07 MAY 2020 Hi! My name is Francisco Gonçalves Silva. I’m originally from Lisbon, Portugal but I have been living in Berlin since the end of 2015. Along with a friend or two, I run Berlin in Stereo, a free distribution music magazine. This project has been in development for over a year, only coming to fruition in November 2019.

As Deputy Editor, I’m really passionate about emergent music, therefore my writing is aimed at new talent and artist development. Our goal, along with the sister magazines in London and Bristol, is to support the local music scene, providing our audience with curated content and suggestions on what’s happening locally and internationally, with a special focus on emerging Berlin-based artists. In my spare time, if there’s any left, I make music with a friend under the name Szalazar. We’ve played a couple of shows around Berlin and released an EP last year. We’re currently working on new music.

We were directly affected by the pandemic, as COVID-19 struck the music industry in an unprecedented way. It was a domino effect: with no events, bands won’t perform, which means promoters won’t advertise and our main source of income ceases to exist. Then with shops, bars and cafés closing, we can’t distribute and our hard work comes to a complete stop. Currently, we’re at around half capacity when it comes to online content production, but we’re keeping this ship sailing until further notice with weekly updates, supporting artist releases, doing playlists and showing why we appreciate musicians and their work so much.

I’m a very reflective and organised person by nature, so being forced to spend some time indoors led me to look inwards, as well. Needless to say it brought some woes, ups and downs. Productive, yes, but it also created some moments of tension. My golden rule was to keep a Monday to Friday schedule, with working hours and specific tasks for each day. It’s always hard to suggest something for someone, since each individual is built differently but… I’d encourage each person to find the rhythm that fulfils them best. However, I’ve come to accept that doing nothing was also okay.

I’ve tried to downgrade and mainly stick to essentials. But not in a Marie Kondo type of way… just survival mode. I came to appreciate the little things in life and also to appreciate taking the time off to do nothing. I’ve looked through all of my pending projects and managed to finish a handful of them, and keep a closer eye on details and ways to improve others. I was surprised that actually getting your hands into something takes less time than thinking about it. Weirdly, I felt less creative and more inclined to do life maintenance and reading than, for example, making music or doing any kind of creative writing.

Being able to experience music in a live setting again, being able to hug my friends without feeling reluctant and to be able to travel – most importantly visiting my family back in Lisbon. Quarantine has made me terribly homesick.

With no events, postponed tours and little to no movement of people, it doesn’t make sense for us to keep printing until restrictions are lifted. In the short-term, we want to support the staff and freelancers that contribute so much to both what we do and to other of our favourite music magazines. As such, we've partnered with designer Babak Ganjei and created a print and a set of postcards. We'll also be donating 10% of the proceeds to charity. You can order it here.

Of course, don’t forget to visit berlininstereo, we have playlists, interviews and features coming out weekly, so if you’re starving for new music, we’re here to help!