Canons Released
about 8 years ago – Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 03:47:52 PM

Here comes the canon copy, "Pieces: The First Piece"!

Look for an email from BackerKit notifying you that you have a new digital download available.

I don't know how quite to describe this product. It's not quite music, not quite audiobook, not quite spoken word, not quite ambient. It's something else entirely.

It's distributed storytelling. I hope you like it. I want you to imagine you are walking around the blasted landscapes of the art in this destroyed America, with an AM radio in one hand and a cassette deck in the other. Your radio is tuning to different stations and finding evidence of the music of the age as well as talk radio broadcasts. You are finding cassettes of evidence as you go and learning tiny bits about their authors. Who are they? Did they make it? What happened to them? What are their stories?

Remember that everything ties together and everything is a clue.

Keep in mind the following:

1. All of the music and all of the arrangement was created by algorithm and computers. Some passages repeat; some are heard very little. In selecting the Canon renders from the ninety-four available, I tried to choose the most powerful renders that contained the best of every performance.

2. The thirteen original musical works all have in-universe lyrics that matter. You'll hear them on the Album Within An Album when it is released at the very conclusion of fulfillment. Until now, you have only these whispers and broadcasts to go on. I have made an effort to make sure that each of the thirteen original musical works appears on the radio at least once, but some are only heard for an instant. I hope the experience of hearing brand new music from a different timeline on a radio is as exciting to you as it was to me to program it.

3. In every cassette, you are hearing only between 5% and 25% of the total material available. Whatever you think you're learning, there's usually between six to twenty (depending on the cassette) more minutes of material you haven't heard yet. These may appear on other individual cassettes. There is over an hour of original radio programming between the musical works and the talk radio shows, about ten total minutes of which is heard in a single copy.

4. If something doesn't make sense to you, it's possible the answers are contained in other cassettes or song lyrics that never made it onto the canon copy. You'll have to work together once the individual copies start going out.

5. The canon copies were chosen so as to not include any key story fragments that give up the mystery on their own. But there are several strong starting points and the beginnings of many clues.

Next Actions

Please use the comments thread on this post to start discussions. What have you been able to learn so far? Which songs are you most excited to hear the full versions of? What tape are you hoping to hear more of on your individual copy?

If any performer thrilled you with their work or you get chills hearing their cassette, please let them know! We creative types love positive feedback. (If you want to include me in the tweet, I'm @NewSpruke on twitter now).

I have to finish making about sixty more Pisces before I can move on to individual fulfillments.

The Ultimate Credits Post
about 8 years ago – Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 10:05:19 PM

Under each track, the Pieces are listed in order of appearance. Radio Pieces are in no particular order and scattered throughout all four tracks. Remember, everything is a clue. When you begin hearing your albums, you might wish to refer back to this post in order to communicate clearly with one another and put clues together by referring to particular tapes.

Track 1 - Paces

The Entertainer's Tape. Written by and performed by Daniel Graves.

The Investigator's Tape. Written by Bill Boulden. Performed by Chris Cowan.

The Compassion Fatigue Tape. Written by Natasha Lewis Harrington. Performed by Lauri Bryant.

The Couple's Tape. Written by Lauren Orsini. Performed by Lauren Orsini and Mitch MacDonald.

Computer-Assembled R&B. Written by and performed by Taurus Savant.

Track 2 - Pisces

The Pastor's Tape. Written by Bill Boulden. Performed by Markus Voice.

Computer-Assembled Blues. Guitar and Bass written by and performed by Evan Lamb. Vocals written by and performed by Elisa Melendez.

The Prisoner's Tape. Written by Bill Boulden and Patrick Chapin. Performed by Patrick Chapin and Josh Cates.

Cousin John Breesome's Tape. Written and performed by Sydette Harry.

Track 3 - Passes

The Educator's Tape. Written by and performed by Elisa Melendez.

Computer-Assembled Funk. Performed by Geoff Boulden.

The President's Tape. Written by Bill Boulden and performed by Laura Bailey.

The Scoutmaster's Tape. Written by and performed by Ryan Kairalla.

Track 4 - Peaces

The Father's Tape. Written by Natasha Lewis Harrington. Performed by Mikey Neumann.

