An Interlude

My little "vacation" is at an end. So is a new relationship that had picked up steam refreshingly fast and then fizzled without warning, or any sort of notice for that matter. I extended my reach beyond my self-imposed isolation, and had my hand bit. Because people suck. What else is new? I think we all know that upon the friction our adolescences cause with others, and after that we have buffers and filters and we're searching for people who don't hurt us when our buffers and filters are down. My adolescence was prolonged well into my twenties (which I think is fairly common these days) and I was never quite able to master filtering what goes into or out of me. My buffers remain bitchiness or absolute isolation. In short, I'm not an easy person to get to know. Sometimes I'm proud of that. Sometimes I wish I were someone else.

Now I'm left yet again with my music, with work. However, I've learned a few lessons from my hiatus. I don't want to be a workaholic anymore. I want to enjoy making music, rather than having it distilled to "work" and nothing else. I want to continue reaching beyond my isolation...in baby steps. And I've been left with a lot of ideas to implement in the meantime.

First is the short story companion for Nyctanthous, which ideas are starting to warrant a planned series of short stories for that entire EP, with one story per song. Probably written out of order, and who knows if they'll all connect, but I'm stuck on the idea of making stories for that record, which started with an idea for a tale of a supernatural nightclub encounter inspired by "Nyctality." When these stories are finished, I'll probably collect them and rerelease Nyctanthous as a commercial record.

Which brings me to another point: y'all might want to download the non-commercial records from the Snail Tunes store while you can, because I've been itching to do some Spring cleaning. This means that all of the "pay what you will" records are going bye-bye, as the Snail Tunes store will be streamlined into my personal store for the "official" (commercial) records. I will continue undercutting all other online stores, and soon I'll be offering the collected digital discography at a discounted price. Also, I'll still be offering non-commercial "gifts" (such as the Anniversary gifts, Revival and Progress Report - The Anniversary Spin, and holiday gifts such as Yule Tide Carols) from my NoiseTrade page.

Anyway, I haven't started this Spring cleaning process yet. For the time being, you can still download all the non-commercial releases for a price of your choosing. I would recommend grabbing the compilation albums - Instrumental, Nefelibata, Wisps of Reason, and Radiate - while you can. That's the easiest way to collect most of my discography for free...but please, tip what you're able to! I'm going this in large part because I've been offering my music for free for a long time, and have had thousands of copies downloaded without a single tip, and I really want to make a living creating art. Obviously, there's interest in it, but people behave these days like music is owed to them and musicians can afford to give away their art for free. I mostly gave away my art for free for so long because (a) I wanted to generate interest in my work and (b) I've been living in a dream world where people will give what they can to artists when they're able to out of respect. And if I could afford to, I'd continue to give my art away for free. Unfortunately, I can't.

I still want to give out my art, though. I want people to have it and enjoy it, and hopefully it will whet appetites for more, when people can actually afford to pay for it. That's why I'm offering, for a limited time a free download of Carnivale, the first EP previewing the upcoming fifth album. I can't get the embed code to cooperate on this blog post, but head on over to this link for a free download (suggested donation of USD $3).

Now, onto my latest offering:

This record is my come-back from my hiatus, offering new songs with a couple of unreleased older tunes that were polished up to satisfaction after stepping away from them for a few weeks. "That Old Foreboding Feeling" and "Gravity Bites" were built on very similar bass-heavy electric guitar parts in the rhythm section, which was actually recycled for "Primordial Soup" (on the Cold Sunlight single) as well. There are tiny variations, but all three of these songs started from the same place. Interesting that they all turned into such very different songs. It started with "Gravity Bites," (which was originally intended to be on Revolutions) but there were parts of that song that just weren't working for me. I was enamored with the piano-and-strings crescendos in the song, but the melody wasn't working for me while I tried to make it piano-heavy. It wasn't until leaving the melody to the string-trio of cello, viola, and bass, with the addition of my familiar theremin-mimicking synth, that I started to find it quite catching, maybe because it's easy to hum. I also started over on the drum track for this song, using the newer drum machine that I'd employed for  "Revolutions," parts of "Primordial Soup" and the Higher Gain mix of "Momentum" (I'm trying not to over-use this drum machine; it screams "electronica" a bit too loudly). The result is upbeat and catchy, with those wonderful crescendos (which had almost spawned a new song entirely) still in place.

While "Primordial Soup" has garnered praise from followers of The Lady on Google Plus and SoundCloud, it's still a very experimental song, and I'm not entirely convinced of it. I love aspects of it, and it's wonderfully successful in some areas (I've never used wordless vocals this much in a song before), but whether or not the present version will make it onto my upcoming fifth album remains to be seen. To give it a listen, refer to the post "A Carnivale in Cold Sunlight."

"That Old Foreboding Feeling" was the song I left off on when I took my break from songwriting. I left it finished, in that it had a beginning, middle, and end, but in dire need of some editing. The song was overly complex. Too many layers at once had left it muddy, so much so that I almost felt that titling this song "Muddy Waters" - a title that went to a song featured on Cold Sunlight - would have been appropriate. Upon returning to work, my first step was to clean this song up with a lot of snipping of the layers here and there, sometimes writing new instrumentation to replace them. Feedback on this song has been rather surprising, proving yet again that I don't always know what my audience wants.

The remaining three songs were written specifically for this release. "Recovery" is meant to express the period in which I transitioned from not working and pushing beyond my comfort zone, to trying to learn from those experiences and settling back into a less extreme version of "word mode." It was the first new song I had written in several weeks. I started with a bass line inspired by the Drams song "Divisions of Labor," but nothing I wrote on my piano was working with it. It took successes in guitar and string parts before my piano and I were back on speaking terms. Truth be told, we're still experiences blocks in our communication, which I guess is why my piano doesn't have such a prominent role on this record. I've had to go back to the lesson I tried to teach myself with the song "Simplify" and re-learn that simple building blocks can result in complex and satisfying arrangements. It's led to these three new songs, all of which I'm very happy with.

"Interlude" was written solely for the purpose of creating a bridge between "That Old Foreboding Feeling" and "Gravity Bites," intended to be a mellow trip-hop experiment in sounds. It's built on three chords, but some frenetic piano work and metal-style electric guitar makes it sound more complex than it actually is, in places. I was so happy with the end result, which wound up being the second-lengthiest song on this record, that I decided to name the EP after it. The title also expresses (y'all know how I love multiple meanings in my titles) the period between publishing Carnivale and working on Interlude, where I had the most adventurous time I've had in my life since moving to the Kansas City area.

