A calm, measured look at online music sales.

Fuck this shit.

Actually, no, don't fuck this shit. I've been reading some blog posts and forum threads recently about online music sales and one thing most people seem to be agreeing on is that no one (by "no one" I mean "no one that participates in those discussions", including me) seems to be selling any music online. Now, I have actually sold a couple of records and some single songs on these online services but if I looked at it as an investment with monetary return, I would have to find a pimp and turn some tricks pretty quick just to break even. Thank FSM that it's just a hobby for me.

A lot of people say that piracy is to blame. People won't buy music if they can find it for free on torrents, rapidshare etc. Having lived most of my adult life in Cyprus and Greece, I can certainly sympathize. Musicians download illegal mp3s but expect to make money from their own music. Programmers use cracked versions of software but people that use cracked versions of their software are assholes. Vampires drink their own blood. Hell, I'm sure that Bear Grylls would drink his own pee in Cyprus. Oh wait, he does that everywhere anyway.

While I'm pretty certain that piracy can be partially blamed for this situation, I have a suspicion I'd like to share with my fellow readers/musicians: another thing that hurts online sales is the lack of songs. Not tracks but songs. Generally, people like to listen to pleasant songs with verse/chorus arrangements and vocals. Pop stuff, with hooks, beats and, optionally, bimbos shaking their asses on videos. Now, I have nothing against bimbos shaking their asses on video (in fact I encourage it) but since most of us are not members of that exclusive bottom-shaking club we have to at least write some songs if we're expecting people to buy something.

Glitch-hop, noise country and ambient waltz are all fine by me (I love experimenting with new sounds and forms too) but I don't expect anyone to buy my experimental noodlings. If I want the people that actually buy music online (whatever the percentage) to spend their money on my tracks I'll make sure that I'll publish the ones that a majority of the music-buying public would like to listen to. Is it selling out? Not if I enjoy the tracks myself. In fact, if you want to make money from music professionally, you're just unnecessarily holding yourself back if you make only "difficult" music on principle.

Think about it. Rebuttals (I'm sure that there are many and that I'm probably full of shit) welcome. Chocolate cakes and champagne even more so.

Electric Sound Continuum, the debut album update.

As some of you probably know (and billions of unwashed masses probably don't) I have been working on the Electric Sound Continuum debut album for a while. Here's some news:

1. The album won't be called "Satan Sodomizes The Pope With A Stick That's Been Dipped In Vaseline". Yesterday I visited the local church and I came to the horrible conclusion that it's very long (the name, not the stick). Consequently, the album with be called "Electric Sound Continuum".

2. I am probably going to release a single in some months. As Uncut will probably say soon "any song on Electric Sound Continuum's self-titled debut could be a single" so I still don't know which one it's going to be. Whan I say "some months" I mean "yeah right" so don't hold your breath.

That's it for now. Since I'm not convinced that anyone is actually reading this blog, the first three people that send me an e-mail saying "I actually read your blog" will get a free (download) copy of the single and the album when they are released. If no-one responds, I'm going to have no choice but to energise my Tachyonic Destructo-Beam and destroy this shithole (ie. the world).

Ah, to be young and free and have a CD EP on amazon.com

Downloads are OK, but hey! It's on CD! On amazon.com! I'll order a bunch of them and put them in a corner and admire them for 10-12 hours. Daily.

Aerial And Trail EP on CD on amazon.com

It's melodic! It's jazzy! It's ultra-expensive! (unfortunately, TuneCore and amazon.com haven't worked out an EP deal yet, so it's priced as a full album, sorry. Obviously, you'd need to be really slow to buy it at this price, asshole*).

But it's also there, giving me joy and making me feel like a rock star. Yes, a rock star.




*how's that reverse psychology working?

Half-Mute Irene

Some noise from my alternate, much noisier and much atonal-er (er...) project, Tristeza Orange.















Download here: Half-Mute Irene

Half-Mute Irene, Or: Elegies For Automated Sampler And Synthesizer

...in three sections

Fragment 1: Power Lines (0:01-4:38 )
Fragment 2: Radiowaves Of Glory (4:39-6:59)
Fragment 3: Asphodels (7:00-10:07)

Q-Lat 3 and how I should have announced its release earlier.

A while ago, I wrote the music for a freeware game made by Piste Gamez called Q-Lat3. The game was recently released so you can get it here. It's pretty, it's sweet, it's addictive and it contains some rather charming music - not all of it was written by me, though. The title track and another track that plays during the game (the rockier one) were written by Janne Kivilahti, who also designed the game and did the graphics and SFX (and who is a great guy).

GAMEPLAY VIDEO

Here's a review in Italian. I don't know what it says. Possibly that I'm awesome.

Recap: places you can buy/freely download the Aerial And Trail EP

Commercial version:

Napster

eMusic

amazon.com

amazon.co.uk




Free version:

Jamendo

Rapidshare


Aerial And Trail also out on Napster.

Aerial And Trail on Napster.

About fracking time too.

I think it has been released on all online stores now. Launch party at cosmopolitan Larnaca at somebody else's place (probably the Tefkromat) soon.

Purchase Aerial And Trail EP on iTunes - go on, be an Apple zombie. I guess it will "just work".

Electric Sound Continuum has teamed up with a fantastic producer to bring you the best album of 2010.

Possibly the best album of 2010. As voted by me and my mother.

