Nyctanthous

Happy Day of the Dead, all! A word on cultural appropriation: while I understand the intent of the charged political correctness movement and the "Dear white people..." memes abounding on social media, my personal view is that if you find something of value in the traditions of other cultures, embracing it and incorporating it into your personal beliefs or traditions is by no means a bad thing and can serve to bring down barriers between clashing cultures...barriers that, for all the well-meaning and importance of the sensitivity-promoting PC movement, are somewhat enforced by the insistence that "cultural appropriation" have negative connotations.

That being said, as a person who has dead to celebrate, pay respect to, and mourn, Day of the Dead has great meaning for me, and I am most familiar with its practice as Dia de los Muertos. However, cultures around the world seem to mark this time of year - the 31st of October through November 2nd - as a time when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest. Many people of many traditions celebrate this in their own ways, and cultural boundaries are often blurred. I recently saw a Facebook post shared by a close friend of a person of Mexican heritage chastising white people for wearing calaveras makeup. All I have to say to that is: why can't we just appreciate people embracing and celebrating other cultures instead of pointing to lines that we insist not be crossed?

Okay, so that's my little diatribe, as sometimes the PC movement rubs me the wrong way and this struck a cord in particular as I have observed Day of the Dead - understanding it mostly as a Mexican holiday - since I lost two family members to an act of violence. Being accused of insensitivity (not that I don calaveras makeup and break out the sugar skulls) for remembering them on this day struck me as a tad...insensitive. Okay, it pissed me off. But I want to move past that now. I just want to wish everyone a happy Day of the Dead and for my friends, family, and audience to draw what they need from this time of year in whatever practices they engage in.

For me, the entire month of November is a powerful month of remembering my dead. It begins with this day and draws to a close on the 30th, which is the anniversary of this violent occurrence that I mentioned. I try not to remember just this horrific act and the two people whose lives were taken, but to remember all of my dead, and not just in mourning. When the veil is at its thinnest, I want to believe that the souls of all who have had a positive impact on my life and have passed on are especially close to me, and I want to keep them close throughout a month that in the past has been challenging for me. All these years later (this will actually mark the twenty-year anniversary), with this mindset, November has transformed from a time when I was prone to emotional breakdowns to a time when I feel a certain melancholy grace. It is a month when I am both buoyed and burdened by my dead, which somehow feels proper. Well, if not proper, at least...balanced.

It was important to me, in this first year of my career composing as The Lady anoNYMous, that I put out a release at this time. A Halloween release seemed most proper to aim for, as it feels more celebratory - a time to make light of and dance with our demons. If I had fallen behind schedule, as I tend to do, a release on November 1st or 2nd would have also been appropriate, but the closer to Dia de los Muertos, the more personal and melancholy the release would have been for me. Now, I like to be in a celebratory mood when putting out a record, so I was very happy to have something to release on Halloween itself. 

One of the songs being written for this record wasn't finished in time because of some obnoxiousness occurring in my personal life, but I didn't let that stop me from releasing Nyctanthous with a back-up plan in place. I am sorry that I wasn't able to include this song on this record, especially for the paying supporters of this release; however, when the song is finished, it will be released exclusively to Patrons and Leaguers as a sort of belated B-side for Nyctanthous. I hope that my supporters can always say that I do my damnedest to make their support worth their while. They have had access to most of the songs on this record for weeks now, included on varying exclusives depending on their level of contribution. Which brings me to the track list, which of course is the meat of this new record:

If you've been following along, you're most likely familiar with the songs "Jaded," "Simplify," and "The Tranquil Isles" by now. If not, simply visit the previous post and listen to the private playlist "Let Me Play You A Story..." which has been reduced to those three songs since I was forced to remove two others (originally from A New Era) due to space issues on SoundCloud. These songs were written with this release in mind and were intended from the get-go to be made publicly and freely available on Nyctanthous. In fact, the original goal was always to have five original songs for this release, including them, with A New Era and its derivations being a means to release some of them early as a reward to supporters. So in this, at least, I was successful.

One of the earlier songs being written for this record - tentatively titled "The Between" - is still being written. I was all for pushing myself to devote an entire day and night to finishing the writing and recording of this song in time for Halloween, and then my family unexpectedly turned time I thought I was going to have to myself and my music into a cluster-fuck. Therefore, this song (which is coming along beautifully, but still needs to be wrapped up and polished, with an intensive session of vocal recording still needed) will have to be on the next release, which is going to be the Snail Tunes compilation of Phase Three. Yes, it's already that time. I actually have the sixteen-track standard - set by Instrumentality - already filled, but I need to do some serious catching up before I have enough material for the next commercial album. Therefore, I'm taking the time to write and record more material to choose from before releasing the Phase Three compilation, which is titled Wisps of Reason (sound familiar?) for the time being.