Those who've known me longest will recognize a simple but addicting guitar melody that I've been playing since my teens in "Once More with Feeling." I've wanted to, and have even tried a couple of times, to accompany this song with other instrumentation, but nothing's ever come of it before now. Although extremely simple, this is my favorite tune I've written for guitar. It gradually evolves until it gives a sense of urgency, and I've played it to myself during many nights spent alone and contemplative. I had it stuck in my head the day following the completion of "Interlude," and finally had the urge to record it with some beats, strings, and synths. This will probably end up being similar to "Giger's Lullaby" and "They Delving," and will have a few different incarnations. Nothing has sprung up on me yet, but I have the feeling that I may never be quite "done" with this song.

Currently, Interlude can be streamed from YouTube, Spotify, MS Groove, TIDAL, and Apple Music. It can be purchased and downloaded from Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, and the Snail Tunes store. Now, I can be almost certain that not all of the songs on Carnivale, Cold Sunlight, and Interlude will be included on the upcoming (as yet untitled) album. I've been writing further new songs to include on this album and have a few thoughts on a new take on some older songs for this outing, so the track list is pretty unpredictable at the moment. I can only say that I'm aiming to release it before the end of this month.

In the meantime, I hope y'all have been having more success than I at opening up to each other and moving through life with more optimism than I have. I'm still seeking out the right "cocktail" of medication, or the right psychiatrist, or both. My approach to life hasn't been working very well. Being so closed off and jaded clearly isn't doing me any favors, and neither has been working with barely any sleep. Interlude is the beginning to a new approach; one that, hopefully, has more balance. Stay tuned for updates.

May all our inner snails remain resilient and determined.

Love Letter from a Virgo

Well, folken, my hiatus from composing continues, though I think I'm feeling it drawing to a close. I still haven't gotten around to writing the companion story for "Nyctality" (possibly a companion for the entire EP Nyctanthous), but I haven't been entirely idle. As I stated in my previous post, it's about time that I let my existing songs work for me, and I've been concentrating heavily on promoting them. Now, it came to my attention while doing the promotion circuit for Revolutions that the YouTube uploads from my distributor, Distrokid, weren't available in all territories, so I've been uploading songs to my channel, a song a day, so that folks all over the world can enjoy my music on YouTube. If you've had problems accessing my music on this streaming service in the past, or just want to take advantage of free streaming while contributing to The Lady's revenue, check out the uploads on my YouTube channel. Subscribe to get notified of the frequent new uploads!

I've been using the release of a new Patreon-exclusive "best of" compilation album, Love Letter from a Virgo, as an excuse to upload and promote a song a day. Partly, this album is being used to tide people over until I start making new music again, and also to remind people that I have a lot of excellent music already available. On the commercially distributed albums alone, there's sixty-four songs. Somehow, for the purposes of this compilation, I managed to narrow the "best" songs to a track listing of twenty-two, as determined by the most popular on various streaming services, as well as my personal favorites. There's some jarring absences. After cementing the track list, I had the thought that I would really have liked "Darkest Dreams" (the instrumental version of "Sublime Like Swine") on there. Also, "Lily White" had held the most-popular position on Spotify for a long time, and it didn't make it on here. But as it is, this track list flows very nicely and contains tunes that I am extremely proud of. What it came down to is this:

01. No Introduction Needed

02. Fervens

03. Simplify

04. Momentum (Higher Gain Mix)

05. Overdrive

06. The Manic Widow (Feral Bitch Mix)

07. The Seventh Swan

08. A Most Resilient Snail

09. Matriculating

10. Wrong Pocket Kinda Day

11. The Nocturnal Dervish

12. Safe in Cars

13. Passage Through The Veil

14. Slowly Scooting Closer

15. The Ground Up (Rebuild)

16. Waltz with Lilith (Claim)

17. The Cloud Walkers

18. A Good Mourning

19. Solace

20. Cold Sunlight

21. Winter's Remix 2.0

22. The Tranquil Isles

I love this list. I've played it all the way through a few times since putting it together. It manifested quite organically, only needing a couple of songs to change positions before being set and uploaded. These really are among the best of my work, several of which are now being played on multiple radio stations. During this hiatus, I've also been at work exposing more stations to my work, and I've passed along links to download Love Letter to a couple choice record labels as a demo for Nothing Left To Lose, which I'm still hoping to get physical copies of distributed. I just had a request from a new fan in Japan for a physical copy of Love Letter and unfortunately had to inform this person that, as of yet, I still can't afford to make and distribute CDs or vinyl. For that, I desperately need more Patreon patrons! I've also tried to get set up with PledgeMusic, but they seem to feel that I am not yet popular enough.

Even during my break from composing, though, I'm still gaining followers on social media. The Lady is still (slowly but surely) gathering momentum. Royalties are still trickling in, especially through Apple Music! I was extremely skeptical about this relatively new streaming service at first. It definitely had its hiccups and hit quite a few bumps after its initial launch. Becoming a verified artist and gaining the ability to utilize Connect as yet another tool to interact with and share with fans and followers was a pain in the ass, but seems to have paid off. I'm getting more royalties from plays on Apple Music than on Spotify and YouTube combined! So, if you happen to have a subscription to this service, I urge you to add my music to your libraries and follow The Lady on Connect, where I offer some of the same exclusives that I do to supporters on Patreon and The League.

Speaking of The League, as an incentive to join (even if only for a one-time payment of one month), I'm not offering all four commercially-distributed albums (Instrumentality, Occultation, Jaded, and Revolutions) along with the recently released EP Carnivale and single Cold Sunlight to Leaguers. Normally $27 USD total when bought separately at the Snail Tunes store (where I've already severely undercut the price offered on Amazon, the second-cheapest route to go), they're now offered for only $10 when one joins The League! Set up as a monthly subscription service, you can nonetheless gain DMR-free downloads of all these in a format of your choosing (from standard MP3 to the highest-quality audio available) and have unlimited access to high-quality streaming on the Bandcamp mobile app.

