mollysstuff is a collection of 3-ring binders, each containing 100 unique files, physically collected as one-of-a-kind artist books. 

The project evolved out of the artist’s long-term blogging practice, Desktop Dump.

Molly writes: “What sits on my desktop is a good indicator of what I’m interested in, working on, and thinking about. In a way, it’s a more telling account of what I’ve been up to than anything I could write. It’s a vision board, a diary, a messy room.”

mollysstuff is a culmination of this practice and a print physicalization of the artist’s evolving relationship with digital media.

In addition to exhibiting the binders, Molly also debuted a sneak peek performance of her forthcoming play, Trivial Pursuit.

The play is set in the midst of a vision-boarding sleepover: three girls sit atop a messy collage of files, reading lines like, “Basically the whole Bible happens to me daily,” and, “I want to eat a moldy strawberry on purpose, go to the hospital, and then sue Whole Foods,” as they past girl-coded print-outs of Youtube screenshots and ballet flats onto the windows of 99 Canal.

Trivial Pursuit shares a good deal of thematic territory with mollysstuff, but seeing it brought to life with the funny, candid, and hyper-realistic performances of Mackenzie Thomas, Maya Man, and Maya Martinez that brought a new dimension into Molly Soda’s singular perspective on making art in the digital age. 

Congratulations to Molly on her piece and the performers on their work. Twenty unique editions of mollysstuff are available now, exclusively on Metalabel. 

Their most recent issue, titled “Relics,” is a celebration of cherished physical objects. The edition’s thick, glossy pages feature contributions from dozens of contributors including Caroline Calloway, Blake Butler, Joshua Citarella, hundreds of images, and much more. It was printed in a limited edition run of 400 issues.

Collect Forever Magazine

We invited Anika, Madeline, and Nat to tell us more about their work.

METALABEL: What do you hope audiences feel and take from this release? 

FOREVER: One of the exciting things about making a print object is the perpetual potential that it might continue to have a life in future eras, to be forgotten, archived, and unearthed decades later. We wanted to imagine this issue of Forever as a future Relic, something someone might find fifty years from now and treat as a time capsule, a glimpse into some small piece of some small scene in the 2020’s. 

METALABEL: Walk us through the process of making this work and putting it into the world. What are some of the key decisions you faced?

FOREVER: We worked on Relics as a three-girl team, also with the support of our interviews editor Keegan Swenson and our favorite intern Skylar Zoe. Every issue begins with a theme, a rough sketch of an idea universal enough that it might matter to people but specific enough to feel new. In some ways Relics represents a return to our fixation on religious iconography, although in the end this issue feels like one of most visually secular we’ve ever produced. We asked all our favorite artists and writers to send us a relic from their own life, a future heirloom. Bernie Kaminskii sent us photographs of old New York City phone books he hoards, notable numbers like Andy Warhol and Yoko Ono circled in pencil. A notable podcaster whose name I won’t invoke here sent us an essay about stealing a small piece of Aldous Huxley’s house. 

METALABEL: What did you learn while making this release? How do you feel about it today? 

FOREVER: You have to have something seriously wrong with you to make an independent print project in the year 2024. With the cost of paper skyrocketing, logistics becoming more expensive and bureaucratically demanding as the supply chain strains, it’s no wonder that people assume you can’t make a print magazine without institutional backing or generational wealth. As with every issue we produce, RELICS was nothing short of a miracle. It is shiny, pretty, and imperfect. The magic print is that it’s ephemeral; it will not last forever. But hopefully it will serve as a keyhole into which some future forever girl can peer through and see our era amateurly preserved in all of its beauty and decay. 

Collect Forever Magazine

METALABEL: WHAT’S THIS RELEASE?

Miter: The release is a soundtrack album featuring artists participating in a Substack-based music video/variety show called Salon Du Monde, Fremont. It’s a physical cassette that doubles as a zine with writing and art, as well as a download of the album.  

The whole crazy idea came from trying to connect with other musicians on Substack and thinking of the subscription model as a positive route and revenue source for music creators.

I started my own newsletter Washed Memoir in Real Time as a personal creative practice with the goal of releasing one song per month. At the time, it felt like a novel and humble way to continue to release music, especially for someone with less time and willingness to do the things typically required of musicians. After a short time, I felt the need to connect with others and believed there were others doing something similar — or that there should be.  

I quickly discovered that there were indeed people releasing music similarly via the Substack network. I came up with the idea of a "record label" as a way to create collective support  and connect with other musicians. The idea was about building solidarity through community and music without ownership. It is largely about self-autonomy and mutual support and almost antithetical to the idea of a record label — but still calling it a record label...mainly for fun. 

After getting people interested in the concept, we started to brainstorm what we could do collectively. The idea of a music video show was an idea that seemed feasible and had support from the group. Buttressed by the positive response for the idea, I started reaching out to more people on Substack that would fit the concept. I recruited Jimmy Doom to host, and curated some non-sequiturs, interstitials, and comedic content into a show inspired by 90s MTV such as 120 Minutes, Headbanger’s Ball, Liquid Television, along with the more contemporary things like Adult Swim and Tim and Eric.

Overall, the response was great. People were interested in contributing and there was enough material to create three episodes of the show. After accomplishing that goal, it seemed like a good idea to release a “soundtrack” featuring the musicians and music that appeared in the first three episodes. And it was! The soundtrack is awesome and features some great tracks and artists. Putting something out like this as a collective feels more gratifying than putting out a solo release. The whole process has been both challenging and rewarding. 

METALABEL: HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED?

FogChaser: I was lucky enough to end up in Salon Du Monde, Fremont because of a collaboration I had done with the writer Alexander Ipelkofer. Alexander used one of my songs for a video he had made for the world he’s building in his dystopian novel Spherean, and Miter was kind enough to include me on this soundtrack. And that, to me, is what makes this whole Salon Du Monde project remarkable — it embodies and encourages the spirit of collaboration that has become crucial in the ever-shifting digital media landscape. I appreciate the possibilities of Metalabel, and I appreciate people like Ryan who can execute a vision with incredible generosity and poise.

Julia Pickering, The Dialectic: When Salon Du Monde, Fremont appeared on Substack I was astonished at its quality. The combined talent of the musicians, animators, filmmakers and performers involved in it had resulted in something magical… This stuff was really, really good!

It's the passion that hit me; the creative drive of people who, despite having jobs, families and busy lives, had the determination to use their talent to create. It brought a lump to my throat. It brought an even bigger lump to my throat when Miter copied me into an email asking for written as well as musical contributions to the cassette and Metalabel release. 

I thought hard about whether I could submit something and, I'm ashamed to say, eventually dismissed the idea. It was too intimidating to imagine that I could come up with anything suitable for a project as remarkable as this. A little later the indefatigable Miter messaged again. I replied that I was delighted to have been asked but was doubtful I could contribute. As soon as I pressed send on that message a small idea started to bubble up. 

What Miter did by not letting the matter drop was, for me, a vital step. It was the accelerant I needed to get involved, to take a leap into the unknown, to...try. People who keep their eye on the prize, brook no obstacles and keep pushing forward are to be celebrated. The impact they make on other lives is the essence of positivity. Miter's second email convinced me that the request was serious, and within a couple of hours I had something. When I saw the final product (the physical version of which will undoubtedly sell out immediately and become a collector's item) there was my little blurb, right there on the cover. I was stunned.

I'm so grateful for this opportunity, and thrilled to have contributed to such a fantastic project, even in the tiniest of ways.

Gadzooks Marchmain, Zookie's World: I contacted Ryan to declare a strong albeit undefined desire to contribute somethingorother. At some point I sent a couple of scripts and sketches and an audio file. You can see for yourselves what Ryan did! He asked for some music to lead into the sketch. I sent him a messy demo, and he graced it with guitar and bass, and plonked it on the comp! As a busy mother of three with little time to finish any creative projects, these collaborations are very special to me. Almost miraculous. Ryan's artistry and support in helping to present my work to a wider audience mean a great deal.