And yes, you read that correctly - "The Between" is going to be one of those rare songs to have vocals, which I'm aiming to include more of in my music. No, I'm not trying to move in the direction of being a solo pop/rock artist. I am very much (and somewhat unexpectedly) settled in my role as an "avant-garde composer," which is strange considering my history in music is mostly as a vocalist and front...person. I had very much intended to be in the spotlight, and now that health issues have forced me into the position of a non-performing composer, I've found that I rather like being behind a veil. But I do want my music to, at times, have spaces for lyrics and vocals, and it's something I'm aiming for practice at. And I'm aiming to have more of an equal balance of instrumentals and con palabras in the final product of Nothing Left To Lose.

I am, for everyone's information, still aiming to record a "real" album (meaning physical copies and professionally produced and all that) titled Nothing Left To Lose. For more information about that, and how you can help, check out the pinned post of my Facebook profile and the "about" article of my Patreon profile.

Getting back to this record... As I was working on "The Between" and "Electrothing" (which became "Nyctality"), I returned in my thoughts to the intention I had when writing "Jaded," which was to write theme music for Jade, the protagonist of my Jaded series of urban fantasy stories (check out "A Jaded Beltaine" in the Snail Tales section, if you haven't already). The song "Jaded" was a complete failure in that regard, but I found myself unwilling to retitle it. However, I really wanted to try again, and the closest thing I could think of to what I was aiming for was a piece of music called "Sydney's Theme," composed by John Frizzell for the short-lived 1995 psychological cyberpunk series VR.5,  which remains my all-time favorite television show to this day. Therefore, I meditated on "Sydney's Theme" while recording a cover of it to see if this might inspire me.

It occurred to me while recording this that I already have a piece of music that fits all the qualities of "Sydney's Theme" that I was hoping to have in "Jade's Theme"; a piece of music that is simple, versatile, and slightly melancholy. Also, it would sound fantastic translated onto the "sliding tones" synth that I had manipulated to sound somewhat like a voice (originally in "Lily White") and was somewhat addicted to.

I was thinking of the melody found in "Introducing..." which I had retired...as "Introducing..." I no longer wanted to use that tune to "introduce" the set list for each record, and I didn't want to retitle it some variation on the word "introduce" every time I used it, but what if that tune had been introducing Jade all along? She is my fictional alter ego after all, and once upon a time I had used that piece of music to introduce the characters of the Snail and the Widow, which are aspects of myself, and therefore aspects of Jade... Okay, so I can think of a million ways to rationalize it and say, "This is how it was meant to be all along! I used hadn't realized it yet..." but let's just cut the bullshit and plainly say, the melody from "Introducing..." has been stolen and renamed "Jade's Theme"...and has ironically been used to begin the track list of Nyctanthous.

"Jade's Theme" began to dominate my attention more as I admittedly shied away from recording a "real" vocal session (I already have temporary vocals recorded as placeholders while I'm recording the rest of the instrumentation) for "The Between," and I also became enthralled with this "Electrothing" experiment I had going. Initially inspired by a riff in "Unstoppable" by Max Lilja in which he mimics an electric bass with his cello, I set to exploring some of the electric bass synths that I have shunned until now. Also, I think I may have let the hashtag "darkwave" attached to my music by Darkwave Radio go to my head a bit, or else I'm embracing what's already there and running with it. In any case, an electro-style bass riff quickly evolved into my attempt at fusing electro with piano rock in a very manic manner, turning what I had previously touched upon in the Feral Bitch Mix of "The Manic Widow" up to eleven and thoroughly abusing my fingers (health update: I'm in to see a rheumatologist about the possibility of psoriatic arthritis...fucking arthritis at age thirty-three...in December) in the process. As I was exploring new words for the title of the EP, "Electrothing" was renamed the made-up word "Nyctality" (the state of darkness?) pretty much at the last minute.

Now, I had already stated in some article or post or other that I was leaning toward including the Alternate Spin of "The Replicant" from the Occultation sessions on this record. I have really fallen in love with this version of "Dusk Devils." It may be that I am getting over the rest of the world's love affair with "The Nocturnal Dervish" or that I'm letting being labeled as "darkwave" go to my head. It may be that I'm finally embracing the reality that I am an electronic composer, as this record as a whole would seem to indicate, despite the inclusion of acoustic guitar on "Simplify" and "The Tranquil Isles" or my piano's pervasive insistence - even on "Nyctality" - that I am a pianist first, dammit! Whatever, the edits that I made to the electronic alternate version of one of my earliest piano goth-rock tunes for Occultation have made all the difference in the world, and I am very happy to finally make it freely available to the public on Nyctanthous.

So with "Jade's Theme" unexpectedly raising the number of original tunes for this record to an impressive six (if you ignore that three of them are actually original to A New Era, which I tend not to include as a Snail Tunes release since it will never be released to the public), I thought I had this track list all figured out. And then I was unable to finish "The Between." A back-up plan snapped into my mind pretty much the moment I learned I was about to unexpectedly have a full house during time I had planned to devote to writing and recording. And that plan was, well, I have other songs yet to be made freely available to the public in the form of Occultation edits. It was just a matter of picking a song from The Occultation Sessions, and the logical choices were either "They Delving 2.22" or "A Not-So-Minor Distraction," as they match the more gothic/electronic vibe of the rest of the record. While "They Delving" is by far the more popular song, I think the many minor edits made to "A Not-So-Minor Distraction" really polished it up and made it shine, and it's a song that doesn't get nearly enough attention, in my opinion. And when listening to the rest of the record as a whole, going slightly more "electronic pop" than "epic piano rock" seemed a better fit.