However, as I said before, Love Letter is exclusive to Patreon, as are the Artist's Editions of the major albums, which a $10 pledge includes, along with several other exclusives, such as A Waltz for Giger - The Completed Collection, Vanitas, Erised, and The Occultation Sessions. Single downloads of sin palabras (without words) versions of "Mr. Douter," "The Between," and "Lily White" are also available. Several of these exclusives are included in a $1 pledge. This can be a one-time pledge, or you can pledge per-creation, which is usually a seven-track EP. Short stories are rare, but included. These days, since the restructuring of Snail Tunes, the seven-track EPs are Artist's Editions of five-track album-preview EPs. Since taking this vacation from songwriting, all but two of my songs are now publicly available, so I don't know when my next album will be released, but I'm hoping to have it completed before the renewal of my contract with Distrokid is due in late May. Writing that many songs in the span of one month is pushing it; I guess it all depends on my level of inspiration.

I am starting to feel like writing music again. A bass line is stuck in my head, begging to be recorded. A song lies finished but is in serious need of editing. Another song that I've decided against releasing has sections that I'm very proud of and wanting to salvage and work into something else altogether. There's work to be done. I'm currently at work on the promoting side of this business (my least favorite part, but a very necessary evil). I think the main reason for my little hiatus was to remind myself that there's more to life than this (cue the Bjork song). And now that I've loved and (it looks like) lost again, and flirted with disaster with alcohol yet again, and taken a step back to remind myself to pace myself and not be such a workaholic, it may be time to take refuge in songwriting.

However, I currently have more than enough material for Nothing Left To Lose. I really want to make this physically-and-digitally distributed album happen. I'm almost positive that fabulous artists such as Tyrone Webb and Cyril Rolando would contribute artwork, and I'm hoping that Matt Warface of (IAM)WARFACE will have his remix of "Sublime Like Swine" finished by the time I can work out the distribution, either independently or with a record company, as I believe it would be an excellent addition to the album (he sent me a short preview, and I was absolutely thrilled with what I heard!). But what I really need from you, dear folken, is more pledges and/or donations. I may not be able to get all of the songs professionally remastered for the album like I had hoped, as the cost of printing and distributing the record alone will be difficult to come up with, but the fact that I've had even one request for a physical album has me re-motivated to make this project happen! So hopefully I'll soon be adding a new tier to The Lady's Patreon that will include a physical copy of Nothing Left To Lose as a reward, once I work out some logistics.

Another possible new project has surfaced: having these songs performed live. I was recently requested to share the stage with an artist who will be performing in Kansas City in July, and unfortunately had to turn it down due to my neuropathy. However, my soon-to-be stepfather has been bugging me for a while to produce sheet music of my songs (which can be produced easily enough thanks to certain computer programs available) that he wants to pass on to the director of the band at the high school he formerly taught at. As my music is largely orchestral, it would work much better to have these songs performed by a band accompanied by recorded synths, rather than by myself alone at a synthesizer. This is a prospect that I've been excited about but putting off, but live performances could bolster pledges, and I could even put together a live album in the long run. And this could graduate from high school to the local orchestra...one never knows! I just have to take the first step, which is finding the right program to translate my songs into sheet music.

But I'm getting away from myself again. Nothing Left To Lose and live orchestral performances aren't in the cards for the immediate future. The immediate future is (hopefully) a short story companion for Nyctanthous and a follow-up to Carnivale, which will lead to a follow-up to Revolutions. In the meantime, I hope there's more Patreon pledges, as I honestly would love to have more people in the world listening to Love Letter from a Virgo, as it is a sort of love letter to my supporters. It is (most of) the cream of the crop, a mushy thank you, a way of saying, "Look at what you have helped me achieve!" I may have been recently sapped of my motivation, but for an entire year I worked almost non-stop thanks to the support of friends, family, followers, and (most of all) Patrons. And when folks listen to it, I hope that they do hear it as a demo of what Nothing Left To Lose could possibly be.

If you can't afford the $10 pledge, well, here's a private playlist from The Lady's SoundCloud. Of course, it doesn't have the individualized track art or the PDF booklet, but you get the basic idea:

Consider this my love letter to you, dear readers.  Just seeing that there is interest in my blog (which I also take as interest in my music) motivates me to keep on keepin' on, and is urging me to get back to the business of songwriting. So cheers to you, and thank you. That's all for now.

Your Lady,

A Carnivale in Cold Sunlight

Artwork by William Bryant Mansell

Sorry it's been so long between posts, folken. Carnivale was released March 18th and Cold Sunlight was released March 23rd, and I've yet to blog about either. To be perfectly frank, I felt a bit burned out after producing what amounts to four full-length albums in one year and decided to reward myself with a hiatus, during which I went on a bit of a bender. Now, many of you know that I have an unhealthy history with alcohol and that I had successfully abstained for two years. But what better way to reward myself for a year of productivity than by having a beer? Unfortunately, a beer every couple of days turned into a beer every day, which turned into two beers a day, which turned into a six-pack a day, and then I started to realize that it was getting to the point where it wasn't any fun anymore, at which point I quit cold turkey and then suffered through nearly a week of withdrawal symptoms. 

I don't entirely regret it. It was during this time period (and partially thanks to the alcohol) that I broke free of my self-imposed isolation and started browsing gay hook-up sites again, and my second "hook-up" was with a man that it turns out I have a lot in common with, and who has become a good friend - the first friend I've made since being dislocated to the Kansas City area. He may even be boyfriend material. Only time will tell.

Anyway, I'm back to sobriety and, sort of, back to work. I use that qualifier because I'm still taking a step back from making music and waiting for the right inspiration to strike. I have some half-finished songs that I'm not entirely convinced of, and I feel that my muse has faded to a shade after overworking for over a year. My therapist says that, perhaps, I should learn to pace myself. Can we all say "duh"? My peers have called me prolific, but I think it's fair to say that I've just been a workaholic with no life. So I've turned my attention toward things that I enjoy apart from composing, and toward having a social life again. In baby steps, of course. I don't think I can handle any more real-life interaction than this one new friend at the moment - I'm too used to being alone. But I'm also rekindling my relationship with books, and I have a plot for another short story from Jade's universe floating around in my head, a sort of companion to the song "Nyctality." So I may be writing rather than composing in the immediate future.

However, I've been remiss in introducing my latest musical releases on this blog and sharing what's been going on with Snail Tunes, The League of Extraordinary Snails, and The Lady's Patreon for a few weeks, so without any further ado, I'd like to shift focus to my latest EP, Carnivale.

First, I'd like to draw attention the wonderful cover art, a piece called "Circus" by Cyril Rolando (please, visit him on Facebook), who graciously gave his permission for me to use his artwork. I'm quite pleased to say that Cyril was impressed with my work and has asked permission to use my songs in videos he makes of rendering his pieces. It's always wonderful to have a give-and-take relationship with other artists.

