Belave NFT

Does the Bird Fly Over Your Head? cover art, Devon Welsh

Music

Montreal’s Belave becomes the first band to release an album as an NFT

by Lorraine Carpenter

Devon Welsh’s band scooped the cryptocurrency distinction from Kings of Leon 36 hours before their release.

In the same week that Grimes made $5.8-million in only 20 minutes by auctioning 10 pieces of digital art via NFT (non-fungible token), Montreal band Belave has become the first band to put out an album using this form of cryptocurrency.

Though it was reported on Wednesday that Kings of Leon would pioneer this music release format with their new album on Friday, Belave beat the Nashville rock band to the punch by about 36 hours with their third album Does the bird fly over your head? The auction is happening here.

Belave frontman Devon Welsh is a former collaborator of Grimes, best known for his project Majical Cloudz (which also featured Belave’s Matthew E. Duffy). Welsh made the announcement about Belave going NFT on Wednesday, openly trolling Kings of Leon, who have yet to respond publicly.

Belave beats Kings of Leon to the NFT album release model

As explained by Vanity Fair, here’s how releasing a work of art or music via NFT works: “Each of the works of art comes with a digital asset called an NFT, a form of cryptocurrency that is unique and irreplicable, guaranteeing the authenticity and singularity of the art it’s meant to serve as a token for.” The works are then auctioned online.

As for “fungible,” Bitcoin is fungible, or equal in value, whereas these tokens are one-of-a-kind. For more about how NFTs work and why they’re so hot right now, please read this article from The Verge.

For more music coverage, please visit the Music section.

Posted in Music

by Lorraine Carpenter

Editor in chief
Lorraine Carpenter was born in Montreal and studied communications and journalism at Concordia. She co-founded Cult MTL in 2012 following 12 years at the now-defunct Montreal alt weekly the Mirror, where she worked in editorial as copy editor and music editor. She’s dedicated to supporting the cultural scene in Montreal.