Ordering the track list was pretty much a non-issue. The songs fell together in a natural order except for the two inclusions from Occultation, and they only needed to switch places. As far as the artwork...I admit, it's nothing extraordinary. When I decided to name the record "flowering at night," I simply looked up stock images of flowers of a nyctanthous nature, of which nyctanthes arbor-tristis (night-flowering jasmine) popped up quite a bit, and I manipulated and decorated a few of the images in advance of having the rest of the album set. So when the track list was finalized, it was just a matter of superimposing it over an image; same with the artwork for the credits page. And the cover was done the same day I decided on the name of the record. Of course, with EPs I tend to not put as much labor into the artwork as I do with albums, but this was borderline lazy...but I do not apologize! It still looks nice, and I think part of the reason it felt lazy is that I'm just getting smoother at assembling these things.

And that, folken, is the making of Nyctanthous. As I mentioned earlier, the next record is going to be the Phase Three compilation, which I realistically could put out tomorrow, thanks to all the original songs I composed for Occultation. However, that's going to wait until later this month, possibly even coinciding with the holiday, and by year's end I'm feeling confident that I'll have a third commercial record released...

In the meantime, let all our inner snails remain resilient and determined.

Expressions of Gratitude - and - Pick Out Your Cloud

Well, I unintentionally turned the Patreon release of A New Era into a sort of week-long online party, parceling out the new songs on this blog and through social media via SoundCloud while offering various avenues to download them. The enthusiasm with which they've been received has been very refreshing, with "Simplify" quickly becoming one of my top tracks on SoundCloud and the A ManicFeralJadedBitch mini-EP becoming one of my most pirated releases ever. A nocturnal mishap led to the publication of the wrong version of "The Nocturnal Dervish" on A New Era, and the correction has been my most pirated track ever! I'm not quite sure how non-patrons have been gaining access to patron-only posts on Patreon, but I am thrilled by the enthusiasm. This has coincided with "The Nocturnal Dervish" going into rotation on Darkwave Radio among songs by such hugely admired (by myself included) artists such as The Cure, Rammstein, and Dead Can Dance, and I'd like to think that there's a direct connection. "The Last Waltz" is now playing on Darkwave Radio as well, and I plan to keep on trickling my tunes to that station as I figure out how to collect royalties from sources other than DistroKid. In related news, the entirety of Occultation is now available on 8tracks.com and users can access it from the 8tracks library to add songs from the album to their playlists!

Add to all of this that the article for A New Era on this blog has, within a week, become the second most-read article. as well as the article with the most +1's. This amount of support has been stunning and has me filled with warm, fuzzy feelings!

Yes, it has been an exciting and eventful week. But I have to get a little more serious and a little less lighthearted on y'all, for as I've uploaded the new tracks from A New Era to promote it - and to make them freely available for everyone - I've reached the point on SoundCloud where I only have eight minutes worth of uploads left on my Pro account. This means I can only upload one more song, and I'm about to share "Jaded" with all of you, being the only song from the album that I have yet to share with those who haven't downloaded it or the Abbreviated version from the League. This also means that I've made just shy of six hours of material free for everyone to hear. I've put six hours of music out into the world.

Okay, now I've put five hours and fifty-eight minutes of music out into the world, with this one temporarily a private share for my dear readers. Except I deleted "The Trip Begins" because that track was just fucking atrocious and I'm ignoring that I ever published it to begin with. So that frees up a little time. Anyway...

That's what it comes down to. Deleting tracks to make room for more. No more complete back-catalog available on SoundCloud for free streaming. I'm okay with this. It's been five months since I initiated Operation Cloud Rescue to successfully upgrade to my Pro account, which I am extremely grateful for, and which has been very useful for promoting and sharing my music. SoundCloud has been a wonderful tool for me as a musician, though I'm not sure how important it is to my audience. And SoundCloud wants $103 a year (that's discounted from $135), or $15 a month, to upgrade to an Unlimited account. I'm fine deleting some songs and removing playlists to begin putting only what I am actively promoting into rotation. I can think of things I'd rather put $103 toward. However, I'm going to leave it up to y'all to decide whether or not you'd like to keep the entire back-catalog on SoundCloud. It's up to you if you want to keep the playlists of all of my prior releases intact.

That is why I've included the new "Support SnailCloud Unlimited" button in the right-hand sidebar. I'm leaving the choice up to you, my dear readers and listeners; my audience and supporters. All donations made through that avenue will be earmarked for a SoundCloud Unlimited account and will be used for keeping all of my past, present, and future releases publicly and freely available on SoundCloud, regardless of whether it's enough for $15 a month or ends up being enough for the year-long membership. It will be used as needed. If there's isn't enough for even a month, well, songs and playlists will start to vanish and be put into rotation as fits my promotional needs.

