2012 Bid Adieu Announce Debut LP

Inclusive DIY collective of artists that span every medium, 2012 Bid Adieu, share their first ever single and music video for "Friends" and announce their debut album, We died in 2012. This Is Hell. The LP is due out June 7, and the new single will be available on all DSPs Friday, March 8.

"Good days come and going. Good days come and go....I don't know what is going on..."

After pointing to these lyrics from "Friends," the collective shed light on the single, and say, "We felt that this song encapsulated everything that 2012 represents. The world doesn't make any sense and death feels right around the corner. Millennials are known for turning crippling depression & anxiety into a joke so we don't have to deal with the dense reality that perhaps this may be the end of the world. Speaking to the target audience directly, this song is honest, both lyrically and audibly. The song uses multiple instruments, jumping from synth, to acoustic guitar, to vocoder, to keep it feeling sporadic, adding another element of unpredictability."

The goal of 2012 Bid Adieu is to collectively to empower and fulfill each others' ideas to their fullest capacity. Because the group believes anyone can be an artist, inclusion is an important value in their approach to art. There's a common belief that "some of us have it, some of us don't." Implicit in that statement is the assumption that most of us fall into the latter category. 2012 Bid Adieu's goal is to expand the definition of artist, and change listeners relationships to creating, and their relationship with themselves.

2012 Bid Adieu began as a subconscious collaboration through years of friendship. Throughout this time, passions began to merge. 2012 Bid Adieu began with Jordan Clark and Gray Hall (producers/vocalists). Afterwards, they connected with Jeff O'Neal (videographer, creative director) who had previously collaborated with Clark on a music video titled "Path Forked Years Ago." It was only a matter of time before Clark and Hall welcomed their other bandmates, Jachary (bassist), Dillon Treacy (drummer), and Donovan Duvall (keyboardist). In the process of creating digital shorts, comedy, sketches and clothing, 2012 Bid Adieu, brought in other players, such as, Alex Pyle (mixing engineer), Lewis Gutierrez (Actor), Alyza Enriquez (videographer), Monisade Fabunmi (barber, stylist), Amelia Capaz (writer, meme curator), Ambra Parker (model), Sasha Mcnair (dancer), Anna Wotring (dancer) and Prashast Thapan (3D animator).

Forging their own genre of anti-pop meets electronic hip-hop, 2012 Bid Adieu takes the scene, seeking to upset traditional means of production. Individually, the members have gained recognition from outlets and media sites such as Def Jam Recordings, Tru Thoughts Records, Afropunk, Okayplayer, Blavity, KEXP-FM, Earmilk, The Masked Gorilla, Indiecurrent, The Deli Magazine, THRDCoast, Respect Magazine, BBC Radio 6, Revive Music and more.

2012 Bid Adieu represents a euphonious collaboration, not to be defined, constantly evolving-transcending. 2012 Bid Adieu is a collective that insists on redrawing lines, and reclaiming the idea the "artist." With their upcoming release, We Died In 2012: This Is Hell, the imaginative crew introduces the world to a fresh ideology, and music that speaks directly to the Nintendo Generation, but can appreciated by listeners of all kinds.

BIO [Written by Benjamin Kaye of Consequence of Sound]

The world is over. Frankly, it ended back in 2012, just as the Mayans predicted. This space we occupy now is a hell masquerading as normality, obscured by a digital purgatory of our own design. Under a deluge of old Vine videos and Tim and Eric, we tweet out into the vast macrocosm of 0s and 1s, trying to make a sound in an echoing expanse. A voice alone in the darkness is only so loud, however. But as a collective, unified in the desire to make the most out of this Internet-based absurdity, Bid Adieu is ready to be heard.

It's hard to say who Bid Adieu really is, what with its constantly shifting 40 to 45 member roster of creatives, though it definitely started with the music of Jordan Clark and Gray Hall. The pair had played together in college bands before taking their own paths, with Clark's leading to darker recordings influenced by depression and loss. Realizing he needed to find a way to laugh at this wildly intractable world again, he moved to New York for the companionship of Hall and other artsy allies.

That's when work on Bid Adieu's debut album, We Died in 2012: This is Hell, began. The objective was to make a genreless, funky concept record for the Nintendo generation, a fusion of 21st century electronic sounds that felt good for the sake of feeling good. They explore maxilism on tracks like "Weird Place", a technicolor fantasyscape of Earth, Wind and Fire soul put through Daft Punk vocalizers and hip-hop production. Elsewhere, they take minimalist routes towards the twinkling, core R&B of "Calours". In between are tracks like "Cool Online", a dreamy panorama of smooth synths littered with deconstructed bits of video game soundtracks, and "Hot Coal", the result of piano pop gospel being uploaded into future funk.

"Listeners that enjoy electronic music and 808s and 707s will enjoy it," Clark says of the album, "but then I showed it to my friends who went to the New School and studied jazz and they hear these complex progressions and changes." The work is as challenging as it is engaging, the oeuvre of musicians willing to be equally fearless and fun.

When Clark and Hall started bringing in more and more collaborators to assemble this progressive sonic whimsy, the true magic of Bid Adieu revealed itself. "As we built the songs and got more people on it, I saw all these different people's eyes begin to brighten like bulbs," recalls Clark. "It clicked that the real goal of this all is what will come, what it will produce for the people who experience it."

Swiftly, Bid Adieu grew into a project not just about music, but furnishing an environment where interdisciplinary talents aren't afraid to contribute to a greater ideal -- and succeed. This is, after all, the generation of DIY, where we're used to sending our humble works out into the ether in a quest for likes. What if you cast a net around all that artistic energy to bring it together as a creative powerhouse with a singular message? What if the limitless potential of everyone's abilities was used to find respite in the hell on Earth that is 2018?

The first figure to take a seat at Bid Adieu's extended table was Jeff O'Neil, a videographer whom Clark had worked with extensively. O'Neil took control of the creative direction, conceiving of the color palette and vibe that would paint all aspects of the collective. That range is broad, with members including dancers, meme makers, voice actors, video game creators, painters, activists -- even barbers. It all merges in live shows that are more like plays, a "weird theater of music" with narrators and sets and performers. We Died in 2012 is just the launching pad for the group as they head towards a future of endless possible endeavors.

The very ethos of the group ensures that. Regardless of training, age, or any identifying shackles, all are embraced into Bid Adieu, so long as they're willing to try. "I don't like how there's this weird mentality now with art where you either have it or you don't," says Clark, a firm believer in the inclusive tenets of Kenny Werner's Effortless Mastery. "I don't think there's anything that limits me from the next person. I think that ultimately this project will inspire and bring a platform to people who have an interest but just never had the confidence. Hopefully, this provides the confidence to people who want to give it a shot or who have something to say."

Jointly mobilized, the collective shows that there doesn't have to be a great divide between the artist and the experiencer. We, too, can be the creators, finding tranquility in this buzzing, mixed up life by seeking it together. "I wanted to bring in all these people who have these rough edges and allow those rough edges to show to paint the new, young picture that we're being ourselves and using the talents that we have to make something beautiful," Clark explains. "Bid Adieu is the kids on the Internet who finally feel like they have a home. All the bedroom actors and musicians and whatever else coming out and finally having a home."

Even though we've been here all along, welcome home. Welcome to Bid Adieu.

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