Fan wins competition to design a music video for mysterious artist…

Nobody knows the identity of the enigmatic egomunk – which is intrinsic to his achievement in becoming one of the most successful unsigned artists with more than 80,000 downloads in six months of his debut album, Footsteps To Mars.

The very anonymity of the artist does make writing about him kind of impossible. We don’t even know how many others are in his band.

What we do know is that the recently released cinematic album, Footsteps to Mars, has started an avalanche of free downloads from the egomunk.com site.

Fans flock to the site captivated by the haunting wonky folk tracks which are achieving cult status through their ability to take listeners on a shared and yet individual journey. egomunk has created a completely unique sound through the desire of the album to be listened to as a whole. Each track is layered with beautiful soundscapes, twists and turns and poignant melodies and lyrics.

Creating a whole new interaction between artist and fan, egomunk has released a music video for his track “The Patient”. It was created by fan Julia Stringer who won the first ever egomunk hosted competition to design the best video for the track.

Her abstract, beautiful video is a perfect fit for the layered atmosphere of the song, which seems to have been beamed in from another planet.

Along with scores of other fans Julia submitted her video idea to egomunk through Ego View. This is the egomunk forum which encourages artistic creativity among fans by encouraging them to enter a competition to make a video for any egomunk track.

The video is then uploaded to the site and put through a voting system and ultimately judged by egomunk himself. The winning entry nets £500 as well as the opportunity of seeing their idea used for the official music video.

Like everything else egomunk does, Ego View allows him to bypass the restrictions that are usually enforced by working with record labels. egomunk isn’t interested in dealing with barriers that get in the way of creativity.

One of the few things we do know about the mysterious egomunk is that the artists he collaborates with on his album are “united by their aim to remain anonymous and let their music speak for itself”.

And speak it certainly does. When’s the last time you could share free music with your mates that was this good without feeling slightly guilty for breaking the law?

One day, egomunk might decide to step out from the shadows. If he does, let’s just hope he keeps the free music coming.

To be a part of the new Ego View competition you must submit your creative piece (this can be a short animation, lyric video, creative story, music video – there are no limits) by the end of February when voting opens on the egomunk website.

Join egomunk on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and find him on Bandcamp and Spotify using egomunk.