There is a little time until songs will have to be removed for such promotional needs. I'm in the process of writing and recording two new songs for a new Patron-supported EP with a Halloween-targeted release date. Those songs will become available on SoundCloud as I'm promoting that EP, which will also include "Simplify," "Jaded," and "The Tranquil Isles," finally made available for free download to the public. In the meantime, as an extra bonus for my readers:

I'd also like to draw your attention to the fact that there is now a tab for The Commercial Albums underneath the blog's header. This links to a new resource: a page with graphic links to all the major avenues for downloading and/or streaming Occultation and Instrumentality. Remember that when you download these albums (preferably as a patron on Patreon) or when you stream them and pay subscription fees (to services such as Spotify, Apple Music, or MS Groove) or put up with pesky advertisements, you are actively supporting a poor cyber-busker who makes their music freely available for everyone!

Thanks again for all your support, and may your inner snails remain resilient and determined.

A New Era - UPDATED 10/16

Okay, A New Era has been online for a full day...and what a grand, lazy day it has been! But in my uncharacteristically sparse bits of promoting this release, I've been promising a blog article with details and updates, and that promise has been haunting me as I've been enjoying watching supernatural trash TV and eating vegetarian junk food. Now I've come to the point where I have Dracula Untold, chick'n nuggets, and jalapeño poppers beckoning to me, but I won't let myself enjoy them until I've finally written this damn article. Why is it so hard to get myself to write these sometimes? I do enjoy talking about myself, honestly. Just ask my therapist (ba dum bum!).

Right, so about this record. Man, I gotta say I'm enjoying the shit out of it. It's really an excellent playlist. I would say the best I've put together of my music since the previous Era. As you might imagine, though, it was a very difficult undertaking, selecting what to include and what to leave out from the extensive selection of my entire discography. You may take a look at it and think, "How can you possibly have a career-spanning compilation that doesn't include 'Introducing...' or 'No Introduction Needed?'" or "Only one version of 'Giger's Lullaby?'" or "How could you leave out the Alternate Spin of 'Winter's Salve?!'" and you'd be echoing my own thoughts. Originally, I was going to try to limit this track listing to eighteen songs to match the previous record. However, I threw that notion out the window rather quickly and let it come a bit more organically, while also trying to focus on what felt completely essential, was most recently relevant, and what hadn't been done to death just yet. Here's what I came up with:

01. The Last Waltz

02. Jaded

03. An Arcane Son

04. I, Supplicant

05. I Will Dim My Light Only Enough To Not Blind You

06. The Manic Widow (Feral Bitch Mix)

07. Slowly Scooting Closer

08. Lily White (feat. Alejandro Saldarriaga Calle)

09. Wrong Pocket Kinda Say

10. The Nocturnal Dervish

11. A Most Resilient Snail

12. The Ground Up

13. Trip-Hop Thing

14. A Not-So-Minor Distraction

15. Simplify

16. The Cloud Walkers

17. The Replicant (Alternate Spin)

18. Winter's Remix 2.0

19. Vainglorious Wrath

20. They Delving 2.22

21. The Tranquil Isles

Yep, twenty-one songs for a total of two hours and twelve minutes, but man, it flows beautifully (thanks in part to countless listens, rearrangements, and editing of the space between tracks) so it doesn't feel that long at all, and I also don't feel the absence of the not-included songs. There's been no second thoughts since the finalization of the track list. Because various factors delayed publication, I never just threw my hands in the air and said, "Fuck it, it's just going to be this way." Usually, setting the track list is the final step, but this time it was actually putting the final touches on two of the songs.

The delay was mostly caused by the Feral Bitch Mix of "The Manic Widow." It was quite a struggle to pull off. Mostly, it just didn't want to happen. I came very close to throwing my up my hands in the air with the attempt and just including the original version of the song, which is what had been on the track list as I had been assembling it as a place holder. I knew from the very beginning that a remix of "Widow" was something I was going to attempt for this release, and I kept coming back to attempts at it from different angles during the entire time I was writing for and assembling this project. However, it just wasn't happening. I knew I could force it out of me by just replacing the drum beats or something weak like that, but I felt that I'd rather not include a remix if it wouldn't come to me organically.

In the end, it was actually a happy accident that spawned "Feral Bitch." I was working on "The Tranquil Isle" (being a rewrite and re-recording of "Mattresside," the hidden bonus track from Selenophilia) and made a minor adjustment to a synth that produced a whole new sound. It was that single sound, like the thrumming of a helicopter, that I wanted to try out in my remix attempt that got my inspiration flowing and put me in the Feral Bitch groove. After that, it was a matter of putting together an additional drum track (like with some of my other songs, I feel that the original drum track is essential to the overall instrumentation that defines the song, so I put together an additional drum track that complements the original) and selecting other synths. There was some trial and error, and I did include some elements that I liked from previous failed attempts, and it all came together rather quickly in the end, in a remix that I'm proud of.

