idea that was. Speaker 3 (4:26) I think it was mine. Speaker 2 (4:27) Yeah. We Speaker 3 (4:28) needed a bar to play in. Speaker 2 (4:30) Yeah, and the Kraken's, I mean, I don't want to dox ourselves, but it's pretty close to the studio. Yeah, it's pretty close to the studio. And we shot Speaker 3 (4:37) the coffee video at the Pinhook, so it was our choice. Speaker 6 (4:41) Yeah. Shouting out the look of Envy is in a good way. Yeah. Speaker 6 (5:05) I've been thinking a lot lately about what the role of music video is in 2026. Talk to me about, you know, as independent artists in a post MTV world, what role does the music video serve? Like, why are you making these? Speaker 3 (5:15) The role of the music video is really a way to have people be able to find it on YouTube and also a way to talk about your song over and over again on Instagram. Great. Originally, we weren't even going to make videos. We were just going to do clips. Because everyone involved is so used to making music videos, there is no way to not cut the footage into a full video. Speaker 2 (5:37) Well, and also, we realized that, like, it's gonna, the full song is gonna be on YouTube at least anyway. Like, we shot the whole thing. Why not just make the whole thing? Yeah, exactly. It was kind of the same amount of work. Speaker 3 (5:48) Yeah, I love music videos. So, I've been trying to deal with the fact that I'm a little sad about how, like, people just don't watch them the same way they used to. Even in, like, the early... 2010s. Speaker 6 (6:00) Yeah, for sure. And I do, what I love about the ones you've put out so far is they do have like their own unique look and they, growing up in the MTV world, I feel like you could close your eyes and listen to music and you would always associate this video. And you're kind of doing that with these where this, this record now has like a vision to it that it wouldn't Speaker 2 (6:17) have without these videos. Thank Speaker 3 (6:19) you. I'm Speaker 2 (6:19) glad that that reads. We, that's the other thing that I think still is real for them is that Even if somebody only sees, if their experience of the video you make is only like five seconds, you still have this opportunity to like expand the contextual world of like the thing that you made. And that still to me is really exciting. Even if some of it, like, it's also like why our videos are a little bit more like of like a vibe now rather than like a narrative arc or something. Yeah. Because it's just like, I just want to make this feel, I want to expand on the feeling. Speaker 6 (6:51) Well, I want to keep talking about the rollout of Owl Infinity, the new record. A big part of it, about a year ago, you made the announcement that you were removing your catalog from Spotify, citing Daniel X's ties to the weapons manufacturer Helsing as the final straw. And now you're back. So talk to me a little bit about the decision to return. Speaker 3 (7:08) First of all, I would like to say that it was such a fascinating exercise to just do the thing that we thought was morally correct. Speaker 2 (7:18) A Speaker 3 (7:19) lot of times in music, You do a lot of looking away. Speaker 2 (7:22) And in life, I think. Speaker 3 (7:23) And in life. I'm really, really proud of the decision that we made to get off of Spotify. And it just ended up feeling like it was truly unsustainable. Namely, it turns out monopolies are bad. And it kind of just touched every aspect of our, like... Yeah, Speaker 2 (7:48) it kind of became clear that like for us at least, we were not, we are not so big that we can escape like the reality of the capitalist system. Right. And like, I don't think, I don't think, well, it just, it just felt like, it felt like the right thing to do at the time. And I'm so, yeah, I'm just proud that we made it as long as we did. And it was like impossible. I mean, it just like makes everything. I was shocked. I think I underestimated the amount of one's career that it affects. Speaker 3 (8:22) And Speaker 2 (8:22) it was kind of depressing, honestly. Speaker 3 (8:24) It is. It actually, yeah, it's sad. Speaker 2 (8:27) Talk Speaker 6 (8:27) to me about that. What does it look like from your end as artists preparing a new album and launching it? How important is Spotify for that? How involved are they? Speaker 3 (8:37) Well, this is the main... This was the thing that really pushed me over the edge, was that... We are putting out our own record on our own record label. I just want everyone to hear it. And by taking ourselves off of Spotify, we just accidentally set up like a pretty large barrier for access, which I wasn't really expecting. Because I am the sort of person where if I find out that a record has come out that I want to listen to, I will go find it on the Internet. A lot of people will go to their chosen streaming service, be like, oh, it's not here. And then they'll go listen to something else. Right. Speaker 2 (9:14) Yeah, I don't know. It just really hits literally everything. And I think for us, when like the reality of like, oh, it's not just the financial thing, which was like a lot of money. I mean, it was like a significant financial hit for us. I always joke that we're the last middle class band in the world. But it was like a significant hit, which I was honored and proud to take. Um, but beyond that, it just kind of puts like a blanket over like literally everything that you do. And I think that part just felt like, oh, there's kind of, unless we want to like stop having this be our career or significantly change absolutely everything about the way our job functions. Like for the time being, this is kind of the only way to do this. Speaker 6 (10:07) Yeah. With that in mind, do you think it is? possible for an artist to thrive in this era without their catalog on Spotify? I Speaker 3 (10:14) think it's totally possible. Speaker 6 (10:15) Absolutely. I Speaker 3 (10:15) also think like we would be fine if it's not, we don't need to go back on. Yeah. Like it's not, it's not something that is making it so that we can no longer be a band. Speaker 6 (10:25) Right. Speaker 3 (10:26) That's not the thing. What it is, is that I want people to hear our record. Yeah. And it puts up a pretty significant barrier for that. And like particularly because we're doing it ourselves. If there were other people pushing it, that would be like a different thing. But the fact that we are like selling our own product, I do not want to create more barriers for entry for that. That Speaker 6 (10:48) totally makes sense. And I'm wondering, you talked about with the rollout of this record, do you remember the first instance where you kind of had to step back and say like, oh gosh, not being on Spotify is going to be... trickier than we imagined. Speaker 3 (10:59) It's been like that since the moment that we took it off a year ago. Like it's been really obvious and for a while that felt fine. Yeah. And then like the more I realized like oh we're putting this out on our own label the more I was like oh like yeah it would be good to be on there. Also Speaker 2 (11:17) I've just kind of been having this thing about like protest in general that I've been struggling with which I feel like I feel like I hope I assume that this is pretty common. In this age of like everything being awful. Yeah. Where like you go to a protest or you commit an act of protest. And then at some point, like every protest I've ever