Bye Bye!
What a difference a year makes...
On September 18 2024 I was in a very positive place. 1 More Thing had enjoyed a super high profile summer with takeovers and activities at multiple festivals including Rampage Open Air and Sun And Bass and I had a very active crew of mentorship students. I’d also started streaming and developing a presence on Twitch and was playing around with the Demo Drop concept.
The second episode streamed just days after I’d returned from Sun And Bass and it featured a stand-out track by Sonnet called Bye Bye! It was a favourite in the chat and it made me say Oi repetitively in an overly enthusiastic way.
One year and one day later - September 19, 2025 - we finally released the track. It’s a free download via Bandcamp and it’s our way of saying thank you for all the support Sonnet has had so far.
Say hello to Bye Bye! here.
It’s been a cool moment of reflection thinking about how far we’ve been able to take Sonnet’s music. From his early demos last summer to having DJs like KMotionz play his beats to 10,000s of ravers and even the one and only Rob Swire in his inbox bigging him up, we’ve achieved a lot and I really appreciate the perspective this anniversay has given me.
I needed this rebooted perspective.
This year I haven’t felt like I’m in such a positive place. A year ago it felt like everything was coming together and my vision for 1 More Thing to become a legit profitable platform felt like was almost within grasping distance.
But this year things haven’t felt quite so directly and immediately positive. Bills are still not being paid, we weren’t present at those high profile spots again this summer, our editorial team is smaller and most days I’m screaming into the void so loudly I’m surprised I have any vocal chords left.
So much has changed in terms of how 1 More Thing operates. We’ve been focusing on different priorities and digging a much deeper foundation. Rather than focusing so much on editorial content (which has a very limited shelf life), we’ve been building a discography, forming a collective of amazing talents and helping them put amazing music out into the universe.
None of this comes with any type of instant gratification. Nor should it. Not everything garners immediate signs of success. In fact the best things take a long time to seed and take root. And while we haven’t seemed as a prolific, high profile, in demand or unavoidable this year, it’s my hope that the moves we’re making now will be so firm and run so deep that we can build on them for years and years to come.
I had a little flash of hope last night. Lakeway and I played a mad little b2b in a crazy pop-up for Plymouth promoters The Bedlam Ball. It was in a bakery. It was full of ravers, me and Lakeway bounced off each other with a level of shared energy we’ve not had in a b2b before and scones were flying around the gaff on the regular. It was a hoot. And best of all, the tunes I was playing were almost entirely forthcoming releases on 1 More Thing. And Sonnet’s tunes were getting SERIOUS reactions.
To be entrusted with this music, to be the first DJ to test these tunes and slap unsuspecting ravers with them is an honour and a buzz. It wasn’t just Sonnet’s tunes getting love either. We’ve got 5 releases landing before the year is out and I played tracks from all of them. They all hit the spot in their own unique way and made me very excited for what we have planned moving forward and made me realise how much work has been put in this year.
Editorially my team is smaller and our output isn’t as frequent. But artistically we are so much stronger. As well as myself, Shenice and Lou on the content side, 1 More Thing is now a powerful collective of artists. An ever evolving family of misfits who’ve come together in a very natural way that couldn’t ever before forecast and all have a voice and an influence in what we do.
This is what’s been happening throughout 2025. Plotting, planning and painting a real sonic picture of what we want to see more of in the music industry: more meaningful collaborations, more art-for-arts-sake, more risk taking, eclecticism and unpredictability. Less uniform, cookie-cutter copy-cat moves, samey splice samples and baity fodder for the masses.
And this weekend is a great moment to pause and soak a lot of that up. Not only have we just dropped Bye Bye! we’re also celebrating six months of Lakeway’s debut album I’ve Missed The Sun on Saturday (watch out for a cool BTS video of Merny making the artwork), we’re still busily pushing Bairn’s debut release It’s You (watch out for their BMC mix running on Sunday)
And on Monday we drop the IMMENSE body of work that is Spore Prints, the debut album by Deerhill. We’re barely whispering into the void about that one… Let alone scream. The plans we have for that album are another level again and I can’t wait to reveal them.
I’ll save all of that for another Substack though. Enough chat for today. Here are some links to some cool things we’ve put out this week:
Optivus Music - a brand new label dedicated to disabled artists.
In The Mix: Drozza - a euphoric happy slap of 90s proportions from our recent BMC takeover.
In The Mix & Interview: Sali - a free style adventure into technoid breaks and cosmic electronica plus a sick interview with Nascent from our recent BMC takeover
What is love? Codename RCRDS bossman Moakz gives Shenice his take.
Have a lovely weekend
NoDave Columbo