The other song that had been waiting for finishing touches was "The Ground Up," a slightly more metal version of "The Ground Down" (read: more electric guitar). I knew what needed to be done; I was just putting it off until I knew I was on the verge of publishing. There always seems to be some element that I intentionally leave out until I'm on the home stretch. Just a personal quirk, I guess.

Of course, if you're familiar with my discography, you can also see that there's two songs original to this collection included on the track list. Those would be "Jaded" and "Simplify." Both are beautiful songs that I'm very proud of, partly spawned by my further exploration of what I can do with the synths I have on hand and an attempt to use them in my rhythm section in a more Nine Inch Nails style - not entirely successfully. But the songs are beautiful works nonetheless. "Jaded" is a minor-key industrial piano tune in the vein of "The Cloud Walkers" and "Wrong Pocket Kinda Day," a song that would have fit in on Occultation and Selenophilia, while "Simplify" derives its title from an exercise in, well, simplifying my writing. I made a conscious effort to exercise restraint from overcomplicated riffs or complex arrangements and took some of my inspiration from "Numb" by Portishead. It was a very fun and smooth writing and recording experience that I think turned out quite well. I've been using "Simplify" as a sort of promotional single for this release through SoundCloud, so here's an embed:

I guess that about covers what I wanted to say about the track listing, so about the art: All of the artwork is by an artist in Germany named Jeremiah Morelli who I was turned onto by Charlie Hoover, whom I follow on Google Plus and posts a "Geekscape" every day by different artists. This led me to Jeremiah's DeviantArt page where I fell in love with his work and knew instantly that I would like to use it on a release. He very kindly and humbly gave his permission to do with his art what I would, as long as it wasn't for commercial purposes and as long as I didn't alter it in any way, beyond text. You can see more of it in the PDF booklet and JPEGs included in the download with A New Era. The pieces that I have chosen are slightly grim and have a lot to do with mortality and rebirth, beginnings and ends, while the bulk of his work is more fantastical and whimsical in nature. More of that side of his art can be seen on his homepage.

Of course, this release being a patron reward affects all my other Patreon exclusives/rewards as well. I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to, but there's a bit of a personally neurotic need to "balance" things out that is triggered by its inclusion. So here's a rundown of how my other patron rewards have been affected by A New Era being the newest reward for patrons pledging $10 or more in support of my art. First off, the Artist's Edition of Occultation hasn't been affected at all, but sits alongside this release at the top of the "pyramid." However, the Artist's Edition of Instrumentality has been bumped down a tier to be included with the rewards for those pledging $5 or more. It is now included with The Occultation Sessions and the previous Era, which will be permanently retired when "Jaded," "Simplify," and "The Tranquil Isles" are included on the upcoming Patreon-supported non-commercial EP that is tentatively being titled Whisps of Reason. When that EP is released, A New Era will sit on the $5 tier with "Feral Bitch" and "The Ground Up" remaining exclusive to this release for the foreseeable future.

However, "The Ground Up" is available to stream privately from SoundCloud for patrons pledging $1 or more, as is a downloadable single of "Simplify." The sin palabras (minus vocals) version of "Lily White" is also still available to download from this tier, and the Completed Collection of A Waltz For Giger has been bumped down so it can now be downloaded for as little as $1 as well.

Of course, all of this will be shifted around again in a few weeks time, and before long the current changes will be reflected in membership exclusives for The League of Extraordinary Snails. I'm thinking this will be in the form of a League-exclusive mini-EP containing the new material from A New Era. I just have to put it together. There always has to be balance, dammit!

In closing, as a special reward for my readers and a thank you for everyone's patience, I've decided it would be interesting to include a private stream of "The Tranquil Isles" here, which can be compared to "Mattresside" by visiting the embed of that in a previous post or by streaming it from the embed of Selenophilia in the right-hand sidebar. Thank you, dear readers, for your continued interest and support, and may your inner snails remain resilient and determined.

UPDATE 10/14: A seven-track EP including the new material from A New Era is now on offer to members of The League of Extraordinary Snails. Here's the track-listing for An Abbreviated Era:

01. Jaded

02. The Manic Widow (Feral Bitch Mix)

03. Slowly Scooting Closer

04. Simplify

05. The Ground Up

06. The Replicant (Alternate Spin)

07. The Tranquil Isles

The $5 (or more, if you so choose...) subscription - which can be canceled at any time (so there's no obligation and it can also be a one-time thing) - also includes a host of other goodies, including: the first Era, The Occultation Sessions, A Waltz For Giger - The Completed Collection, Nefelibata, Instrumental, Selenophilia, Libration, and the singles "Lily White (Sin Palabras)" and "An Arcane Son / A Most Resilient Snail," all available for streaming on your Bandcamp Feed or the Bandcamp mobile app and all available as high-quality downloads in a format of your choosing.

Also, "The Ground Up" is now available as a solo download for the $1 or more tier of pledges on Patreon.

