Concept: Rustempick
The classical ritual and sacred nature of music – that is the core concept of “Rustempick.” In the earliest stages of human civilization, music unmistakably held value as something with a “mysterious power” that could elevate human consciousness and physical energy. Even within the context of modern music, as depicted in the film “Jazz on a Summer’s Day,” the sensibility persisted well into the 20th century that, despite the immense achievements and broad popularity of a figure like Louis Armstrong, it was Mahalia Jackson’s “music offered up to God” that was chosen to bring the concert to a close in a blaze of glory.
However, alongside symbolic phrases such as “rock is dead,” music became increasingly commercialized. Under capitalist values, the number of musicians and songs was forced to expand at a tremendous pace, and through this “inflation of music,” its artistic value and rarity were progressively eroded. The “convenience” and “ease” provided by technologies such as streaming and AI‑generated music have rushed in to fill that lost sense of value. In the 21st century, this has led to a polarization between “casual music experiences” characterized by high convenience and low friction, and “intense, collective music experiences” centered on live concerts.
In today’s world, music has shifted from being primarily about “songs” to being about “experiences,” and it can feel as though the ideological weight and existential presence once carried by individual songs are fading. The “lyrics” that accompany those songs, too, seem to have lost much of their depth as vehicles of thought or literary expression, transforming instead into content driven largely by an SNS‑style sense of online “relatability.”
“Rustempick” is a label that, within this 21st‑century musical landscape, deliberately pursues a musicality rooted in classical notions of ritual, sacredness, and devout religiosity. Rather than simply inheriting existing traditions or religions, it seeks to “create a new world.” Much like Tolkien’s *The Lord of the Rings*, which was written to give life to a newly constructed language, Rustempick aims to continually search, within the realm of music, for new forms of “ritual” and “sacredness.”
However, alongside symbolic phrases such as “rock is dead,” music became increasingly commercialized. Under capitalist values, the number of musicians and songs was forced to expand at a tremendous pace, and through this “inflation of music,” its artistic value and rarity were progressively eroded. The “convenience” and “ease” provided by technologies such as streaming and AI‑generated music have rushed in to fill that lost sense of value. In the 21st century, this has led to a polarization between “casual music experiences” characterized by high convenience and low friction, and “intense, collective music experiences” centered on live concerts.
In today’s world, music has shifted from being primarily about “songs” to being about “experiences,” and it can feel as though the ideological weight and existential presence once carried by individual songs are fading. The “lyrics” that accompany those songs, too, seem to have lost much of their depth as vehicles of thought or literary expression, transforming instead into content driven largely by an SNS‑style sense of online “relatability.”
“Rustempick” is a label that, within this 21st‑century musical landscape, deliberately pursues a musicality rooted in classical notions of ritual, sacredness, and devout religiosity. Rather than simply inheriting existing traditions or religions, it seeks to “create a new world.” Much like Tolkien’s *The Lord of the Rings*, which was written to give life to a newly constructed language, Rustempick aims to continually search, within the realm of music, for new forms of “ritual” and “sacredness.”