Bitnormal Sampler

After a few months, the Bitnormal release page now stands at 16 seperate releases from 9 different artists. For a new-comer to the page, that's a lot of electronica to get your head around. LAst year I got to a stage with my Mender bandcamp page, where I had created and uploaded so much free music that people were simply put off by how much content was available. This is something I have come to consider when trying to promote our label. How many people arrive at the page with no knowledge of who our artists are and how they sound r indeed, what the over-all feel of the label is like, and are instantly daunted by the scale of our back catalog.

So I had this idea last night. Lets put out a sampler that gives you a taste of the sounds going on with our label. 6 tracks that capture the essence of the artists and offer the listner a bigger picture of Bitnormal.

Inspired by the epic branding elements designed by Pete Clark, I knocked together a cover and put together my own selection of Bitnormal artists and sent it to Chris. Earlier today the Sampler went up. Hopefully it is the first of many. It is totally free (as opposed to Name Your Own Price) and features some stunning remixes alongside some original independant material.

Introducing KADE

Live improvised electronica.

Shep and I have been developing a new approach to electronic music where by we can improvise stuff on the fly. These tunes are recorded jams we did in the last month which we have tweaked and mastered and released on the world.

We are looking for unique performance opportunities and perhaps even a residency so get in touch via Bitnormal Records contact sheet if you are interested in booking us!

Press Campaigns

Rysic Cygo Press Release

Today I thought I would blog a bit about how Shep and I have chosen to promote our artists on Bitnormal Records and about the things we've been considering with regards to press campaigns.

When starting the label, we asked ourselves what we felt we could offer artists who might potentially sign with us. We decided that a netlabel model was best for us as we had no capital to press and distribute physical releases and we had limited time alongside our various other projects to commit to the full time promotion of the label and its roster.

We decided that what we could offer was promtion through Twitter, Facebook etc, a nice, functional website providing info and links and a space from which to stream and download releases.

We also felt that it would be fair to offer press campaings for new releases. This would involve building a network of reliable contacts that would be happy to feature and review our artists. After scouring the internet and building a list of the websites that looked like they would welcome a press release from us, we set about looking at how best to capture the writer's attention and not over-step the social parameters of sending out lots of info on a regular basis.

It was my thinking that it would be best to build an email template in html so that press recieved one email that looked sweet, exhibited the label branding and all the artist info in one foul-swoop. The problem we hit upon instantly was that most email clients filter images contained in emails and it is up to the user to enable visual content. This negates the impact I was aiming for and forced us to consider other options.

So the choice was either a plain text email (often widely accepted and preffered by many) or an attachment.

I still felt that an attachment would be better. As someone who has written reviews in the past, I still felt that a one-stop-shop for all links, bio and art work etc would be better for the writer than a plain text email that forced them to dig out info themselves. Also I thought that building the brand was an important aspect of standardising our press releases and creating a sense of community and cohesiveness.

Above is an example of what we have been sending out. This isactually the press release for my forth coming album under the name Rysic Cygo. The template is standard and we just drop the pics and the text in for each release. We add the links in with InDesign and export as a pdf document. This then gets attached to a personalised plain text email which goes out to the press contacts on the 3rd Monday of each month (as and when we have a release obviously!)

Eventually I would like to look at the question of how often we send out press and create a 1st, 2nd and 3rd waves of press that builds towards a wide spread campaign for our international artists but that will take time and we need more contacts to make that worth while.

Props to Pete 'Dedpop' Clark for the design elements of the rpess release which are taken from the website he designed for us.

First Post

So this is my first ever blog post. Of any description....

I wonder whether, for a 30 year old guy in the 00's that is a faux pas? I don't know. I'm pretty sure I don't read any other blogs of anyone I know so maybe it's ok. Blogging definitely sounds like something I should be doing since I am doing a lot!

The other night I showcased a new project I've been working on called KADE which  is a live, improvised, electronic-performance-based type thing featuring myself on laptop and vocals and Shep On Bass. We performed to a select audience at an exclusive album playback for +Boards of Canada's new realease Tommorrow's Harvest. It was great. +Glenn Millington got use of this studio in Derby called Dub:rek and set up some great visuals and ambient lighting (it's all about ambient lighting!) Glenn also performed some of his material live which is great. Shep and I released a couple of his singles on our label Bitnormal Records earlier this year. He performs under the name o_S_k_m, you should totally have a listen cos it's great stuff!

The Bitnormal stuff is going really well, although I'm not sure my skills lie in the administration of a label. I'm trying really hard not to piss Chris off with my terrible organisational skills, coupled with my complete lack of time at home since my daughter was born but it seems like I am slacking on the duties I said I would under-take. the fact is, I am working really hard to stay involved and I have ideas and networks with people that are of real benefit to the label. I think as I adjust to father-hood, I will find a way to fit things in. We have some great artists releasing stuff on the label now and I want to be fully behind it. After all, my second Rysic Cygo album is due out soon and I need the momentum behind me so it doesn't just flop.

Any way...got to go now. More blogging later....