After four years of work not just making the music, but learning how create a website, an online store and all the various graphical/artwork related stuff, the whole project is finished and the record label fully set up. The album has been uploaded to last.fm and you can also stream the whole thing below. I also plan to make a music video for one of the other tracks soon.
Obligatory promo blurb:
"As far back as 1996, an album was conceived of that combined the traditional and the contemporary, the harsh and the beautiful, subtlety and bludgeon. Unfortunately the technology of the time and the huge ambition of this vision restricted it’s conception as a one man project. Now, the end result of four years of work not only composing, but learning the disciplines of digital mixing and mastering, has been fully created.
The album takes in traditional orchestral instruments, vocals of all types, electronics, samples, and wields them within a variety of compositional forms. The end result is a diverse, unique, yet cohesive work. One that does not so much break genre boundaries, as ignore their existence altogether."
Haven’t checked it out yet, but I’ll say this first because it’s just as important: HUGE props for following through with this over such a long time, and also for doing it all yourself. Handcrafted for the win!
I will definetly check this out as soon as I have the headroom, it sounds and looks interesting at first glance, I absolutly love the heading, reminds me of great times in the mountains.
Me too, I had to wait for some stuff from my bank to arrive which I applied for over two weeks ago.
It arrived this morning, so I’ll at last be able work on the Paypal stuff today.
Yeah, there’s more stuff to verify for the business account. Everything’s done on my end, so now I’m just waiting for Paypal to approve my application.
I’ll be doing the typical promo work, sending out copies of the album with a press release. Since this is the first release I’ll also be focussing on spreading the word of the label. Where I live there are not many people who combine composing with the technical, business and online side of things, and there’s none that I know of who make this sort of music, so standing out from the crowd will be pretty easy.
Initially I’ll focus on the magazines and online review sites that I know will appreciate the music. Once I have some nice quotes from them I’ll put that in the press release and start sending promos out to the larger magazines and radio shows, since I know that without some prior ‘buzz’ they simply won’t pay attention to small scale stuff like this.
After that it’s a case of finding out about the more underground magazines/websites/radio shows in other countries that I’m not currently aware of. That’s an ongoing process though, since this is the first release I’ll be making contacts and finding out about new places as I go.
This is incredibly strong and consistent work, something to be quite proud of. It’s not my thing personally (may have been around 99-2000 when I was really into gloom-noise). I like the machine textures, but the buried vocals and reverb soaked abstractions really loose me.
I’m on track 3 and I’ve already creamed my pants… you’ve got an amazing sense of composition, and obviously a great knowledge of production too. This, quite plainly, kicks ass… and very well redefines industrial as a genre… YES I PIGEONHOLE… seriously though, I know alot of rivitheads who could very much appreciate this. Congrats, man.
… The more I listen, the more I love. Trent Reznor, eat your fscking heart out.
“…I’d recommend wading straight in to anything from Achenar. Draw the curtains, get a scotch (in fact, make that meths), and sit back and absorb in the music. But don’t listen alone.”
…In fact, if they made Blade 4 and wanted the most frightening soundtrack ever for those blood-drenched club scenes, they could do much worse than enlist Hemingway to supply the full on tones needed to accompany the chaotic dancing.