Britta Pejic: Ryan’s music projects caught my ear on Substack. Little did I know how industrious this fellow was!! He asked me to join the ranks of his label project! I hadn’t heard of anything as such. The music world needs visionaries like Ryan to drive the bus upstream!!! 

METALABEL: WHY ARE YOU ON METALABEL?

Miter: I first learned about Metalabel on Substack and immediately connected with the model presented of collectives and labels finding mutual support through the release of creative material. The zine that Metalabel put out called “New Creative Era” really spoke to me, especially the image that shows collectives coming together from individual creators to build a creative ecosystem. This aligned with my views, but much further along and more established...and more "meta." 

This speaks to some of my beliefs that there is a high degree of quality in artistic practice that is being created regardless of what the market or the nonprofit world produces and distributes in large quantities. There's an infinite well of creativity and the connection that we make around our endeavors and follies are socially valuable — if not always rewarded monetarily in the current system.

This cassette release includes all of the musicians that contributed to the first three episodes and seemed like a great way to expand the idea of a "label" and actually release a record. Metalabel seems like a perfect way to do the release. It fits with the ideals and the hopeful thoughts about creating better systems for artists. 

METALABEL: WHAT DOES THE FUTURE OF THIS PROJECT LOOK LIKE?

Miter: We made three episodes. I may have gone overboard with the vision for the show. I'm not sure what success means, but I'm pretty proud of making it happen and the feedback and growth that came out of the project. However, the project was a heavy lift and quite a bit of legwork as something I was doing for fun in my spare time. 

I still have aspirations to continue the show. Ideally, I'd like it to be more community and place-based, highlighting local scenes and including in-person screenings and performances. I've started making a few fundraising asks to try and produce this vision more fully, so we will see. 

It is hard to say. I’m satisfied with much of the project as it stands and it may make more sense to pursue new and different projects with Labelabel. I certainly have more ideas and I want to keep building on collaborations and connections. Metalabel has given the collective a place to stand, so regardless, I’m thrilled about the possibilities for the future.

Goodnight Sweet Thing
Directed by: Cristine Brache and Sigrid Lauren
Featuring: Emily Allan, Betsey Brown, and Joshua Weidenmiller
New York City | May 11, 2024

Goodnight Sweet Thing has the hazy logic of a dream, the familiar discomfort of childhood capitulation, and the cloying excess of overripe fruit. It adapts Cristine Brache’s book of poetry by the same name into a work of experimental theater, directed by Brache and Sigrid Lauren, which finds three performers (Emily Allan, Betsey Brown, and Joshua Weidenmiller) in a state of Lynchian hypnosis across three acts: a jello wrestling match, a therapist’s office, and a shoo-bee doo-bee stage show. Costume changes are worked into the onstage choreography. A referee is unmasked. A Young-Girl stamps her feet at the prospect of putting on a frilly period-piece dress. The performers begin stage right, they transition to stage left, and they finish in the center, the nostalgia of their singing and dancing bittersweet, and the final act’s simulation of balance and symmetry never quite achieving a sense of resolve. It’s a performance that gnaws at you. Throughout, trauma is recounted with a deadpan affect, and certain phrases are repeated enough times that their meaning is turned inside out. One such sticky line recited over and over: “I can look into anybody’s eyes and borrow the ache and promise of a daydream.”

On the page Brache’s poetry is remarkable for its directness. The world she portrays is sometimes bleak, the way everything looks blank-white when you step out into the bright sun and your eyes haven’t adjusted yet. But it’s never cold. There’s an intimacy to how she uses language. It feels personal, even if we only get glimpses. Shocks of familiarity, fragmented. In the performance adaptation of Goodnight Sweet Thing’s poems, this splintered sentimentality sits inside a container of spectacle, the three-act structure focalizing three rituals that stage an expression of interiority for an audience. But also three rituals of catharsis that are codified to such a degree that we become skeptical whether the demands of how we’re expected to perform have contaminated the sincerity of the feeling to begin with.

— Whitney Mallett

Purchase Goodnight Sweet Thing by Cristine Brache

Purchase The Whitney Review of New Writing edited by Whitney Mallett