Carnivale is more or less an EP of straightforward trip-hop instrumentals, foregoing the darkwave and post-metal flavors that inhabit a lot of my previous work (with the exception of "Safe in Cars," which has a few metallic interruptions). This is the first EP to be released since the restructuring of Snail Tunes, so it is not a pay-what-you-will release, but I do undercut its price on Amazon, Google Play, and iTunes at the Snail Tunes store. It is available to stream from TIDAL, MS Groove, and Apple Music, for those who subscribe to those platforms, and can be streamed for free on YouTube and Spotify. The Artist's Edition on Patreon also includes two extra tracks - one is my rendition of "Every You Every Me" by Placebo, and the other ("Muddy Waters") has already been made publicly available on Cold Sunlight.

The decision to release "Cold Sunlight" as a single was motivated by this beautiful piece in colored pencils by one of my oldest and dearest friends, William Bryant Mansell, inspired by the song itself. I don't remember exactly how it started, but he had me send him the lyrics so he could meditate on the song and what the lyrics brought to his mind, and this is what came of it. I rounded out the track listing with previously unreleased material to make this re-release extra special. "Primordial Soup" originally appeared on the Artist's Edition of Revolutions, while "Muddy Waters," as I previously stated, appeared on the Artist's Edition of Carnivale. The sin palabras version of "Cold Sunlight" was previously a Patreon exclusive. I'd like to note that, while the words and verses of the song have been removed from this version, it's not entirely without vocals. It's easy to mistake the falsetto vocals in this song for synths, but that is, in fact, me singing - just a fun fact for y'all. Cold Sunlight is available for streaming from TIDAL, MS Groove, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube, and can be purchased and downloaded from Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, and the Snail Tunes store.

Now, "Groove" (from Carnivale) was also originally from the Artist's Edition of Revolutions, and "Ideally" was from the Patreon edition of Progress Report - The Anniversary Spin, so aside from a couple sin palabras versions of songs and the "Every You Every Me" rendition, there isn't a whole lot of exclusive content on Patreon at the moment, and I'm currently not working on new songs. This will probably change in the near future, but I'm thinking it's about time to make another Patreon-exclusive compilation album, which will be very selective, and I'm hoping to make it my best yet. I'm figuring it will feature artwork by Cyril Rolando - among others who have generously donated their artwork in the past - and it will, as usual, have unique, individual track art and a nice little PDF booklet. Undoubtedly, it will have quite lovely digital packaging.

Meanwhile, at the Snail Tunes store, all the commercially distributed albums are now available...for cheap. I'm offering Instrumentality for $3 USD, Occultation and Jaded for $5 each, and Revolutions for $7. So, yeah, you won't be able to find a better deal on these albums.

Anyway, folken, that's all I really have to say for now. Don't worry, I'll undoubtedly be making more music soon enough, but for now, I need to rest and wait for inspiration to strike instead of trying to force anything. I may dabble at the half-finished songs (one is actually entirely finished, but a bit murky due to being overly complex) that I have, but for now, I need to recharge. Music doesn't just fall out of my holly jolly butt, ya know!

I hope this finds each and every one of you well.

Your Lady,

Nym

P.S. May your inner snails continue to be resilient and determined.

Revolutions Are NOT Safe In Cars

Well, folken, album four is online, in major music stores and on major streaming platforms! Sorry I've taken a few days to get around to writing the article, but a lot of my attention has been on the restructuring of Snail Tunes while promoting the album. This article will share a little bit about the album itself, but I have a feeling it will mostly go into detail about the changes that have been made, particularly at Patreon and The League of Extraordinary Snails.

However, the album is a pretty big thing in itself and is being used as the jumping-off point for a lot of the changes that have come about. It's being used a bit as a point of transition between The Lady anoNYMous, the primarily non-commercial artist, and The Lady anoNYMous, CEO of Snail Tunes. Okay, that latter title is still a bit of a joke. While Snail Tunes is now no longer just the words that I input in the "record label" box when uploading an album to DistroKid, and it's no longer an entirely free store from which I can spread my music, it's still just lil' ol' me. I may have a pretty big personality (that can be attributed to a lot of smaller ones), but Snail Tunes is still a far cry away from being a corporate entity. But it has taken its first steps in being a commercial entity.

One big difference for this album is that it was the first of my commercially-distributed albums to be offered for purchase and download from the Snail Tunes store, marking the end of an era in which everything at Snail Tunes was offered freely. I'm sad to see that end, and I actually hope to have enough support one of these days that will enable me to make it so again. If I can ever afford to offer all of my music freely again (as Amanda Palmer is able to, and even Nate Maingard is able to somehow manage), I will definitely do so. As it is, my anti-capitalist leanings won't let me sit too comfortably with this, and my music will still be free to stream from SoundCloud and YouTube, and I plan on still releasing free compilation albums after my music's made its commercial rounds, which will look a little bit like how this next Phase is going to go: a couple of commercially-distributed teaser-EPs leading up to an album, which will go through the usual promotional circus, before I offer a compilation of what was available on those EPs with some songs from the previous album.

So the next non-commercial compilation album will have songs from Revolutions, as well as songs from two four-track EPs that will have teased whatever the next album will be, and will be released after the next commercial album has finished its promotional rounds. Don't worry, I'm sure this will make more sense when seen put into practice. But right now, I'm getting ahead of myself.

As I mentioned earlier, a big difference for Revolutions is that it's not only offered from Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play, but also from the Snail Tunes store, where not only have I been able to undercut all the other stores, but a purchase from which will directly support the artist, and that's gotta totally be worth something, right? Also, the Snail Tunes store is offering complete song previews instead of thirty-second snippets, so you can hear the whole thing before you buy it. Of course, you can do that anyway with the usual free streaming from YouTube and Spotify. And if you have subscriptions to Apple Music, TIDAL, or Microsoft Groove, there's really almost no need to go and purchase albums anymore (unless you really want to support the artist, and have a download safely tucked away for none-streaming purposes), but you're still supporting the artist every time you give a listen. I'm actually slowly warming up to these streaming services as an artist. As a subscriber to Apple Music, I've been pretty fucking thrilled with the service, but now since Apple Music has come online, I've seen a pretty significant increase in streaming revenue. So maybe it's not all streaming services...but fuck yeah, Apple Music has been treating me well as a consumer and a creator!

