Conversations is an interview series in which we discuss a specific component of an artists’ work.

This summer, I had the rare pleasure of meeting some seriously inspiring young dudes doing some really cool things. Jordan Alper is one of these dudes, and one of the co-founders of the brand new Los Angeles based collective and digital label, Stereocure. This is a collective that has been in the works for just about as long as each of its members has memory to remember. Assembled from a group of childhood friends, now burgeoning artists, Stereocure has arrived at just the right time. They spent the summer putting on shows at a local west LA venue called Art House Live, using the space both to grow a vacant west side scene, and to host many of their own projects. It has been a pleasure getting to know these guys, and see them implement some awesome ideas with their collective. And I’m such a big fan, I thought I’d sit down and have a little chat with Jordan to really get down to the core of who Stereocure really is.

Hey Jordan! So let’s start off with an introduction. Who are you? What’s your deal?

Yo! My name is Jordan Alper, I am 20 years old and I grew up in Santa Monica, CA. I am currently a student at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University studying Music Business and Media Studies. I co-founded and run Stereocure, a new digital label and music/art collective, with a few of my oldest friends. My goal is to develop and facilitate music communities that adapt to a shifting media landscape without compromising artistic integrity. But first and foremost I would consider myself simply a music appreciator… and Labradoodle enthusiast.

Who doesn’t love a good Labradoodle?! When did the notion of starting something like Stereocure form?

The full concept was created around the beginning of 2012 but I would say the seed was planted much earlier than that. Growing up with a close group of friends who were all incredibly talented musicians, I (as well as one of my fellow co-founders Gabe Kanengiser) naturally fell into the facilitation role. In the summer of 2010 I started a blog called Tent Sessions where I posted videos of my friends playing music in a big decked-out tent in my family’s backyard in West LA. The vibe in that tent, as silly as it sounds, was really special and a strong sense of community formed around it. I think that’s when it clicked for all of us that something like Stereocure was possible. A lot of current Stereocure artists performed and otherwise participated in Tent Sessions including Adam Hirsch (Native Eloquence), Matt McGuire (of StaG), Faith Harding (Novelty Daughter), Stephen Becker and others.

Is there any remnant of Tent Sessions left on the internet?! Why not just start a traditional label, what is it about the “collective” mentality that seemed important to differentiate yourselves with?

There should be some videos floating around the web somewhere. They all feature pretty terrible camera work and a few too many shots of my dog and a ceramic smoking baby. But the Stereocure spirit is in there for sure. In terms of why we chose the ‘collective’ mentality, it came pretty naturally. Stereocure was initially developed as an umbrella under which all of our diversely talented friends could create and collaborate using each other as resources. We took a lot of inspiration from Brainfeeder (Flying Lotus‘ label), which was developed as a collaborative network/community of artists who just really loved what each other were doing, and the label aspect grew from that. Every time you see a new Brainfeeder release, you will see different Brainfeeder artists writing about how great it is. That sense of support gives confidence to listeners and makes them feel like they are in good hands. We are trying to take a similar path. Other sources of inspiration have been the many young collectives and labels that have been rising up in the experimental beat-making scene (6-Bit collective, Wedidit Collective, Belgian Man Records, and Proximal Records to name a few).

It does seem to be the “year of the collective”. How do you think a collective goes about showing that it is indeed “good hands” to be in? How do you plan to take steps toward that with Stereocure?

It’s important to get the listeners to feel a certain sense of ownership in the collective and have an overall trust for everything that comes out of it. We give all of our music away for free, so instead of the ‘we want your money’ mentality it’s ‘we just want you to check this out because we like it and think you will too.’ That definitely breaks down some walls between us and our listeners right there. As made apparent by the success of blogs like you guys, people tend to want new little bits of diverse content released at a rapid rate. So we are posting multiple new pieces of exclusive content on the site every week, including live video sessions, curated mixtapes, essays, visual art, audio recordings from live shows, as well as our releases and more. I would say we are “good hands” to be in because you can come to the site to check out a certain artist or post, and in the process discover many others.

