Sylvan Esso is the latest high-flying act to yank their catalog from Spotify.
The two-time Grammy Award-nominated electro-pop act is boycotting the streaming music giant, confirming their move with the announcement of their new release, “WDID,” their first in three years.
Led by Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn, Sylvan Esso has accumulated close to one billion Spotify streams, across four full-length studio albums, including 2020’s Free Love and 2017’s What Now, both of which were nominated for best dance/electronic album at the Grammys. Going forward, Sylvan Esso’s streaming footprint will be wiped.
The new track, “WDID,” is the first release on the band’s own record label, Psychic Hotline, announced back in 2021.
“As we prepare to release new music, we have to decide what we want to be a part of and what we don’t. To that end, with Sylvan Esso being on our own label for the first time, we have decided to remove our music from Spotify,” the duo said in a statement. “While no solution is perfect, we simply can’t continue to put our life’s work in a store that, in addition to all its other glaring flaws, directly funds war machines. Reaching towards the world we all deserve, even though we are not in it yet.”
Released today (Sept. 30), “WDID” was hewn from an “intense period of creation and experimentation” for Meath and Sanborn, reads a statement from the band, and is delivered as an “abrasive, all-caps confrontation against an all-consuming cascade of crises”. It won’t, of course, be available on Spotify.
The fresh cut was recorded at Sylvan Esso’s own studio, Betty’s, in Chapel Hill, NC, and features additional production from Jake Luppen (Hippo Campus, Samia). Its official music video is helmed by Aaron Anderson and Eric Timothy Carlson.
Sylvan Esso joins an exodus of artists from Spotify, many chiding the company’s Sweden-born founder and CEO Daniel Ek, who reportedly invested $1 billion into Helsing, a defense company that sells AI software to inform military situations. A spokesperson for Helsing insists its technology isn’t being used in war zones outside of Ukraine.
The artist revolt includes Massive Attack, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Deerhoof, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and others.
Watch the “WDID” visualizer below.