Barcode Free Music

Barcode Free Music is an artists' and musicians' collective that advocates on behalf of regional musicians, whose unique voices extend and revision the creative process.

 BFN promotes alternative forms of socially engaged and community-based musical cocreation by introducing collaborative projects to a wider audience.

BFM focuses its energies on music that:

• has a strong sense of social justice;

• fosters intercultural encounter(s);

• encourages different age groups and diverse communities to cocreate;

• expands and redefines the frontiers of convention and experimentalism;

• emerges from and fosters public commons spaces;

• is genre-breaking and resolutely autonomous;

• resists commodification;

• and cultivates improvisation and risk-taking.

BFM works closely with community partners to support outside-the-box approaches to making more music happen and to advocate for musicians who work outside of conventional commercial contexts.

We embrace stories and sounds that challenge, disrupt, and re-invent.

We are a 100% not-for-profit collective whose values align with the text-box quotes we have randomized throughout the site.

All proceeds from sales help sponsor forthcoming projects.

We encourage musicians whose creative processes align with ours to be in touch.

BFM is loosely affiliated with Silence, a Guelph-based independent DIY venue. Silence is dedicated to presenting sounds and musical practices that are challenging, community-engaged, and accessible through concerts, workshops, and a range of activities in which improvisation figures.

Silence serves as an incubator for practitioners and listeners alike.