Lismore musician’s idea sparks worldwide challenge

“IT’S been pretty wild... a bass player from the Cat Empire jumped on one... it’s been insane really.”

LOOPS: Art Pleasley's daily music challenge has driven a spree of worldwide collaboration from Sweden to China.

IT STARTED as a challenge to keep Angus Fitz-Bugden, also known as Art Pleasley, motivated creatively.

But his musical loops have inspired worldwide collaboration.

In COVID-19 times when the music industry was hit hard, Angus had to reinvent how he created and conceptualised music and the loop challenge was born.

Currently in its second attempt, the project is focused on playing a month's worth of musical loops on the Art Pleasley Instagram page.

There's the common-place electric guitar and keyboard but true to Art Pleasley's unique vibe, there's also a loop involving spoons.

"A lot of the people who have jumped on with this are in Melbourne, there was another trumpeter in China who jumped on a track, sent some drum (loops) to New York yesterday, some piano to Sweden a couple of days earlier," the Lismore Heights resident said.

 

 

"It's sort of redefining what a local scene is in terms of music or in terms of creativity."

It's led to some relatively big names on the Australian music scene trying to turn an Art Pleasley loop into a finished musical product.

"It's been pretty wild, the way people have picked it up and run with it."

"A bass player from the Cat Empire jumped on one, a bunch of guys from Sampa the Great's band jumped on another one, it's been insane really."

Outside of these loops, Angus' Art Pleasley released it's first single Shame on all music platforms in 2019 and he is part of APTS duo which released their first EP, Game Plan, in February.

"Every song is different for me, a blank canvas … it's more how much music can I fit into this song, like Shame for instance, fell out while I was dog-sitting at someone's place."

"There's a lot ready to be released, it's sort of just figuring out how to do that in an effective way … it's how to release music into this new environment."

To see the musical loop challenge, search Art Pleasley on Instagram.