ATOC is a music platform designed to counter the challenges that musicians face in the 21st century. It is a new type of musical infrastructure—modular and scalable—built as a response to the reshaping of the music world introduced by the tech revolution that began 20 years ago. The main components of this revolution are: music streaming platforms, social media, home recording studios, and most recently, AI. While some elements of the revolution may be beneficial, their combination has led to a music world that is increasingly commodified, predictable, with a highly concentrated market and unfair pay.

ATOC is an institutional and infrastructural answer, with 5 key components:

A new creative ecosystem: ATOC is a Berlin-based creative community with a physical headquarters: Tricone Studios, at Funkhaus. The traditional recording studio, once an icon of the music industry and now jeopardized by solitary home recording setups, is recycled by ATOC as the home of a creative community that fosters curated, face-to-face interactions between groups of artists. The curation criteria encourage new, unexpected musical relationships, push musical and cultural boundaries, and foster experimentation with new technologies. Regular feedback sessions provide an alternative “resonance box” to the validation schemes of the digital world. Our creative programs include Residencies (Collective Soundlab), songwriting camps, live sessions, workshops, meetups, and more.

A networking platform: Artists who belong to the community are offered opportunities to connect with other branches of the music world. Our meetups and networking events at Tricone Studios connect artists with managers, bookers, sound engineers, and other industry professionals.

A social and political space: Through our social impact programs, artists are given the opportunity to use their music as a tool for social change and political participation. Programs like Sound Has Memory allow artists from the community to create music with young people from migrant backgrounds. Our meetups and events also offer information about the digital music world, its inequalities, and its impact on mental health. Our goal is a socially aware and empowered music community.

A sustainable financing scheme: Our financing structure is a hybrid of private and public funds. Paid recording studio sessions, workshops, and sales from our gear store in Block A guarantee the continuity of the project, while public funds enable longer-term projects such as residencies and social impact programs. ATOC does not collect royalties from artists, in order to protect their intellectual property and distance our structure from the record label logic.

ATOC is not an anti-technology project; it is about using our experience as music creatives to articulate existing technology and music industry structures in a way that fosters a sustainable music world.

ATOC is a modular project that can be replicated in other communities across Europe and beyond, transforming existing structures to serve sustainable music communities.