The Music Communicator
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Talisman is one place to release music, listen to it, pay for it and talk about it. Listeners pay for the time they listen, or buy a release to keep.
Artists can also make releases that only play at a certain place, time or sky. Talisman is not-for-profit, and in private beta.
TALISMAN: UNIFYING MUSIC
The dream of a fairer music industry has evaded us since the first sheet music was sold. From the printing press to the phonograph, from vinyl to streaming, each new medium promised liberation for artists; instead, each one diminished their control and revenue, and diluted the connection and meaning in music.
The Reality
The current system is exhausting and indicative of late-stage capitalism: You find a band on X, buy tickets on Y, check the venue on Z, share photos on this, miss their merch drop on that… everything that should connect is scattered across a dozen corporate silos.
For artists, it's even worse: endless platforms to manage. Losing fans in the gaps. Having no clear picture of your own community. Getting royalty payouts in fractions of pennies for work that costs you everything to create. Watching AI slop turn up in your catalogue without your consent.
This is unacceptable.
The Rebellion
Everyone says it's impossible to build a fair music industry. That major labels are happy with the streaming model they helped create. From our point of view, it's not going well. We know music can be so much more. Our goal is to protect and foster the art of music and the culture that surrounds it from those who wish to further exploit it.
The Vision
We asked the question: what if music lived the way we do? When corporations stop chopping it into pieces, music becomes whole again, flowing naturally, alive in its context. A track discovered becomes part of a memory. An album drop becomes a shared ritual. The journey returns to magic.
Talisman is more than an app. It's a new protocol built from an artist's perspective. The challenges we faced forced us to forge our own path. In doing so, we realised that when you pull the right thread, the whole industry just... unravels.
Fear not, what we found underneath is far more interesting.
Talisman is now in private beta. The app works, and we are letting people in gradually, with invite codes. If you make music, read what it offers artists →
We've built Talisman independently, from the ground up, for the future of music. It will be sustained by a not-for-profit model that puts artist sovereignty and listener privacy first. If you can design, code, create or tell stories, or you'd like to donate to the cause, get in touch →
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