Release Preview: 2019 Mini CDR Box

So here it is ladies and gentlemen, the first of what I hope to be multiple releases for 2018.  As mentioned in my last post, I am going to be shooting for smaller, more frequent releases and this is the first.  It's not the vinyl release that I've spoken about as that is a few months down the road yet.  Instead, this release is still planted firmly in the digital realm albeit unlike my past three releases, this one is a MiniCDR.

Why a MiniCDR you may ask?  Well, simply put... because I obtained them for free and that means a cheaper purchase price for you.  You see, the prices I've been charging for all of my physical releases is based on how much the materials cost to make the release in question.  I don't charge for my time and I certainly don't make any sort of profit.  I'm just trying to keep as close to breaking even as I can.    So when an outstanding individual such as Scott Lennan (aka Bart Furp, creator of the Not Computing blog) offered up a stack of recordable MiniCDs for me to use, I looked over at the pile of spare lumber, the old tubes of acrylic paint, and the half full jug of epoxy resin I had and said "hell yeah... I can do something with this".  So I did.

Each MiniCDR comes with two new tracks ("I Can Hear The Hiders Coughing" and "Sontag Ist Sontag") with a runtime in the neighborhood of 18 minutes.  Each MiniCDR comes packaged in one of 30 wooden boxes (3 3/4" square and about 1 1/4" thick), each uniquely painted on both sides with an epoxy resin that has been mixed with acrylic paint.  Here's a look at all 60 box sides combined into one picture:

On top of that, you see that black and white card sticking out of the side of the box?  That's the V-card that holds the CD.  Here's another picture to show what I mean:

The art on each of the 30 V-Cards and CD labels is unique.  So yeah... 30 different drawings.  Here they are combined into a single photo:

Best of all, since I was able to keep my costs low, these will be for sale on bandcamp for only $3 (including digital download of the songs).  This release is scheduled for January 1st, 2019.

Goodbye January 1st, Hello 20th Century

I'll cut right to the chase.  After the beginning of 2019, I'm not going to worry about releasing material on January 1st anymore.  There are multiple reasons for this but the main one has to do with a desire to release smaller amounts of music more frequently... specifically in the vinyl format.  As it turns out, I've been experimenting a lot with record casting, and the results have become successful to the point that I believe I'll be able to release something in this format next year.  However since the suggested time limit for the total amount of songs on a single side of a record is around 18 minutes, only releasing one of these once a year on January 1st didn't make any sense.  It means that I'd only be releasing two or three songs a year.

So what is record casting you ask?  Well, it's the act of creating a silicone mold of a record (that's the purple part in the picture above) and then filling the mold with liquid plastic resin (that's the white stuff in the circle shape).  Once the plastic is cured... voila... a one sided record.  The working idea is that I would record a couple of songs, have it mastered for vinyl, cast the resulting lacquer, add artwork to the blank side, and then release.  

As I said above, all of this is estimated to take place sometime after the beginning of 2019, meaning that I still plan on doing a small release for January 1st, 2019 but I will go into detail about that in another post.

A Podcast From Portugal

Apparently all the way back in January of this year, some kind soul from the Radio Universidade de Coimbra out in Portugal featured io audio recordings in one of their TRIP series of podcasts.  They're into a pretty wide range of cool stuff, so it's definitely worth checking out.

Fuzzy Sun

Back in March I fell upon this blog by the name of Fuzzy Sun.  I contacted them via email and they were kind enough to feature io audio recordings in their weird side of music feature.  But you shouldn't check it out because of that.  You should check it out because of the cosmic shit ton of quality noise, psych, space, and fuzz rock they bring the public's attention to.  If you can't find something you like here then you are seriously beyond help.

Magic Mixture Complete Radio Show - Best USA Space Rock 2017-early 2018

Many thanks to Neo-Psychedelia for featuring io audio recordings amongst a whole host of great bands in their "Best USA Space Rock 2017-early 2018" podcast.  Listen to it here:

2017 Release Now Available

Better living through polyphonic distortion...