Now, with a playlist of the album embedded above, there's not any real reason for me to post the track list, except that it makes it slightly easier for me to refer to, and it's tradition at this point. So, without further ado, here's what that track listing looks like:

01. Reticulated

02. Overdrive

03. The Hallows

04. Hell is for Reels

05. Xenophobia

06. They Delving 3.33

07. Passage Through The Veil

08. Sublimate

09. Momentum (Higher Gain Mix)

10. A Good Mourning

11. Obfuscate

12. The Creeps

13. A Different Story

14. Matriculating

15. Revolutions

16. Solace

Really, as an audience, you've probably been exposed to all these songs already. They are, after all, all the songs that were original to the Obfuscate/Sublimate releases, plus some of the tunes from the anniversary releases, and, of course, the songs from the Matriculated teaser EP. What that means is that all of these songs are actually available for free download from the Snail Tunes store as part of other releases, with the exception of those from Matriculated. When assembling this track list, I thought of including more new material as further incentive to buy it, but the only other finished songs I had to include are those that are found on the Artist's Edition, and I didn't want to take away from the value of that version of this album. But be aware: there's three all-new original tunes not seen on this track listing that are included on the Artist's Edition so I could make that version nineteen tracks in length, to go with the theme of that version's release day.

So, the blatant truth (do I offer any other kind) is that if you're interested in getting the most outta your money, you should buy Matriculated rather than this album, and you should go ahead and download Obfuscate, Sublimate, Progress Report - The Anniversary Spin, and Revival. Then you'd have all these songs for the price of that EP, which you can get for $3.56 (if I'm remembering correctly) from Amazon. Yep, that's the link right there. Go for it. Or you could make a pledge on Patreon and get an additional three unreleased songs on the Artist's Edition. Or you could sign up to The League of Extraordinary Snails and get all four commercially-distributed albums (a $20 value from Snail Tunes) for $10.

Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that part. See, Revolutions was the first album to be available for purchase from Snail Tunes, but I went ahead and made the other three available from there as well. The pricing mostly reflects how new they are and that, with purchase, you'l be able to download them in a format of your choice, from the crappy standard-quality MP3 that all other stores give you as your only option (you have no idea how much it irks me that they have the nerve to charge for such poor quality) to the best quality audio available, depending on how much data storage you have available for your music library; and you'll also have unlimited access to high-quality streaming of the albums from Bandcamp and the free (with purchase) Bandcamp mobile app. That's why Instrumentality - as an album whose songs are all available for free download already - is being offered for as low as $3. And being as it's my store, selling my music, I'm able to undercut even Amazon - which previously had the lowest price for all my music - and charge only $7 for Revolutions.

But, as part of the restructuring I've been doing around Snail Tunes, and my business plan in general, I'm not offering all four albums when you sign up for The League of Extraordinary Snails! Yes, I've raised the price for The League from $5 to $10, but I feel its worth it with the addition of the commercial albums. And Leaguers will also get the teaser EPs as they're released, as well as any bonus content I come up with. This makes The League almost as good a deal as becoming a Patreon Patron. The main difference between Leaguers and Patrons now is that Patrons will be receiving extended Artist's Editions of not just the albums but of the teaser EPs as well, and will also receive more frequent bonus content. For this, I'm charging Patrons on a per-EP basis, but the albums will be completely free.

Man, after so many headaches of coming up with different ways to explain that to my Patrons, I think I just found the most succinct and understandable way... From now on, if somebody asks, I'll just refer them to the blog. Anyway, to start off on the right foot with my Patrons about the changes happening, I released a new three-track single to them with some all-new material, and to give y'all an example of what I've been up too lately, I'm going to share one of those new songs with you, dear readers.

So that's an example of what Patrons have access to well in advance of everybody else. The other two songs on this single won't be available to the public, or even to Leaguers, until the first EP teasing the next album is released. The release schedule is going to be similar to what I was doing with the Snail Tunes EPs before this commercializing restructuring of things, except now the public EPs will be shorter and will be commercially-distributed, and not available for free download. Patrons will still be seeing seven-track (or thereabouts) EPs leading up to the albums.

Getting back the album at hand...it it a very special album, being as it does mark the one-year anniversary of my putting out music, which is how it got its title, for being a revolution around the sun. Of course, you can take "revolutions" to mean many things, which is also how it's intended. Pretty much all of my titles are meant to have multi-faceted meanings. The cover is intended to connote the kind of destructive revolution that is sometimes necessary for positive change to occur. Hopefully, the changes I'm implementing won't be destructive and will be all-in-all positive. I'm trying to step on as few toes as possible in the commercializing of Snail Tunes and my music. Hopefully, people will find these changes as something to applaud, rather than as cause for detraction.

Anyway, that's really all there is to share at the moment! So far, my energy for Snail Tunes and trying to make a living as an artist has been reinvigorated, and I hope that y'all stick with me and see what comes of all of this!

Your Lady,

An Anniversary Revival!

Well, folken, the anniversary of my debut EP has come and gone! I probably should have written an article yesterday, on the actual date, and promoted the anniversary party (which could, in effect, still be going on; it's entirely up to you) here on the blog, but I spent the day promoting all the goodies on social media while doing a little networking. However, I'll still be sharing all of what went on, as well as making some announcements, and maybe sharing an anecdote or two. Probably the most relevant bit of anniversary-themed background that I shared on social media yesterday is this: two years ago, on February 18th, 2014, I was discharged from hospitalization for nearly needing (in fact, qualifying for) a liver transplant due to alcohol abuse. Now, I love drinking, and I did it to excess, but I don't consider myself an alcoholic. What I was (and still am, to a degree) is suicidal, and I was going a slow route in killing myself. I knew what I was doing and I knew that I was dying. I was okay with that. I wanted to die, and I was doing it on my terms, in the most enjoyable way I knew how. However, I was forced into hospitalization against my will, and the results weren't pretty. We're talking about vomiting and shitting blood, with no control over my bowels, as they were drying me out. Due to an outbreak of flu, the hospital was overfull and I was in the ER for two days before I was given a proper bed in a proper room. All in all, I was in the hospital for ten days, then released to the care of my mother, who was determined to never see me touch a drop of alcohol again.