Some information on the producer of the forthcoming LP: He is Garret Gengler of Champaign, Illinois and he writes the most gentle and beautiful songs for his own project Tomorrow Is Already Here (the title of a Stereolab song - coincidentally, Electric Sound Continuum owes part of its name to the song "Italian Shoes Continuum" by Stereolab). We love a lot of the same things in music, so it's a match made in major 7th heaven.

Garret recently worked on Steven Wesley Guiles's album "We Will All Be Lifted"

Updates on the progress will be posted ir-regularly.

I have not decided what the album is going to be called yet, you're welcome to offer your suggestions. Please do not include the following words in your title suggestions: "ketchup", "Apple Macintosh", "sphere" and "sausage". All other words accepted.

UPDATE - Working title for the album: "Tales Of Crumbling Love"

Aerial And Trail is now on eMusic too.

Aerial And Trail EP on eMusic

I also wanted to mention that Aerial And Trail is on eMusic.

Still to go: iTunes, Napster, Amie Street, lala, Rhapsody, Shockhound and Limewire. If you find it on any of these services let me know so I can update the list. I'll send you a high-quality (.wav) version of the album if you do. I'm nice like that.

Aerial And Trail released on amazon.com a couple of hours ago. Still no cocaine and hookers for me.

Picture 1: Example of a hooker.

Picture 2: Hookers are social creatures

WTF!

Still, on the plus side, I'm going to be staying in a hotel room in Protaras for the weekend and I intend to trash it.

"Aerial And Trail" is now available on amazon.com

Holy shit!

Aerial And Trail on amazon.com

Aerial And Trail on amazon.co.uk

That's right, people. For just $3.56US/£2.76UK you can download the EP encoded at 256kbps (you also have the option of buying single tracks at $0.89/£0.69 each). If this kind of quality seems like a blow to your audiophile sensibilities, just e-mail me and I'll send you a link to the wave files.

Actually, if you buy the thing in its digital form, e-mail me anyway. Not only will you get an e-mail of appreciation from me, the artist, but if I have any physical CDs left (I plan on ordering some from amazon.com On Demand ) I'll ship one to you. I rule.

*STOP PRESS*


Aerial And Trail just got its first review at Jamendo and it calls my music intelligent and stylish. In your face, Scott Walker!

I loved the different sounds and feelings to this amazing,class done album, filled with charismatic, very interesting, intelligent,stylish, pop, acoustic, psychedelic, electronic, jazzy music. Filled with great vocals that really bring this music to life. And also love the sound effects as well.

Rated 4.5/5 stars

-musictomyears

Holy Vocal Compressor, Batman!

Not specifically related to my music but anyway: this is a vocal compressor called Provoker and it's made by vescofx. The technical description is this: you're trying to record vocals in the most idiotic way you can think of (and, believe me, I have the market cornered in the sheer number of idiotic ways I have tried to record vocals with) and this effect processor looks at you defiantly and tells you in hushed tones "Go ahead, punk, make my day".
Fitting vocals in mixes just got a thousand times easier with this thing. The instructions are simple: push the big knob to make the vocals more present in the mix. According to the programmer, this effect compresses and adds some harmonic excitation/subtle distortion to the signal. Poppycock! (I had written "bullcrap" but I subsequently edited this post to change the word to "poppycock", such is my love for this exclamation). What I imagine happens when using it is Tinkerbell waving her wand over the selected track. I even think I saw her the other day, flying around in FL Studio. Or maybe it was that slutty FL Chan bitch.

Anyway, I love it and it just became indispensible to me. I'm surprised that the people at the KvR Audio forum still haven't made a 15-page praise post about this marvel.

So here are the tracks for "Aerial And Trail" - 4 tracks of jazzy, summery music, describing a summer day from morning until midnight. You can download the tracks individually here:






Track 1: Middle Of The Street

(vocals by Remco H.)

Track 2: Mark And April

(vocals by me, hidden so deep you're going to have to use CSI-level pseudo-equipment to detect them)

Track 3: Summerside

(vocals by Lisa Taylor)

Track 4: Moon O'Clock

(vocals by Dave O'Mahoney)


You can also get the whole thing at once at Rapidshare: Download
The EP has also been published on Jamendo.


If you are totally bonkers and you want to buy it (for real money) in the current economic climate, I'll post links to the online shops when it's available.

Special thanks to Francisco Blanco and Natasa Kleanthous for taking the picture and designing the cover respectively.

Also, nepotism.

Welcome to E.S.Blogntinuum!

This is a blog about my musical project "Electric Sound Continuum" so I thought that it'd be doubly fun to name it "Electric Sound Blogntinuum" because:

1. It's a pun (albeit a very bad one), also known as a "play on words" (1)
2. It's going to be fun watching people trying to pronounce it.

I considered writing a blog for quite some time but then decided against it because I am a man of few words. These words are usually a combination of "fuck", "you" and "asshole" so I never thought that you'd be interested in anything I'd have to say.

However, things have changed. Not only have I learned at least three new words recently ("nepotism", "nomenclature" and, perversely, "pencil") but my new EP, which I have been working on for at least one and a half years, is ready for release. It's called "Aerial And Trail" and it's going to be released (for free) on Jamendo.com and as an archive file on Rapidshare and commercially through iTunes, Amazon.com and some other places you won't even know about.

Consider this post a launch party and get ready to download all the songs for free, unless you're one of those people that like paying for stuff they can get for free.


References

(1) Any Terry Pratchett novel.