The >9TO9COLLECTIVE. I remember vividly a boring midday break – early January 2024 at the HKU – waiting in the hall on the second floor for the next class to start, when I told Rik: “Something needs to happen. We need to do something creative.”
I had fond, semi-nostalgic memories taunting me, memories of All Nighter, FORM‘s flagship event1 – the times my friends and I made songs for volumes 5 and 6 (a loving embrace to Marcus and Lewis). I had a vague idea of wanting to host a similar community “jam” with friends I had made while at the HKU. After sparring with Rik for a while we got the brilliant (and somewhat pompous idea) of chaining studio reservations, to secure a studio for an entire day. We gathered some enthousiasts (I think it was Jasper, Jesse (Jacques2) Morris, Maarten, Quinten, Joris and Erdem at first).
And thus, February 01 2024 marked the start of something magical:
One of my favourite productions to date was made here – Saffraan it is called. I’m sure you’ll hear it some time. It’s a combination of acoustic recordings and digital synths – it’s soothing, yeah. What I really enjoy about 9TO9 is the roughness of drafts and the level at which we dare to express ourselves. I love the bluntness with which we sketch ideas, a way of not giving a shit – it’s beautiful and it’s raw and it’s emotion. And I knew after that day, I would not let that be the only 9TO9.
- from the FORM website:
All Nighter is FORM’s flagship event and compilation album series. In this 24-hour challenge, musicians and visual artists submit tracks and album covers they’ve made within the allotted 24-hour time limit. At the end, we collect around 45 carefully selected submissions into one compilation, hold a community vote to determine the final cover, and then release it on all streaming platforms to raise money for a designated charity.
↩︎ - nicknamed ↩︎