Collectivised: A Look into Music's Greatest Collectives

Musical collectives are a rare breed, the internet only helping to accelerate that scarceness. While there are supergroups, cliques and groups that explicitly release content together and then solo material, musical collectives are groups of like-minded people that share similar stylistic interests and a passion for creativity. They are prone to extinguishing quickly, as musical collectives exist usually until either success, conflict or simply finishing work separates them. Collectives have resulted in the increased prominence of the involved bands and artists, as fans of the sound or other collective artists will be naturally linked to them. This can also equate to continued relevance or revitalisation of existing artists, too, and could provide an outlet for artists to show a different angle to their sound, or a new sound altogether.

When Jimi Hendrix threw the doors of Electric Lady Studios open, he strived to spark magic through its cavernous New York spaces. A visit to the hefty, opaque walls of Electric Lady Studios at the apex of the new millenium would find all three studios taken up by a single hive mind that stored some of the finest artists of its time. The compact journey of the Soulquarians began when D’Angelo and co-pilot Questlove moved into Studio A to record D’s follow-up album to 1995’s Brown Sugar, entitled Voodoo. Even though they were composing at the same piano used by Stevie Wonder and David Bowie, recording was arduous, with extended jam and vinyl-listening sessions making progress glacial, eating up 200 reels of tape in a single year. So, Questlove brought his band The Roots into Studio B so he could work on their album, Things Fall Apart, as well as Common’s 4th studio release, Like Water For Chocolate. Erykah Badu and Bilal were further stirred into the mix, who came into Studio C after catching an ear for the swelling musical environment, which consummated the albums Mama’s Gun and 1st Born Second respectively. Toss in James Poyser and J Dilla - who became in-house producers and composers, dipping their hands into every project and soaking in their vintage soul and caramelised, sample-heavy beats - and the result was supercharged creativity. Competitive crafting of sounds, intense recordings that bounced off each other, created a new, smooth sound for R&B, one that had been in development for years, but had finally swapped funk influences for hip-hop leanings, characterised by off-kilter rhythms and deliciously lopsided chord patterns. From this creatively prolific era spawned hugely successful releases, not just commercially, but artistically. The Soulquarians tree grew some of its artists’ best work, and albums that would become classics. Though a misrepresentative group photo published in Vibe magazine doomed the Soulquarians to only a flash in the sky, it shone with the true spirit of Electric Lady.

Elephant 6 was one of the biggest silent movements in the 90s, representing what was to come of the rise of independent music in the mid-2000s. Founded initially by 6 members - including Rob Schneider, Bill Doss and Jeff Mangum - they all shared an appreciation for 60s pop music, in particular the Beach Boys. Hoping to emulate Brian Wilson and co’s Brother Records, they worked together while maintaining projects that would later be incorporated into the family. Despite limited resources, the collective spent years honing many sounds that would cross over and blend, but each band ended up with an incredibly particular sound, be it lo-fi indie rock, psychedelic folk and everything in between. There were several shades to the collective - the faithful psych-rock revivalism of Apples In Stereo, the opposing psych-rock derangement of Olivia Tremor Control, and Neutral Milk Hotel’s intoxicating surrealism. Commercial success came burgeoning in the late 90s, as did major record labels sweeping and separating the group, nonetheless it resulted in the prolonged the careers of the Apples In Stereo and of Montreal. The holy grail of this creative period has to be Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, a record that illustrates the lucid dreams of a headstrong madman using singing saws, bagpipes and Uilleann pipes. Jeff Mangum’s nasal voice guides the listener to unthinkable places, and this idiosyncratic style is reflected back onto the listener’s experience; everyone draws something different from the whirlwind tales of Two-Headed Boys and Communist Daughters. It’s folk music’s answer to Alice In Wonderland, and the offspring of Neutral Milk Hotel’s final LP is in droves, including music formed from Elephant 6. In the same breath, the project could not exist without the collective’s strong mindset of standing out using alternative recording techniques, and playing outside the box with unorthodox instrumentation. After all, building a lot from a little is what indie music is about.

The Dungeon Family is so prolific, the collective has spanned generations. Grounded in a deathly basement in the South of Atlanta, it began at a time of challenge in hip-hop. While the East and West Coast were becoming saturated and heated, the South was under-represented, suffering from a lack of a sound they could call their own. The Dungeon Family were set to provide, creating everything under the philosophy of making music that stood out from the rest, and spending many nights sleeping on a red clay basement floor, described by Cee Lo Green as “crowded but comfortable”. OutKast were housed in the Dungeon, as were Goodie Mob, but the golden backbone of the grouping was its production team, Organized Noize, who would set the tone for the both of these names, as well as the iconic Dirty South sound. The grooves are as thick as the walls of the dungeon, tethering the glossy G-funk swang of the West, with the beefy drums bellowing from the East. Though their sound would not be replete without an important innovation that would levitate Southern hip-hop into contention. The liner notes of Organized Noize releases contained personnel for live instrumentation alongside the usual sample credits, bringing hip-hop closer to the soil with the dense, colourful production seen in the soul music of their forefathers. Superstar rapper Future has blood ties with the Dungeon Family, and though he did not become an established member, their environment of reinvention boosted his career to where it is today, pioneering the auto-tuned sound of modern Southern trap. His magnanimous success is a testament that the Dungeon Family ethic will inspire until the end of days.