The Hermana's Voicemails. Written by and performed by Brina Palencia.

The Lipan Apache Broadcast Tape. Written by and performed by Darcie Little Badger.

On The Radio - Heard Intermittently Throughout All Four Tracks, In No Particular Order

The Roland Cash Talk Radio Show. Written by Bill Boulden. Performed by Kris Straub and Jeffrey Bentley.

The Hidden Evidence Radio Show. Written by Bill Boulden. Performed by Melissa Fabregas and Jonathan Hernandez.

The Morse Code Exchange. Written by Bill Boulden. Translated into Morse by Geoff Boulden.

"Where Is Meaning". Written and performed by Adam Benjamin.

"Pressure". Written and performed by Billy.

"Cape Cod". Written by Bill Boulden. Performed by Sonny Vande Putte.

"Tracer Signals". Written and performed by Colony.

"It's Getting Hotter". Lyrics by Bill Boulden. Music by and performance by Elliot Sheridan.

"Mushroom Light". Written and performed by Of The Earth.

"Well Oh Well". Written by Bill Boulden. Performed by Sarah Kaiser.

"Best Of Me". Written and performed by Mr. SMXF.

"Sold 2045". Written and performed by Bill Boulden.

"Nothing To Lose". Written and performed by The Bloodies.

"Organ Donor". Written and performed by The Bloodies.

"When The Levee Gone Break". Music by Bill Boulden. Lyrics and performance by Hubris.

"This Modern World". Written and performed by Daniel Graves.

Conclusion

A special extra thanks to Natasha Lewis Harrington who in addition to getting writing credits on two Pieces, helped me with writing and world-building in general. On any tape listed as being written by Bill Boulden, she took a look over it.

Wow. By my count that's thirty-five distinct people on this album. Thank you so much, everybody. That's not counting seventeen distinct visual artists, who will be thanked in a different post.

In the end, Terence Wiggins and Chris Sabat could not make it. Which is okay! I knew this would be a very ambitious project, and two people not being able to make it out of fifty-four contributors is a good rate in my book.

Look for the Canon Copies any day now.

Final Piece Received, Canons Are Imminent
about 8 years ago – Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 09:42:19 PM

Hey, so you might remember earlier in this year, I was posting intermittently about how there are over 50 distinct contributing artists to Pieces and while most of the pieces arrived promptly, there was some element of Project Management to this album while I corralled some Pieces that were taking longer to arrive.

Earlier this week, the very final Piece I was waiting on arrived, which unblocks me on the last track, Pisces, and now renders are proceeding!! I'm a half a dozen renders in and as soon as I hit a render good enough to be the Canon Copy, I'm going to pause rendering to publish the canons, then return to rendering afterwards.

We're getting into the fulfillment stage of this Kickstarter. Exciting.

My next post will be the Ultimate Credits Post, where I will detail everything that went into this album.

"Passes" Complete
over 8 years ago – Tue, May 15, 2018 at 06:17:44 PM

I have completed rendering 94 copies of Passes, which brings us to the following status for the four 10-minute tracks of the album

• 94 copies of "Paces" - done
• 94 copies of "Pisces" - still outstanding
• 94 copies of "Passes" - done
• 94 copies of "Peaces" - done

As you can see, we're 3/4 of the way there. Once Pisces is complete, I'll have everything in order to start assembling tracks into four-track bundles that comprise One Album and being sending out individually numbered albums, each completely unique.

Further updates as events warrant!

Hi from full-time musicianhood; progress update
over 8 years ago – Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 01:33:47 AM

Friday was my last day as a chief technology officer of a software startup. Beginning tomorrow is my first day as a full-time musician, which means more time spent doing Renders!

We are 42 of 95 "Passes" rendered, and now that my job description is "do music all day", those should fly by. We also have your canon copy, #38. It's a beautiful render that gets the best out of pieces by Elisa and Ryan.

That only leaves the hardest nut to crack, Pisces. Once Passes is done, it's time to make some tough decisions and solve a few songwriting puzzles, then I begin on Pisces. Once 95 Pisces are exported, your canon copy will arrive and I'll begin shipping out individuals!