I definitely think your hands are good hands to be in. So the core of Stereocure is from Los Angeles, right? How do you feel growing up in LA shaped the direction you guys are taking?

Yeah, the majority of Stereocure’s founding members, including me, grew up together in LA. It’s such a culturally diverse city but artistically it gets a really bad rap because of the film industry and the Hollywood scene. When we all went off to college outside of California we were definitely surprised by how many people, who often haven’t even been to LA, hate on it. Part of our motivation is to represent the city in a different light and have a hand in changing that perception. LA does not have a perfect music scene though, especially in terms of venues. So much of the live music marketplace there is dominated by either huge concert halls and stadiums or over-priced, stuffy Sunset Strip clubs. There’s a definite lack of DIY sensibilities, especially on the west side where we grew up. There are some exceptions, namely Low End Theory, an otherworldly Wednesday night electronic event that we hit up as much as possible. Thanks to a mentor of mine named Andrew Cohen, we were able to have our own DIY venue/gallery (called Art House Live) this past summer to run shows out of. It was a perfect place to facilitate the final stages of Stereocure’s development as well as to fill a hole in the West Side live music scene. We will be releasing live audio recordings from a lot of the Art House Live shows on the Stereocure website in the next month or so. But yeah, there’s no doubt both the good and the bad of LA has had a huge impact on our work and our appreciation of music in general.

LA is definitely a unique scene that can both broaden your horizons and inadvertently show you missing gaps that need filling. I read in your beautifully written and extensive Mission Essay about you’re ‘hands-off” approach with “hands-on support”. Can you speak a little bit about that?

All of the people in the Stereocure family are working on such unique projects and we in no way wanted to stunt their vision or change their course. Instead we wanted to provide them with all of the resources and support systems they could need to accomplish anything they want to. For example, with every new release from a Stereocure artist, we bring in one of our visual artists to collaborate with them on the cover art, we bring in one of our writers to pen a short thoughtful piece about it, our press/outreach folks send it out into the blogosphere, our filmmakers shoot video sessions of them to post online, we put together shows for them to perform the new material, and so on. Because the people involved have such a diverse set of talents and are so inspired by each other, we can keep it all in the family in a sense. That’s what we mean when we say we provide a hands-off creative environment with hands-on support.

That definitely sounds ideal for ultimate artistic progression. So what do you guys have in the works? Any plans or releases we can look forward to?

We are planning a little showcase tour in October, hitting up several colleges as well as a show in Brooklyn on the 25th. More info on that including more dates and lineups will be posted on the Stereocure website and Facebook page soon. In terms of releases we have some great stuff in the works. StaG and Pepepiano are each releasing new singles with us over the next month, both of which, I can attest, are sublime. Family Photo is putting the finishing touches on their new EP which will be their first release through Stereocure. Also, we have our first mixtape being released soon, curated by Faith Harding (aka Novelty Daughter), titled “The Treehouse Conspiracy,” accompanied by a beautifully written essay. There are more live video sessions in the works, you can expect to see ones featuring Native Eloquence pop up on the site very soon (which feature some new, unreleased tracks). There’s even more content being developed for later down the road, but I won’t reveal it quite yet. We have to maintain some sense of mystery! So stay tuned, there will be a lot to check out. And as always, it’s all free.

Amazing! A lot to look forward to. Well, Jordan, thank you so much for taking time to chat! Are there any closing thoughts you’d like to leave with us? Words of wisdom? Secrets? etc?

Thank you so much for having me! All of us are huge fans and supporters of Portals and are always down to help out or collaborate in any way. I encourage anyone reading this to cozy up by a fire with your favorite snack and your fluffiest pet, and take a listen to some of our music.

I highly suggest you poke around the Stereocure site. You’ll find loads of awesome live video sessions, plenty of full EP and album releases all for free, and some good reading about how they are and what they aim to do.

Curated by Tim Thompson