There was lasting damage, to my mind and body. I was angry. I didn't want to survive, and now I could barely walk due to neuropathy, and my mind was functioning as if it was permanently in an alcoholic stupor. But without much choice in the matter, I lived and I started an arduous process of training my mind and body to function again. Some of the damage has been permanent. I still have neuropathy in my hands and feet, and I exist in constant pain, without being able to walk very far before its unbearable, and my fingers stiffening up and crying out at the tap of a screen if I use them for any sort of task that requires dexterity for long, the latter being the reason why I can't perform as a live musician.

During the first year out of the hospital, I immersed myself in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series of books and otherwise entertained myself with computers and television, my mother's iPad never being far away, with Sudoku and word games helping me to retrain my brain to function. The following winter, I began to lament that I could no longer function as a musician. Before, I sang as a front-person for multiple metal projects that never quite got off the ground, and I also sang solo and a cappella as part of spoken-word performances. I also played piano and guitar proficiently. None of these were things I was going to be doing again any time soon. Part of the lasting damage done was to my voice. Throwing up so much blood will abrade your throat and damage the tiny veins that run through your esophagus, and to this day I still periodically have a scope shoved down there to check for any bleeding and take preventative medication (that, fortunately, doubles as anxiety medication!). So, my singing voice is pretty shot, especially compared to what it used to be. It's come back somewhat, two years later, but I'm afraid it will never be the same again.

But I'm getting away from myself. That winter, I began playing around with programs for creating music electronically, some available as touch-screen apps with virtual instruments so I could also work on my dexterity. With nothing left to lose, I decided I was going to electronically compose an album, and I was even going to release a digital record. And that was how the idea for Nothing Left To Lose (an album that remains in my future) and (the far-more-immediate EP) Progress Report was born, Progress Report being just that - a report of my progress after hospitalization, which was released one year and one day after being discharged. The decision to release Progress Report on the 19th rather than the 18th was wholly influenced by the Dark Tower books, as 19 is a very significant number throughout those novels. If you've read the books, you'll also note that a large part of The Lady's public persona (which uses words and phrases like "folken" and "say thankya") is influenced by those books.

And that's my share about just how significant Progress Report and its release date are to me. A year since it's release, I have shared above with you an Anniversary Spin on that EP, which has turned into more of a mini-album (as I guess my seven-track EPs already technically qualify as) with its two extra tracks. For this anniversary release, I decided to compile my favorite incarnations of the songs from the original EP that have been released over the past year, and I threw on a couple of bonus surprises. Not much of a surprise was the track "Progress Report," which I shared that I was working on along with a SoundCloud release of an earlier version two months ago. More hey-check-this-out-worthy is the Higher Gain Mix of "Momentum," which came around for the sole purpose of being shared on this record, and "Inglorious Wrath," a new take on "Vainglorious Wrath" that came into being (after a miserably failed first attempt) for both this record and part II of my anniversary gifts to my audience, Revival.

Of course, I'd been thinking about doing Revival for a while, and the anniversary was a nice excuse to move forward with it and also have a release date set. I think the most important reason for moving forward with this record was probably to finally put a finished version (as opposed to the "demo" that's on The Hypnotic Jamboree) of "Hell is for Reels" out into the world. It made me finally sit down and attempt rerecording those violin tracks, which I had been too intimated to try for far too to long. I wasn't going to release a "finished" version of the song without doing so, and I finally did it, and I'm much happier with the results than the strings on the demo. In fact, I'm mush more pleased with the song as a whole. I not only rerecorded those fiddle bits, but also some of the cello and drums, and I wrote and recorded a whole lot of new instrumentation - most notably some synths to give the song a post-industrial feel to it, as opposed to being such a straightforward folk-rock tune. I've ignored that the demo even exists since finishing this recording. I'm just so freaking happy with it! I think it's beautiful, and I'm a little anxious to release it on Jamendo.com, as it was the most popular tune of mine on that website for quite a while. Hopefully, the new version doesn't overwhelm the site and make it explode. Just kidding. I do kind of hope that happens.

Also notable on Revival is "Odd Gastropod," which is an alternate spin of sorts on "Trip-Hop Thing." I wanted to do a remix of "Trip-Hop Thing," but that song doesn't lend itself well to such an attempt, so for the most part, I just rewrote the drum tracks and added some instrumentation - again with the post-industrial synths. I like the finished product. I wouldn't go as far to say as I like it better than the original song (though I do like the title better), but it's not a bad attempt at a different version. All in all, it's just that: different.

And, of course, Revival makes public (finally; it seems as though in my personal world - of which I include Patreon in quite a bit of, musically speaking - it's been around forever) the final release of "They Delving," version 3.33 (which has already been remastered for its inclusion on Revolutions). With some of the vocals rerecorded (and even some vocals removed) and the addition of quite a bit of electric guitar, as well as some synths, this final version is quite a bit more metal than the previous versions. This song has always been intended to be classified as "industrial," which feels more appropriate now that it can be pretty safely categorized as "industrial-metal." I'm thrilled with it. I don't even want to look back at any of the other versions any more, except maybe version 3.0, which is the sin palabras version. It sounds quite good (sometimes, to my ears, even preferable) as an instrumental.

Part III of my anniversary gifts is the release of a new song for free streaming, which sort of ties in to one of my announcements, and also ties in to my anniversary gift to Patreon Patrons. This song was intended to be on Revolutions, but no matter how I tried to shift around the order, it just didn't fit with the other songs, so here it is, before the album is even released, the "lost track" from Revolutions, "Ideally."

Well, "before the album is even released" is only half-true, as my anniversary gift to Patreon Patrons was an Artist's Edition of Revolutions! As has become usual for the Artist's Editions, it has individualized track art unique to this release, along with a PDF booklet of album art and liner notes. As is becoming usual for these editions, I've added bonus tracks - three this time, as opposed to the two that were added on to Jaded! This was to give the release a total of nineteen tracks, which, or course, was the magic number of the day. Also, all three of those tunes fit beautifully among the others that I am hesitant to go back the original sixteen-track listing for the public release; but I will, to keep faith with my Patrons.