UPDATE 10/16: Another A New Era-related Patreon reward has been added for patrons pledging $5 or more: A ManicFeralJadedBitch, a three-track mini-EP that includes (in order) "Jaded," "The Manic Widow (Feral Bitch Mix)," and "The Tranquil Isles."

The coming of this mini-EP means that $5 and up patrons can now download all five new songs from A New Era when combining this with the solo downloads of "Simplify" and "The Ground Up" available to those pledging $1 or more. Unfortunately, it also heralds the last chance to grab a download of Era, which will disappear forever tomorrow!

As a very strange dirge, I present to you "The Manic Widow (Feral Bitch Mix)."

Era Updates

Man, sometimes you just gotta say, fuck self-imposed deadlines. Due to distractions from my personal life, A New Era will not be quite ready for release tomorrow. If I worked at a feverish pace, I might be able to get it done tonight, but I'm just not going to do that to myself, both for my own sake and for the sake of putting together a quality product with properly finished songs. However, people can look forward to an outstanding collection of music with all-new songs and remixes coming very soon!

I've also decided to keep the original ERA on as a Patron/Leaguer reward for the time being. After taking more time to think it through, it makes the most sense to first offer A New Era to the $10+ tier of pledgers at Patreon while ERA remains available to the $5+ tier as well as League members. Once the new songs from A New Era are available on an EP to everyone, though, A New Era will be downgraded and that's when ERA will vanish for good. This will likely happen mid-October.

When this happens, the remixes I'm including on A New Era will still be exclusive to this album. I've decided not to include them on the next EP. Only the completely original songs will be making it on there. There's also another song which is up in the air on this decision: a certain bonus track from Selenophilia that's being redeveloped into a new song with a new title.

So, what you can expect from A New Era when it arrives: a selection of tunes spanning all of the work so far with two all-new songs, two remixes, and this redevelopment of said bonus track. Hopefully within the next week.

And then, a new EP released sometime during October!

To get your hands on ERA before time runs out, sign up for a League membership or visit The Lady on Patreon where you can also make a pledge that will earn you song previews and demos as well as a download of A New Era as soon as it arrives! Downloads of A Waltz For Giger - The Complete Collection and The Occultation Sessions are still available through both platforms, and downloads of Artist's Editions of Instrumentality and Occultation are still available to the $10+ tier of pledgers at Patreon.

Libration or The Story of How I Narrowly Avoided Being a Douchebag

There isn't all that much to say about this release, really. Or maybe I'm just telling myself that because it's quarter after four in the morning and I'm refusing to let myself watch any more supernatural trash TV to fall asleep to until I do my fucking job. Oftentimes the biggest challenge of self-employment (and perhaps the number one reason people fail at it) is motivating oneself and being productive, even when you don't feel like it. I'm not going off on this tangent, though. I'm staying focused.

This EP exists mainly for two reasons: the idea presented itself and was completed almost at the same time it finished forming; and it's a vehicle for a very special song that I've been sitting on for too long. When I said I had no idea what was coming next when I released Selenophilia, that was so true it's almost scary. I usually have ideas forming or I'm working on songs at the time. Work has been admittedly slow lately, as I've been distracted by things going on in my personal life, and I also don't have a bunch of material sitting on back burners right now. At this moment, there are two experimental alternate versions of previous songs that I'm playing with, and there's a finished "sketch" of a new song that needs a lot of work before it's complete. These three projects I've been working on for a couple of weeks now. Like I said, it's going slowly. I'm not feverishly churning out new songs every couple of days or pulling all-nighters to complete a remix like I've often done in the past. So I guess it's lucky that I have material to draw on from Occultation still.

The downside is that this has all been heard before, as it's at least available for free streaming, and the Snails able to contribute financially even have access to downloads. The upside is that most of this material hasn't been made publicly and freely available for download, which is what my cyber-busking experiment is all about, and it had to happen sometime. This opportunity presented itself in an idea where the track list pretty much wrote itself, while offering itself a means to share with the world my first completed collaboration with my colleague-become-friend, Alejandro Saldarriaga Calle of The Arcane Insignia. I am, of course, referring to the finished version of "Lily White," featuring this metal singer's melodious vocals. It's been a bit of a trial as we've had to work out the best way for our equipment to be compatible over a long distance while also having our own personal lives and separate projects vying for attention, but it has finally come together and will hopefully lead to smoother sailing in any future collaborations we may undertake. There is a collaborative version of "The Cloud Walkers" we've started on, but it is currently on hold while The Arcane Insignia is back in the studio, which is very exciting news in itself. If you haven't checked out their music yet, I strongly urge you to. It's acoustic metal with neoclassical elements by extremely talented musicians with soaring potential! There are free downloads available on their Facebook page, and they have a pay-what-you-will Bandcamp release as well.

