Ian Livingstone performing as Artifiseer at the Best of Saint John music Awards. (Photo by Emily Shakespeare)
A New Brunswick music collective is providing a platform to release music by Queer artists.
Moondrip Collective started as a conversation between Ian Livingstone and two of his ‘artistic cohorts’ Lindsay Hazen and Gabe Williams.
“It kind of began because we all do music and other mediums of art, and we all felt kind of unmoored, like we didn’t necessarily know how to fit ourselves into existing scenes around us,” Livingstone said.
“We are big fans of a lot of artists that already operate as more of parts of a larger collective, and who have successfully fostered their own scene and kind of community, both where they’re from and through the internet.”
They decided to form Moondrip Collective with the hope they could emulate that method of scene-building and find more folks who feel like they do. Moondrip artists can be found through its official Bandcamp page, including Livingstone’s musical alias Artifiseer.
Livingstone, whose pronouns are he and they, says the collective’s artists all identify as Queer, and they make sure to highlight that element because it helps with the community-building aspect of the project.
“The main goal of Moondrip Collective is kind of to uplift and create spaces for LGBTQIA+ and two-spirit artists, both in our local community, and in the online and broader spaces we participate in,” they said. “But also to bring attention to causes that we think are important, and participate in amplifying those voices and those narratives.”
Many of the collective’s musical releases involve a fundraising element to help support causes that are important to them, including many BIPOC-focused organizations.
Last March, Livingstone pressed a run of Artifiseer tapes and CDs, and pledged all of the money to a mutual aid fund that provides funding to Black trans folks in need of emergency money called For the Gworls, while a recent release from Moondrip artist Stella Leone raised funds for migrant workers.
“We try to focus our mutual aid donation efforts on (BIPOC groups) because I feel like that’s an area where we see a lot of inequity that we feel it’s our social responsibility to contribute toward ameliorating,” said Livingstone.
The pandemic has prevented Moondrip artists from planning too many physical events, so instead they’re still focused on putting the finishing touches on some new music. An Artifiseeer EP and a split release with a German artist could be ready this year, while Stella Leone is currently working on some collaborative songs with other artists.
However, they hope to get back in front of audiences before too long.
“We eventually want to get back into doing shows, and events, and different kinds of physical things, but obviously that’s not in the cards yet,” Livingstone said. “Right now we’re just focusing on music and art projects that we’re putting the finishing touches on.”
