»Sustain« is a weird and fascinating word. It captures the current condition of the world. It shimmers and sways. It is a spectrum. It touches opposite polarities of the contemporary experience as it speaks of the empathy and determination through which we survive, as well as of our anxieties, losses and pains. In the word »sustain« we sense both what we are going through while hearing what needs to be done. It is as much a description as it is an imperative as it is a vocation towards more interdependent ways of life.

In between we endure. This too is to »sustain«, somehow holding out in the disorienting grey blur that covers the vast terrain between a bright and a dark horizon. Unhappy at times, ignorant, numb, guarded, depleted, stubbornly immobile ... making ends meet, day by day, but just so.

What if »sustain« were a sound? What would it be like? An endlessly sustained high-pitched, corrosive sawtooth tone that gradually shreds our minds? Tense. High-strung. Wired. Guilty. Sustain without release, like the anxiety and stress that won't stop running through our bodies, increasingly hard-wired to the accumulating political, ecological, and social crises near and far. Or rather a persistent dull droning hum? Unchanging. Unspirited. Mono. Why not a bright spectral sound that carves out a blissful space of its own, distant from (but not necessarily oblivious to) the hardship of others? Or a gently embracing, undulating chord? Steadily morphing. Warm. Generous. Inviting. Caring. Supportive.

Some people say music is the answer. But no, music is not the answer. It won’t solve our problems. So what can music do for us? What can we do with music? Wake us from trances of inert hopelessness, blanketed by privileged ignorance? Shift us into a trance where we'll find relief and the strength to transform? Make our voices heard through a howl of unfiltered expression? Help us stay sane by offering dissonance as an antidote to dissonance, and noise to cancel the noise? Give purpose through community, connecting and weaving with a joyful modulation that travels from mind to mind, from body to body?

We don’t really know. Music is vague terrain. A testing ground. An exercise and a deep probe into uncertainty and multiplicity. Yet music also sustains us. It is a refuge, an expression of life. Music is for oneself, and more importantly, a means to extend beyond the self—to express and cherish our relationality with and obligation to others. It is a channel of emotion. It is communication. Information. Contact. A shared narrative. As such it is a tangible reminder of the ethics and ideals that we need to apply and strive towards as we work towards something more sane, just, and sustainable.

And so we remind ourselves with music of our desire to get closer to the bright end of the spectrum, sustaining to transform and transforming to sustain … like a quarter-century old festival … perhaps … or the myriad initiatives, scenes, and people that bravely kindle and uphold musical life everywhere. How can music scenes and practices be less extractive ecologically, culturally, and socially? How can music ecosystems provide space for divergent and independent communities to cross-pollinate and thrive in a climate of growing divisions? What will enable DIY initiatives and attitudes to blossom—particularly in an unstable economy, and in places without access to space? What frameworks and codes are needed to balance the give and take—and who is doing the giving and taking? How do we build scenes where we all work together, growing stronger by creating pathways and access?