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Releasing a new album! Tell me your thoughts!

July 18, 2009 in Music, Printing | 6 comments

Good god.  I’ve been too busy lately even to write about all the stupid things I’m doing.  I’ll do some sort of round-up at some point.

So, here we are.  The Monroe Transfer‘s new album (title to be announced pretty soon, if we’re all happy with it) is approaching the stage where we’re thinking about how to release it.  If you’ve seen or, god forbid, actually bought one of our releases, you’ll know that we do our level best to package our CDs as interestingly as we can- we print all our artwork by hand, using screen printing, letterpress and foil stamping, and we try to make a physical object that’s worth buying.  In this day and age, of course, it’s particularly hard to persuade anyone to buy music, when they can just get it for free, anonymously, on the internet.

The other day I had a think about all this, and an idea occurred; I genuinely don’t know if it’s a good idea, but I’d very much like to hear your opinion, dear reader.

The Idea
If I were in marketing, I suppose I might call this a release strategy, or something. Essentially the plan involves releasing our record in 2 formats:

1.  A CD, which will be housed in a hand-printed sleeve, with lots of nice bits of artwork and pleasingly tactile materials.  You’ll be able to buy it from us over the internet, possibly through a few interested shops, and direct from us at gigs.

2.  An MP3 version, which will be released for free on the internet.  At the beginning of this version will be a little voiceover, to say something along the lines of…

‘Thanks for downloading the free version of our album.  You’re free to distribute it as long as you leave this voiceover at the beginning; if you enjoy listening to the record, and you’d like us to be able to make another one, please consider buying a copy from our website- because we’re self-funded, you’ll be supporting us directly, and we’ll be able to carry on making music.  Thanks for your time.’

…and then the album begins.

So here is where I want your thoughts:

1. Do you think it’s a good idea?
2. Can you think of any problems that I might have missed?
3. Tangentially- how much are you happy to pay for an album these days?

If you, dear reader, can spare the time to leave your thoughts below, I’d really appreciate it.  Don’t worry, the blog will soon be back to my usual blend of narcissism and pedantry.

n xoxox

Two free downloads by The Monroe Transfer

December 5, 2008 in Music | 2 comments

So, here’s the quick story- we, The Monroe Transfer, were asked to record something for one side of a split 10″ EP; sadly, that’s now not going to happen due to financial horrors. So, with a mastered track and nothing to do with it, we thought we’d give it away, hoping that people might like it and buy something off us in the future. You can download it on our Last.FM page, or you can stream it off MySpace (but, of course, the bitrate’s been compressed to hell). You can listen to nearly all our stuff on Last.FM, come to think of it.

The new thing is called Joy; it’s 12 minutes of strings, bowed & screwdrivered guitars and hefty drums.  For the interested, it wanders through a number of time signatures and keys; if you’re into Arvo Part, Max Richter, Rachel’s, Do Make Say Think, Steve Reich, early Sigur Ros, that sort of thing, you may well like it.  

And, as a special festive thingy, you can also download our downbeat, glacial version of Silent Night; it’s nice to put on your iPod while walking around with your breath hanging in the air of a cold evening. We hope you like them.

We would love it if, assuming you like it, you could tell every music fan you know about it; since we’re giving it away, we’d like as many people as possible to hear it.  There’s a little “Share this” button just below this post, which means you can put this post on your Facebook or MySpace, and hopefully let more people know about it.  Or, of course, you could just email a link to people you know.  We’re very proud of the music, and we’d like people to hear it.  Download, listen, comment and share, if you’d be so very.

Download Joy here by clicking here

Download Silent Night by clicking here

Listen to more streaming music by clicking here

Carnivale!

December 2, 2008 in Music | Please leave a comment

So, it’s December.  As it looks like I did very little blog-worthy  in November, I’ll probably just end up putting all sorts of crap up here for the coming month.  

And, in that vein, here’s something I made in an extremely short period of time for an art show.  I’m not sure if it’s going to be used for the show, so I’m popping it up here; at least that way there’s a chance that someone might hear it.  Guitar, harmonica and effects are the only instruments, if you’re interested.  

[audio:Carnivale.mp3]

For the record, I do sometimes make things that aren’t a) melancholy b) ambient or c) both.  What with my general SAD tendencies, though, it won’t be something that happens in December…

Tremulus Lune

November 20, 2008 in Misc, Music | 2 comments

Just a quickie- with the enormous help of the good folks at DIY Stompboxes, and using a layout from Tonepad, I’ve finally finished making a new effects pedal.  New Fireworks Night and Monroe Transfer material required a bit of tremolo in the guitar parts, so I needed to make one.  Plenty of fiddling, and some ridiculously amateurish errors later, and it actually works beautifully- a very nice sounding circuit.  If anyone’s actually interested, I can make a little recording of it, but it’ll take some actual interest before I can be bothered.  In the meantime, here’s a photo…

finally finished another effects pedal

finally finished another effects pedal