Now, I have some really big announcements to make about some changes that are being made. As it has been a year now that I've tried being a primarily non-commercial artist, it's been time for me to take a step back and examine how well that's been working for me. The answer: not very well at all. My hope was that people would have enough respect for the art that I produce, and for musicians in general, that I wouldn't have to require payment for my music. That people would buy music when they were able to, or at least leave a tip here and there, no matter how small. I've been sorely disappointed, but after thirty-three years of being disappointed by people, this was to be expected. However, being a person with anti-capitalist leanings, I had to give it a try, and all in all it was part of a larger business plan, which was to use this first year to gain exposure. I feel as though I have made a (small) name for myself, as I've exposed thousands of people to my music, and at least hundreds now have songs by The Lady anoNYMous in their music libraries. By stats from Jamendo, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, and the fact that I'm now experiencing regular radio airplay, I feel pretty confident in this assumption. But speaking of Jamendo... Well, that site has been a large part of this decision. There has been over 7,000 downloads of my music at that site, and not a single person has tipped a single cent. At Bandcamp, I've fared better, but there's still been less than $0.09 USD paid per download, on average. Aside from Patreon, I've been experiencing the most revenue from my commercially-distributed music. And you've probably all heard how shitty royalties from streaming platforms are. Yet I want to make a living from my art, so it appears to be time to suck it up and shift away from being a non-commercial artist.

This means a restructuring of my business plan and how I release and distribute my music, and this largely means that I won't be able to release my music for free as much anymore, and that Snail Tunes will no longer be an entirely non-commercial enterprise. Fuck, I hate speaking this language so much: the language of "enterprise" and "commercial vs. non-commercial," the language of the corporate and the capitalist. But I have to start being more of a capitalist when it comes to my music. If I want to make a living from it, capitalizing off of it is exactly what I have to do. So now I gotta eat shit and like it. Well, I don't have to like it. I just have to learn how to swallow.

I'm thinking I'm going to be implementing this new structure with the release of Revolutions, and I'm thinking this new structure is going to go kind of like this: First, no more non-commercial EPs. Those are going out the window. I still want to cyber-busk and offer my music for free, but the EPs making it largely available before commercial distribution is going to be getting a bit of a reversal. Instead, there will still be non-commercial compilations, released after the music has been commercially distributed. The Snail Tunes EP will not go completely extinct, but those will now have a price on them. A low price. I don't think I can go lower than $1.00 per song on Bandcamp, but I can make the EPs available for a price that makes the per-song average less than $1.00. These EPs will also be distributed through Distrokid, and therefore will be made available for free streaming on commercial streaming platforms. I'll also still be making songs available for free streaming on SoundCloud and on YouTube as I'm promoting the EPs. The EPs will be leading up to commercially-distributed albums, and then, after I'm done doing my promotional rounds for those albums, I'll be releasing non-commercial compilation albums that will, unfortunately, not have all the new music available on the preceding album, but will have most of it. The compilations will be of material from the EPs, but not any new music from the albums. This way, my music will still eventually be made freely available for streaming and download, but all those willing to pay to support my art will have first dibs on downloads, and there will be further incentive to buy the music. I plan to still release free bonuses for my audience at the Snail Tunes store, such as the above "anniversary gifts," but they'll be few and far between.

This, of course, means things will be changing on how I charge and reward my Patreon Patrons as well. Mostly, things will remain the same. $10 Patrons will still be charged per EP, but receiving albums and other bonus content for free. This will be more evenly matched at The League of Extraordinary Snails, where the price of per-month membership will likely be affected (meaning, most likely it will be going up). I'm not quite sure how $5 and $1 Patronage will be affected. I'm going to be restructuring some of this and learning new things while implementing new ideas as I go along.

I hope y'all understand just how hard this is going to be for me. As I'm writing, I've already made mostly completed track listings for the next two non-commercial Snail Tunes EPs, and the track lists for both are exciting for me to look at...and I'm going to have to scrap them. I really enjoy making my music as freely available as possible, and therefore as widely available as possible. But there's just no way I can afford to devote this much time and energy to my music while getting next-to-nothing in return. If I want to continue having music as this large a part of my life, I have no choice. And if I can possibly make a living doing what I'm doing, that's what I'm going to pursue.

Hopefully, this is understood and sympathized with. Because I hope to retain each and every one of you as my audience. I value you immensely, folken. That is the main reason I want my music to, in the end, still be freely accessible for streaming and download, and why that's been an important focus in this restructuring. I hope this all works out for the best!

We'll see, as our inner snails remain resilient and determined.

An announcement!

As usual, the upcoming commercial release, Revolutions is going to be made available to Patrons pledging $10 or more toward the next Snail Tunes release or Snail Tale, and also as usual, it will be an Artist's Edition with bonus content; this time three extra tracks (for a total of nineteen), as well as unique track art and a PDF booklet.

So, this post is basically an advertisement for that, and the fact that it will be released to those Patrons on the anniversary date of Progress Report, February 19th, before the commercial release of the album! So the skinny of it is, if you pledge $10 or more now toward the next non-commercial Snail Tunes release - which will be in March, so you won't even be charge until April 1st - you'll instantly have access to all of that tiers' rewards (which is all of them, including the Artist's Editions of the previous three albums, as well as the Patron-exclusive compilations Vjetor and A New Era, plus the early releases of the Hypnotic Jamboree update Revival and the Anniversary Spin of Progress Report...man, that's a lot!) you'll also have access to the Artist's Edition of Revolutions when it's released to Patrons on the 19th! So, um, what are you waiting for? Click the image to visit Patreon!

And in case you're feeling uncertain about letting an album you have yet to hear be your deciding factor, I can tell you that all the original, non-Jaded tracks from the Obfuscate/Sublimate releases will be included, as well as several all-new original tunes, including the four in the playlist below for the teaser-EP Matriculated.

Now, I will stop being pushy and leave you with this: let your inner snail be your guide.

Radiate and Matriculate

Presenting the fourth Snail Tunes compilation by The Lady anoNYMous,
collecting songs from Jaded, Obfuscate, and Sublimate.

It seems like only last month I was releasing Jaded...which isn't that far from the truth. There's usually a bit more space between the album releases, but I had a very productive winter, folken. I guess it's just how I cope with the season, as the previous winter was also a very productive one; one that resulted in the debut EP, during which not only was I using my tools for the first time (and therefore everything felt highly experimental of me at the time, even though those songs sound a bit mundane when compared to some of the shit I've been producing a year later), but I wrote the first incarnations of all of the songs on Progress Report, as well as "Giger's Lullaby" and "Winter's Salve" (then called "Winter's Discontent" and a lot more classical than it's latest incarnation "Winter's Remix 2.0").

I've continued to work with a lot of those songs since releasing that first EP last February. Some saw their first makeover as soon as the following month, on the Alternate Spin of Progress Report. "Winter's Salve (Alternate Spin)" remains, to me, one of the most mind-blowing pieces I've ever written, even though it's so minimalist and uses the musicians' old "repeating itself" trick to fill out a "proper song length" - oldest, most blatant standby in the book.

