Animal Collective, Spencer Tweedy Give Fans Inside Looks Via New Audio Platform

Blast Radio, a free audio platform that boasts unannounced broadcasts from artists, has revealed a new artist-grants program featuring upcoming broadcasts from Animal Collective and Spencer Tweedy, among others.

“We really like the potential for being able to jump on to share something new, old, plannedm or improvised, whatever, whenever,” Deakin of Animal Collective said in a statement. “I really appreciate the minimal approach to feedback as well. It brings the focus to the broadcasting and the listening. In some ways, I feel that actually opens up the door to more intimacy for the performer and for the listener.”

The broadcast that garners the highest listens from the Blast Radio community at the end of the month will garner $1,000. Second-place broadcasts will receive $300, while the third-most-listened-to broadcasts will fetch $200.

“Our ultimate goal is creating a platform that benefits artists,” Yousef Ali, Blast Radio founder and CEO, said in a statement. “We immediately started thinking about how we could further support artists in a way that helps them be empowered to keep doing what they love. This is our first step towards building much more robust programs to support our artist community.”

The grant program is slated to run through 2021. Though most of Blast Radio’s broadcasts occur spur-of-the-moment, there are a few scheduled ahead of time on tap.

Starting Wednesday, Tweedy will host a weekly Spencer Tweedy’s Drum Diary, anticipated to run through at least mid-November, during which he takes fans into his drum booth to talk and play music, and discuss all things beats. Animal Collective are slated to hit Blast Radio with material produced from recent recording sessions at the Drop of Sun studio in Asheville, North Carolina, on October 27th.