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Independent culture, ecology, and the end of the growth illusion
The issue is no longer only ecological. It is structural. At Pop-Kultur Talks in Berlin, a discussion titled How do we take the power back? put words to a discomfort widely shared across independent and electronic music scenes. Around the table, Christof Ellinghaus, founder of the City Slang label, along with Sadie Thompson and Andy Zammit, questioned a long-untouchable assumption: the idea that growth is the only possible path for a living culture.
For Christof Ellinghaus, the diagnosis is blunt. “Recorded music is kaput,” he states without hesitation. Recorded music, as it operates today, has reached a breaking point. Not because of a lack of creativity, but because it is locked into an economic system that has stripped control away from those who create. Independent labels, artists, and cultural producers are now caught between monopolies, extractive logics, and a late-stage capitalism that turns art into a mere raw material.
In this context, talking about sustainability can no longer be limited to reducing waste or emissions. The question becomes fully political: who decides, who benefits, who profits. Ellinghaus is clear about it. Taking back control will not only be necessary, but inevitable within the next five to ten years for anyone who wants a healthy musical ecosystem. This means redefining a model that truly serves artists and those who invest in creation, rather than platforms and groups that accumulate colossal profits, sometimes reinvested in industries with no connection to culture at all.
This reflection echoes another debate currently running through the electronic scene: the question of scale. For years, the dominant narrative has pushed toward bigger. More dates, more festivals, more sponsors, more visibility. Grow or disappear. Go global or become invisible. A logic that has come to feel self-evident, even as it gradually drains the party of what once made it alive.
As events grow larger, many observe a loss of density. Less connection. Less care. Less surprise. The party becomes performative. It works, but it no longer breathes or surprises. Where the ultimate experience was promised, what often emerges is a slick, interchangeable product, subject to the same profitability imperatives as the rest of the cultural industry.
In response, another path is emerging. Quieter, far less spectacular, and much less bankable. Shrinking is not a failure, but a choice. A political and cultural choice. One that restores value to mid-sized formats, to clubs where content is not being produced, to parties where the lineup is not a marketing promise but an artistic proposition. Spaces people come to in order to experience something, not to capitalize on it.
This logic also applies to artists. Those who refuse to tailor their sets to algorithms, to standardize their sound to remain visible, or to chase disposable hype. Their paths are often slower and less profitable in the short term, but more resilient over time. They are built on a lasting relationship with an audience, rather than an accumulation of numbers, likes, and followers.
The same applies to media and platforms. Micro-media outlets, independent radios, blogs, and editorial collectives play a central role in this cultural ecology. Their strength does not lie in reach, but in genuine independence. The ability to contextualize, to critique, and above all to refuse. Not to confuse amplification with journalistic work. In a communication-saturated landscape, this kind of density becomes precious.
The most credible so-called “sustainable” festivals are often those that did not wait to be certified before acting. Affordable pricing, real space given to local scenes, harm reduction systems, coherent ecological thinking. Where large formats communicate, smaller ones, by contrast, experiment.
What Christof Ellinghaus’s remarks ultimately underline is that the current crisis is not only environmental or economic. It is a crisis of control and meaning. As long as music is primarily conceived as a market to optimize, the answers will remain cosmetic.
Shrinking, in this context, is not withdrawal. It is refocusing. Restoring value to what still holds. Accepting that cultural transformation has never needed oversized capacities to exist.
Spectacle impresses. What lasts is dense—and that density, more often than not, unfolds in spaces far smaller than we are willing to admit.