Sylvan Sound was set up by Martin Voll in 2018. Martin is one of the artists featured on this website, click here to see his artist profile.
Sylvan Sound is based in a small indigenous village in the Sierra Sur mountains in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico. The founding purpose is to showcase and support a musical family of artists with similar life-intentions, which often includes living the radically sustainable life that planet earth demands of us all.
As our societies are drowned in music whose sole purpose is commercial, music itself is losing its value. At Sylvan Sound we create value through the context of a bigger picture, linking the lives of artists with their art and in turn with humanity and Mother Earth. We are a musical platform for ecological, social and political activism and we see culture as a frontline in the great ecosocial upheaval that one day will either happen by design or disaster. We are closely linked to the global surge in sustainable, alternative ecovillages.
Some of our artists are carriers of culture; new shoots of hope on a dying tree with ancient roots, bringing new light and personal experience to rare indigenous, traditional, medicinal and ceremonial magical earth music from around the world. Primordial or modern, traditional or personal – it isn’t Sylvan Sound if it isn’t raw and real, honest and intimate.
The record label’s headquarters is the Sylvan Sound Temple, a recording studio, sound immersion experience and a local musicians’ collective in Mexico. Sylvan Sound artists can be from anywhere in the world but some are recorded and produced here at the Sylvan Sound Temple.
We want our listeners to have an authentic shared experience with each artist, which is reflected in our production values. While we of course seek the best possible sound quality, we prefer a production style that aims for reality rather than perfection. Each production is unique but on the whole we see the digital sheen of over-processing and auto-tuning as alienating. One of the many consequences of this way of thinking is that our final mastered music might be lower in overall volume compared to more mainstream productions. Your listening device has a volume button, use it!
We are open for new interpretations of what music actually is and what it does, how it is created and how it is experienced.
For now we exclusively sell whole albums as very high quality mp3s (320 kbps) but we are open for feedback on this point. Each album comes with a different copyright, some with all rights reserved while others might be copied and spread legally. Each album gifts at least one free single which can legally be spread with the wind.
To contact Sylvan Sound for any reason whatsoever, please use the following form: