Gemma Batterby on the influence of a Walthamstow music blog
James Cahill is the founder The New LoFi, a popular music blog
This year, Walthamstow resident James Cahill celebrates the ten-year anniversary of The New LoFi, a music blog he founded when living in New York City in 2010.
Known as ‘that yellow blog’ The New LoFi relentlessly focuses on exploring, curating, and sharing new music. This quest has seen James feature artists such as Crystal Fighters, Lana Del Rey and Azealia Banks, years before they hit the mainstream. For the last decade it has attracted readers from countries around the world.
“In the time since The New LoFi’s creation, the way people discover and listen to music has totally changed,” says James. “We’ve seen the rise of platforms such as Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube and TikTok. The iPod has drifted into irrelevance while vinyl records have become in-vogue again. The music world looks very different compared to the way it did ten years ago.
“It feels like quite an achievement for a music blog to make it this far!”
To celebrate the milestone, The New LoFi is releasing a ten-track vinyl featuring ten different musicians who have been close to the blog since its inception. They hail from many different cities including New York, London, Berlin, Austin, Los Angeles, and Paris.
For the album artwork, illustrators from several different countries were commissioned to create ten custom-designed numbers — one to represent each year that The New LoFi has been publishing.
“The music on the album ranges from indie to electronic,” says James. “It’s a real mix of genres and a fantastic celebration of all the different kinds of music and musicians that have been featured on the blog over the past ten years.
“This record is about celebrating ten years – but also about celebrating the music and the musicians that have been part of this project. We want it to be a symbol for the importance of music and the arts in general; especially this year.”
The profit from the record will be donated to Heart n Soul, an award-winning creative arts company and charity that champions the music and art talents of people with learning disabilities. One hundred copies of the album will be pressed with a special limited-edition blue marbled vinyl and are on pre-sale now.
To order, or to find more information about The New LoFi anniversary record:Visitthenewlofi.com/ten
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