Alejandro actually worked out a way to record and share his vocal ideas with me a while ago, and I've had this song basically completed for some time. Like I said, I've pretty much just been sitting on it, listening to it every now and again and making minor adjustments whenever they occur to me. I really thought I was going to just wait to release this until I had more new material ready for release and that it would most likely make its debut on A New Era as further incentive for potential financial contributors. However, when considering the work that Alejandro put into this and that he volunteered his talent, it seemed quite wrong to (however indirectly) be trying to monetize this collaboration. Of course it would be available freely not much further down the road, but I still would have been using it to try to encourage people to give me money. There's a big difference between tips and offering it to those who pay up-front, and while crowd-funding is a very pleasant way of exploiting one's art, it is still an attempt at capitalizing on it. And I would have been exploiting Alejandro's art. That I hadn't even thought of it this way in the first place is somewhat appalling to me. To be fair to myself, my primary thought was of rewarding devoted supporters by offering this song exclusively to them first. But there was a voice in the back of my mind saying, "And it wouldn't hurt if it motivated more people to make a pledge..."

This is an example of why Catholicism could potentially feel cathartic. I feel the need for confession (writing this all down for the public to read) followed by self-flagellation and asking for forgiveness. Let's see if I can choke down my pride enough for that last one... Aw, fuck it. Alejandro: this is my very public apology. I'm sorry I almost took the path of douchebaggery. Please forgive me. And THANK YOU for contributing your talent to my art! It has greatly enhanced my song and I'm grateful to have you as a friend and collaborator!

Wow. Okay, I really hadn't thought this post would veer in that direction. Getting back on track... And speaking of tracks, let's discuss the rest of the track list now, shall we? The idea for this EP started the last time I featured "I Will Dim My Light Only Enough To Not Blind You" on my Jukebox posts to social media (I make these pretty much daily on Facebook, Google Plus, and Tsu, for those not familiar), when it struck me that I had managed to leave that song off of any kind of non-commercial release for over a month since its debut. That's unheard of for me! I'm usually practically shoving my songs down people's throats, saying, "They're free! Here, take 'em!" Now, I had been aware that "Dimmer" (as I call it, for short) would not be included on Selenophilia to begin with, and it's actually out of pure forgetfulness that the two-track single containing "An Arcane Son" and "A Most Resilient Snail" didn't have it as a third track. As I had already released "A Most Resilient Snail" as a single on its own and then added "Son," it just seemed beyond tacky to go back and add on a third song just because I had forgotten it. So I've been using it as an exclusive reward all this time for patrons and Leaguers. But it was past time that this song be made publicly and freely available.

A theme started to take form when I put "An Arcane Son" on the Jukebox the next day. Since it had only been on a single, it hadn't truly been on a Snail Tunes release yet. And that's when it struck me that neither had the edited, remastered songs from the rewards EP The Occultation Sessions. Now, I know I said I didn't really expect to put those on any future releases because they were "sooo Phase Two," and I hadn't expected to, but at least this way I felt I was offering people something they hadn't had the chance to freely download yet. To fit in with "An Arcane Son" and "Dimmer," I decided to stick with songs that were more straight-up Alternative Rock, which was a refreshing change from the direction I've been taking as "the strange neoclassical pianist that makes trip-hop/industrial/post-metal/ambient shit." So these aren't revolutionary sounds and they aren't breaking down any genre barriers. Whatever, I enjoy them, and I'm glad that (particularly in the case of "Son" and "Dimmer") audiences have unexpectedly become rather taken with them. These are the kinds of songs that I've been the most unsure of about exposing publicly, and as such it's taken time for them to grow on me. But they certainly have. So I'm rather enamored with and proud of the track list that quite naturally evolved and happens to include two songs from the debut EP among songs from Occultation:

So here y'all go. As part of my decision to not profit from Alejandro's contribution, and because there is no other new material, this release is not paid for by patrons of Patreon. I still encourage tips when prompted to "name your price," however, and I encourage y'all to hop on over to The Arcane Insignia's Bandcamp page and do the same, especially if you're as blown away by Alejandro's voice as I was, and continue to be.

One quick announcement: I'm not sure if it will happen before the month is out (it seems likely), but I have found an extremely talented artist who has graciously given his permission to use his work as album art for A New Era, which is of course a huge step toward completing the new compilation. It will likely be my next release, though it will be exclusive to supporters and it will replace Era among the rewards. I'm aiming to release new material on this compilation, but it is quite possible an EP including the same new material (or at least some of it) will be released around the same time. We'll see if I can light a fire under my ass and get my three current projects finished and maybe some others going.

Anyway, thank y'all for your continued support and welcome to any new readers and listeners: may your inner snails be resilient and determined.

