This new album was unfamiliar territory for me. Unlike my other creative endeavors over the past 40 years or so, Ephemeral Seasons was conceived, written, recorded, mixed, and mastered while I was 100% sober. I didn't think I'd be able to finish it; in fact, in the beginning, I thought the music was so pedantic, derivative, and uninteresting, it seemed like I was forcing the album to emerge against its wishes. To be fair, it's really an EP, clocking in at 27 minutes. Still, it's an accomplishment I'm proud of. I've already contacted one record label, Mystic Sound from the UK. We'll see how that goes.
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It'll be an EP consisting of four tracks, their names being Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. I'm still undecided, though, on what I'll call the EP. Right now, I call it Seasons, but that could change to Four Seasons or something fancier, like Ethereal Seasons, Seasons of Desire, Aeonian Seasons, or something darker, like Seasons In the Abyss, although I think that's already been done. Stay tuned.
I believe I spoke about this short story before. It's about a brief non-encounter I had with a near-blind resident in this apartment building whose name I never knew. I felt sorry for not approaching and talking to him, so I wrote this short. The link is in the Writings page.
I placed links to where my new album can be found. Now, all I have to do is build up the nerve to DJ my own music at psy festivals. Sounds easier than it really is.
I joined Reddit recently. I've known about it for years, but my early experiences with it showed it to be a platform for racist ideologies, so I kept my distance. There are a lot of forums on it, though, so it's nice to interact with like-minded individuals who share the same ailments and issues as me. One forum/subreddit I joined is called r/Psybient. It allows you to link to your releases, so I linked The Dream Merchant. As it turned out, the album received enough likes to earn it a place in a Spotify playlist called r/Psybient | Top Weekly Posts. Not bad, huh? Why am I excited by that? Because the list contains artists who are well-known in the psybient world, artists I look up to, like Kaminanda, Maiia, Carbon Based Lifeforms, Desert Dwellers, etc.
Spotify – r/Psybient | Top weekly posts ...and I can hardly wait. I'm also nervous because I don't know what it'll sound like mastered by someone else. I trust in the fact that Melusine has been in the business for 20 years, with artists who've played huge festivals worldwide, and will come through with a truly professional-sounding album. At least the cover is impressive.
I signed the publishing and recording agreement for Melusine Records from Bucharest, Romania to release Astrologicus which they'll do after mastering it. It should go live Feb 1. I'm excited because E-Mantra/Melusine has a long and proven track record in the psychill field. They've performed at festivals for years so they're quite aware of what works and is accepted in the genre. Plus, they've released a few of their albums on The Psychedelic Muse, the YouTube channel that is, to the best of my knowledge, the most popular curator for psychill, ambient, downtempo, and psybient music. And since they'll be professionally mastering the project, it should sound better than the mastering I did here. I can't wait to see their artwork, too. Should be interesting.
Three record labels showed interest in Astrologicus. I chose Melusine because they'll professionally master it, and also because they've released music by well-known artists in the psychedelic genre like E-Mantra, Alpha Hypnotica, Cosmic Replicant, Mystic Crock, and others.
Without a doubt, Astrologicus has been one of the most difficult and time-consuming albums I've ever created. I thought I was finished a few weeks ago, but with continued tutorials from YouTube on the various mastering plugins I've used, I've learned (I hope) how to fine-tune my mastering. I sent off demo requests to three labels tonight. Hopefully, one of them will bite in the coming weeks.
After four solid months of work, I finally put the finishing touches on Astrologicus and set one copy off to Mystic Sound. I was originally going to send demos to all the labels I'd identified, but I think labels (hopefully) respond faster than book publishers. That said, it's been four months since I sent Heavenly Mystery off to a publisher. Since they haven't contacted me, I'll look for some different ones either later tonight or tomorrow.
The online magazine, 101 Words, recently accepted by submission, Tomasso, for publication and will appear on their website in Feb., 2023. It always feels good when something of mine gets accepted. So far, I've completed 4 out of 12 songs for Astrologicus and have identified seven record labels suitable for it. I should be finished with the album in a week or so. Of course, Astrologicus, being a work of art, it will never be finished, merely abandoned.
The music distributor RouteNote sure works quickly. I thought they would have Habitable Moons on YouTube in about a month, but it's there already. That was quick. I imagine the album's appearance will be in online stores in about a week or so. I'll post the links when they pop up. Meanwhile, work continues on Astrologicus. I found a psychill/psybient/chillgressive artist to emulate and learn from - Kaminanda. He's released about seven albums so far, as well as a few singles, and they're all top notch. He's my go-to, and most listened to, artist these days because his compositions are steeped with effects and influences. When it comes to productions, he pulled out all the stops. Thus far, I have yet to find a producer who puts as much into his work as him. He's extremely creative and keeps you guessing how beats, phrases, sound elements, effects, etc will evolve. I posted his Bandcamp link on my links page.
My short story/novelette was published today on Anak Sastra. I've linked to it on my writings page. The Road to Hanoi clocks in at 8,000 words. In some jurisdictions, that length is a short story, in others, a novelette.
My short story/novelette, The Road to Hanoi, was accepted today by Anak Sastra, an online magazine whose specialty is literature based on South Asian countries. I'm especially proud of this as I'd only submitted to one publication, rare for me.