Other songs from Progress Report have had new incarnations as recently as Jaded and are therefore included on Radiate, such as the very first track on the album, "The Ground Up (Rebuild)."

As the anniversary of Progress Report draws near, I felt the need to visit with these songs and wrap up a select few in some special packaging for Progress Report - The Anniversary Spin, the result being a nine-track, fifty-seven minute "mini-album" that I've tacked an all-new song at the end of as a hidden bonus track. The rest of the songs have been seen on previous non-commercial releases, so there's not going to be any huge surprises when this Anniversary Spin is released to the public (non-commercial at the Snail Tunes store, of course), aside from the hidden track...and I realized that one of the songs had never had an alternate version recorded, and I'd actually been thinking about it for a couple months now, so there is a never-before-heard remix of "Momentum" that I'm quite proud of.

This leads me to also tell y'all a bit about the "update" on The Hypnotic Jamboree that I've been mentioning, Revival. This new record is also all about alternate versions of songs from the original, though there is just one alternate version for each, and they're in the original order.  However, I came to the realization pretty quick that I don't have alternate versions recorded of each song, and in the case of "Vainglorious Wrath," it already is (sort of) an alternate version. I already had recorded a (finally) finished rendition of "Hell Is For Reels" - with the fiddle part and much of the cello rerecorded throughout, as well as some added instrumentation - and I already had the new version of "They Delving" just waiting to be put on a public, non-commercial record; but I needed to decide if I'd leave "Vainglorious Wrath" as is (and I should note that I had already started, and failed at, a remix of that song) and I would need an alternate version of "Trip-Hop Thing"...a song that just doesn't seem like it should be anything other than what it is.

Anyway, there's likely a blog article to be attached to the release of these records, but I thought I'd give up a few more details and tease a bit, since they're already available on Patreon, and I'm always on a crusade for new Patrons.

So, as long as I'm crusading, I guess I should also speak a little about Matriculated, which I've sort of snuck in under the radar. The inspiration to release this was a rather recent event, not planned with a great amount of forethought. Well, I had been thinking of releasing a single through my commercial distributor to see how it might generate interest in the upcoming commercial album. This was originally to be a song called "The Hallows," which I had already released to Patrons on the album preview Vanitas. Vanitas (being, as I understand it, a style of still-life art that usually is of objects representing mortality) is very much along the same lines of Matriculated - a four-track EP previewing the new album - but "The Hallows" is the only track they have in common.

The track lists are as follows: Vanitas contains "Hell Is For Reels" (the finished version I mentioned earlier), "The Hallows," "Groove" (a sort of post-industrial piano jazz number), and a sin palabras recording of "Cold Sunlight" - I'd like to take a moment to clarify that, just because there's no words doesn't mean there's no vocals, which leads me to wonder how many people realize that the wordless soprano vocals in the song are actually me and not a synth... Moving on. Matriculated contains "Reticulated" (a post-industrial overture I feel would make Trent Reznor proud), "The Hallows," "Matriculating" (an upbeat indie-pop-meets-post-industrial tune), and "Revolutions" (being a darkwave dance track).

You may be noticing that, while I've offered brief descriptions of all the songs on these two album-previewing EPs, I haven't bothered to describe "The Hallows." That's because, I don't have to. As I said before, I had thought of releasing a single to generate interest in the album. Well, I'm already doing that in extended-play form with Matriculated. I decided, for a single, I'd go the route of SoundCloud yet again and make it available for free streaming for everyone. I had originally planned for this song to be "The Hallows," then I thought it was going to be "Revolutions," but after consulting with a certain super fan (who is also a friend), I've reverted back to choosing the former. So, without further ado (do-do-do-do-do...sorry, Bran Van 3000 reference there), I present a single from the upcoming album for y'all to enjoy that will hopefully whet your appetites: "The Hallows."

I hope y'all like it. Both Matriculated and Vanitas are available to supporters via Patreon, while Vanitas is also available to The League of Extraordinary Snails, and Matriculated is soon to be available on most major streaming platforms and at most major online music stores (Amazon, Google, iTunes, TIDAL, YouTube, Spotify, MS Groove, etc...).

This article has becoming far more about what I've been up to since releasing Radiated (and I guess I can get up to a lot in five days!), but that's probably because there's just not a whole to say about this latest compilation album that hasn't already been said. All of the songs had already been released, and this is a truer compilation in that regard than Nefelibata or Wisps of Reason. With everything that had been released prior, there was already ample material to fill out an album without resorting to unreleased songs. And so I have all of these songs that are just itching to be released on the next commercial album, which I guess I can tell you is tentatively (maybe more than tentatively) titled Revolutions after the song making its first appearance as part of Matriculated. "Revolutions" receives the honor of being the title track partly because it's more on the experimental side (I'm not one known for putting together dance tracks, usually, and it also utilizes a new drum machine as well as synths that are new to me, which inspired writing a darkwave dance track in the first place).

I can also share a rough draft of the cover art for the upcoming album, which is being used with permission from the photographer, Thad Metzger, and is a shot of composer Sean Beeson on what appears to be a very magical night involving a rather epic bonfire.

I'm going to see what I can do to clean up the text and make it look less rough, but that's the gist of it. Sean shared this photo on twitter and I was immediately struck by it and asked right away if I could steal it. Both he and Thad gave me their permission, and with the amount of Likes we've had fluttering around our conversation about it, I've been beginning to feel almost as if I had a hand with this bonfire and was there on that night, dancing with these two Twitter friends of mine. Apparently, this fire was roaring at that strength for two hours...

Well, folken, although this article hasn't been particularly lengthy, it feels like a lot of sharing in a short amount of time, and I do believe I've run out of news. I do hope you enjoy Radiate. I'm very happy to have all of the songs from Jaded available on non-commercial records, and I've enjoyed composing and recording the material for Obfuscate/Sublimate and fitting it together with those songs immensely. This was a very easy album to assemble, and quite enjoyable to listen to repeatedly as I've been working on it. Now, I do indeed have enough material for Revolutions (more than enough) and I have to concentrate on that album and even, for the first time, select which songs will not be making the cut! So, until it's time for me to write something soul-searching and sappy about the anniversary of Progress Report at length - or I have something else to report - may your inner snails remain resilient and determined!