Too Clever

Just a few updates for blog readers, and to bring them all into focus in one place for everyone in general. First off, in a ridiculously roundabout way, I've made Occultation available for $5. You may have even been following The Lady's posts on Google+ and Facebook and not even noticed, it's so roundabout. So here is my clever marketing scheme, spelled out: A single from the album including "An Arcane Son" and "A Most Resilient Snail" was made at available the Snail Tunes store (where everything is "name your price, no minimum" - so, free, unless you tip) early on, like a couple days before the album was even released, I think. Then, as a reward to patrons of The Lady on Patreon (for those pledging $1 or more) and an exclusive for members of The League of Extraordinary Snails (subscription is $5 minimum), a single for "I Will Dim My Light Only Enough To Not Blind You" was made available." Almost two weeks ago, "The Last Waltz," "The Cloud Walkers," and "Wrong Pocket Kinda Day" became available on Selenophilia at Snail Tunes. Following that, I released an EP exclusive to patrons pledging $5 or more and to League members called The Occultation Sessions that contains all the tracks from prior Snail Tunes releases that were edited and remastered for their inclusion on Occultation, as well as the new Alternate Spins of "Pentadactyl" and "The Replicant." Add all this to other tracks available on previous releases - "Waltz With Lilith (Claim)" can be found on Nefelibata, and "Slowly Scooting Closer" and "I, Supplicant" can be found on both Nefelibata and Selenophilia - and you have all sixteen tracks on Occultation as they appear on that album. Well, except for "The Cloud Walkers," which was edited and updated for Selenophilia. Complicated enough for ya? Here:

So, to put it simply, between what you can get for free from the Snail Tunes store and what you can get by pledging $5 on Patreon or paying the $5-minimum subscription fee for League membership, you can have all the contents of the second commercial album. It may be the most complicated, but it's the best deal you're gonna get on the album, and I say that with a certain authority. I may be a primarily non-commercial artist, but I do want to do this for a living, and that means finding ways to make money off of this. The songs that made their debut on Occultation are more than likely to find their way onto future non-commercial releases (actually, only "I Will Dim My Light Only Enough To Not Blind You" hasn't yet), but I don't think the contents of Sessions will. They're just so...Phase Two, y'know?

Ugh, so that means I'm really trying to get you to give me money for edited and remastered versions of songs that are already free! Gods, I'm a douchebag! But there you have it. You can make a one-time payment of $5, snatch up the remaining single and Sessions, then cancel your subscription/future pledges, and have all the rest for free from the Snail Tunes store...that is, if you're a douchebag and don't leave a tip! HA! Works both ways now, don't it?

But there are more exclusives/rewards available in the $5 category to make it totally worth your while. I'm not really a douchebag...am I? Nah, 'cause even just a $1 pledge at Patreon will get you a single of an instrumental (sin palabras - minus vocals) version of the new song "Lily White," a demo of which (with vocals) is on Selenophilia. But moving on to $5 pledges and League membership: there's still A Waltz For Giger - The Complete Collection to be had, along with Era, which I'm kind of sad to say I'll be retiring soon. You see, back when Era was first released, it had tracks on it that had yet to be made available outside of Patreon, where it debuted. Now, all the songs are available on various Snail Tunes releases and the only things unique about Era are the artwork and the track listing. So, if you're interested in it, grab it now while you still can! And just so y'all know, this does mean that new supporter-exclusive album (tentatively and unimaginatively titled A New Era) will be on the way.

So, now that we're all caught up, I'm going to close with posting a private share of the hidden bonus track from Selenophilia, "Mattresside." I hope y'all are enjoying the encroaching autumn weather!

Moving Forward

Well folken, with the release of Selenophilia, my birthday, and some personal, living-logistics stuff out of the way - not to mention the promotion circus for Occultation being behind me - I'm ready to get back in the saddle of writing (both music and, hopefully, more Snail Tales) and recording. However, I took a few hours last night and this morning to just relax and dink around with GIMP and and the pics in my design folder, and I came up with this bit of poster art to celebrate the fact that Instrumentality and Occultation are both in stores and on streaming sites, together, where they belong. The following is all the ads I put together and splashed all over social media to promote this fact with the appropriate links attached...now that I actually know how to attach a link to a picture within a post (can you believe it's taken me this long?).

Now, to be completely honest with y'all, thanks to Selenophilia and the An Arcane Son / A Most Resilient Snail single, all but one of the songs - "I Will Dim My Light Only Enough To Not Blind You," or "Dimmer" for short - that were exclusive to Occultation are now available at the Snail Tunes store. Still, all but three of the songs that had been released prior to Occultation were edited and remastered for the album, in some cases rather significantly.

I also keep forgetting about the Alternate Spins of "The Replicant" and "Pentadactyl," which are still exclusive to Occultation (the Alternate Spin of "Pentadactyl" on that album differing significantly from the Alternate Spin on Nefelibata).

Anyway, it's my opinion that the record is still worth listening to or owning on its own, in which case the best deal is for $7.99 on Amazon. However, if you'd rather have the Artist's Edition (which includes artwork in JPEG and PDF formats, as well as track art that displays the Snail Tunes releases each track originated on), it is still available as one of several rewards that are yours for the taking (as is an Artist's Edition of Instrumentality) when you pledge $10 or more in support of The Lady anoNYMous on Patreon.

Don't feel like you really need downloads taking up your data storage? Don't have the money to spend or pledge? Well, even just streaming these albums is an act of support, as I do receive royalties for the plays, and all you gotta do is put up with the ads. So, really, thanks for that.

Well, y'all, this is it until there's a new Tale or something to report. So thanks again for your support, and may your inner snails remain resilient and determined.