I feel sorry for the folks sleeping outside tonight. I've been reading that a few have done what I did to get out of the cold - break the law and get thrown in jail. Hey, it sucks, but jail is better in the winter than a tent beneath the I-5 bridge. My music career, if you want to call it that, has been picking up pace slowly. I have more views and subscribers on my YouTube channel and more followers on my Spotify account. I'm also on a few Spotify playlists as well. Astrologicus is coming along fine. I'm trying really hard to make sure all twelve songs aren't clones of each other, so the ninth one makes good use of Indian musical instruments. I can't wait to finish it so I can start sending it out to record companies. I may have said it before, but my aim is to get my album curated on The Psychedelic Muse. They're the biggest YouTube site for psybient, chillgressive, downtempo and ambient genres. I'll just send my demo out to the record companies that appear there. Who knows? Maybe I might even buy some live gear and start doing shows.
So far, of all the music I have on YouTube, the most popular is the Habitable Moons album on the curated site Psy-Fi Music. I've been meaning to release it to the stores, but I've been busy working on Astrologicus. It's coming along nicely - if I could get Pigments to behave with Cubase. (They don't seem to get along). I haven't written anything here in a while. Most of my time I occupied with music - promotions and creations. I did proof a poem that will be appearing in Agapanthus soon. When it does, I'll post the link on the writing page. I've been streamlining my album Astrologicus. All twelve songs will be around five minutes long, so if I put it on a CD it'll fit, as the album will be about 65 minutes long.
Music promotion, like book promotion, is a daunting and expensive feat. I joined MusoSoup, a promotion site similar to SubmitHub, and the reality of promotion is a strong slap in the face. So far, I received four offers for either paid or free write-ups/articles from online magazines. The free version means my album, The Dream Merchant, gets put on a playlist somewhere, like Spotify. The paid offer guarantees me an article of perhaps 100 to 500 words. I opted for the free playlists because paying for all four would set me back about $40. That's actually not bad. I mean, that's just the nature of the beast. Is that kind of like payola? I suppose. There's no guarantee that coverage will get you sales, though, especially for ambient music. Probably, only Steve Roach and Brian Eno makes money from album sales. No wonder Martin Sturtzer technically releases a free album every week. I consider his Stay At Home concerts as albums which, for all intents and purposes, they are.
I was scouring the internet looking for ambient radio stations to submit some tracks to. The most popular one, according to internet-radio.com, is Sleep Radio Stream based in New Zealand. I send them a few tracks and they approved two of them. I'm glad. If anything, it says I'm actually able to create ambient music and not just a pretender. (Yes, I crave validation from time to time, including of my writing).
Without a doubt, one of the more crippling disabilities someone can have is PTSD. When you suffer from it, you don't plan for tomorrow. Long-term goals are an illusion. 401(k) plan? Hah! You're surprised you even wake up the next day. With the specter of death always hanging over you, you hurry to accomplish anything you've set your sights on. And so it is with me. In my quest to get my poems, short stories, novels, novellas, and music done, I hurry, often leaving errors and incompleteness behind. I'm aware of this dilemma, and in the past, what kept me glued to my task was drinking. With a bottle in my left hand and remote in my right, I was able to plant myself in front of a TV and watch movie after movie. I no longer drink, so my TV watching days are over. How I'm able to complete anything these days is a mystery, but yeah, it's tough as hell. What helps is I'm desperately trying to change my living situation, and if I can somehow acquire the funds to relocate to a secluded cabin in the woods, preferably in Lasqueti Island, I'd be a happy man. Maybe.
Visual Atelier 8 is a European, award-winning media arts & technology magazine. They accepted Aquarius today provided I release it commercially. So, I did, with CDBaby. It should be in stores in a month or so.
Yay! RouteNote delivered on their promise and dropped The Dream Merchant on Amazon, Spotify, and YouTube. I haven't checked other sites but I'm sure it's there as well. Previously, Spotify wouldn't let me access their Artist page because they weren't 100% convinced that I'm Robinicus. Through RouteNote, I was able to access my page where I put up some new pictures, a short bio, etc. I'll do some promotion for The Dream Merchant and contact RouteNote in about a month about releasing something else, maybe Ambient Abstractions or Habitable Moons.
Typical of folks with PTSD, I also have frequent nightmares. some disturbing enough to jar me awake. I had another one today, and like any self-respecting ambient composer, I created a soothing, dream-like track to pacify my nerves. It's called The Quest for Peace and I uploaded it to Bandcamp just now. Other than that, I've been busy rewriting Aquarius. Because I slowed it down from 116 bpm to 94 bpm, I'd forgotten the length of the song now clocked in at 8 minutes instead of 6. I sent it off to curators on SubmitHub anyway. DJ's cut from track to track when they're mixing and sometimes don't use the entire song anyway. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
So, I've been busy shopping my psychill/downtempo track Aquarius around. A curator from SubmitHub wrote me and said my track's not psychill or downtempo and maybe it's synthwave? I looked for synthwave curators and, as it turned out, there weren't any on SubmitHub. In other words, I failed. I was aiming for something chill, like Carbon Based Lifeforms or Auratech. I'm trying to save the track now. I slowed it down from 116 bpm to 94 in Cubase. Unfortunately, some of the sounds sound corrupted, especially the bass and sampled drums. I just replaced the bass; I'll work on the samples tomorrow.
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Robinicus/Robin RayIs a musician, poet, and author from the Pacific Northwest of the US. Archives
February 2023
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