How the Album Within An Album's Shaping Up
over 8 years ago – Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 05:37:38 PM

Hey, everybody. I've been hard at work behind the scenes working with my collaborators and getting all the ducks in a row to start cranking out copies. This seemed like as good a time to any to talk in a little more detail about the Album Within An Album!

Just to recap: The Album Within An Album is a brand-new concept, the idea of an entire album's worth of original music created just to create context for this album. A dozen or so original works by diverse artists across many different genres, whose original songs are sliced up and spread across all the copies of Pieces. This creates, with intentionality, the sensation of being somewhere and hearing a song you can't place, except this time around, you definitely can't place any of them, because they were all created just for this project. And they all contain story elements.

And then at the conclusion of the project, you can hear them all in full, when the real Album Within An Album is delivered.

Already Finished & Ready To Go

• The Bloodies, "Nothing To Lose"— a rollicking, fast punk song in the style of The Ramones.
• The Bloodies, "Organ Donor"— a slower, more melodic punk song in the style of The Misfits.
• Hubris, "When The Levee Gone Break"— a tight hip-hop track delivered on top of a Spruke original beat.
• SMXF, "Best Of Me"— a relaxed, sprawling hip-hop track reminiscent of Nas, chill and built upon a jazz beat.
• Sarah Kaiser, "Well Oh Well"— a folksy protest tune on ukelele delivered in a style reminiscent of Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs.
• Elliot Sheridan, "It's Getting Hotter"— a good-times country tune delivered in the style of modern radio-ready country pop.
• Colony, "Tracer Signals"— a bleak, post-rock grandiose cinematic track in the vein of catastrophic film soundtrack music, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Caspian, or 65DaysOfStatic.
• Billy, "Pressure"— a modern R&B/hip-hop track in the style of current, trappier, melodically sung R&B/hip-hop.
• Adam Benjamin, "Where Is Meaning"— a modern emo/rock/hardcore track in the style of Underoath or 30 Seconds To Mars with brooding verses and soaring choruses.

On Their Way

• An original Daniel Graves track.
• A sensitive, Ed-Sheeran-style guitar ballad by Cristian Noblecilla.
• A new Spruke original (am I allowed to make a track for my own track within a track? I'm not sure the rules on this.) head meta explodes

Still On The Hunt For:

• A barbershop quartet, although I've almost got one nailed down.
• A heavy metal original, which I am chasing multiple leads on but don't have a likely candidate yet.
• A bluegrass piece, which I am super open to suggestions on indie bands who might be open to recording a bluegrass for this. Please leave anybody you particularly like for this, in the comments.

Announcing Eric Klug; BackerKit Surveys Expected In Next Day
over 8 years ago – Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 10:51:30 AM

Welcome back to Pieces, the first ever album that's going to tell a story by spreading it across ninety-one unique copies.

Today we announce our Premium Artist, Eric Klug.

Eric Klug

Klug is famous for his MTG Card alters, particularly in tribute or art deco styles:

But he's also talented at landscapes and urban art, too.

Klug is making us a physical piece, not a digital, and it'll be the jewel of the art book. Check back in a future update to see what he comes up with!

BackerKit

Expect your fulfillment surveys from BackerKit in the next day.

Clearer Timeline

I got some revised estimates from my collaborators and it looks like the ones who are taking the longest will need until at least mid-January. I'm going to carve out placeholder spaces in the tracks for their work and continue working, then slot them in when they arrive. But that does mean the canon copies can't be done any earlier than mid-January, since that is how long I am waiting for the longest piece.

I have almost completed the 100% finished canon "Paces", which all the parts are in for.

What's Happening! Plus, What To Do If Your Pledge Had Problems
over 8 years ago – Sun, Dec 03, 2017 at 04:42:01 PM

Hello, backers of Pieces. I'm back from an exhausting but fulfilling week in Fabulous Las Vegas—I attended the Amazon Web Services Re:Invent conference for my day job as a Chief Technology Officer of a social media startup. I'm an AWS Certified Solutions Architect now, which is neat. Anyway, a little glimpse there into my life outside of music. I'm jacked full of knowledge about cloud computing and machine learning, but now I'm chomping at the bit to get back to nondeterministic music creation.

At some point this week I should be receiving the money. The project has stood still for a week for holidays and then me being on the road, but once the funds arrive we kick into high gear. With the cash infusion, I can pay my contributors and then send Art Director Jeff Good back to the art mill for another dozen pieces. Plus, he's currently in negotiations to find us a Premium Artist: some recognizable name who will cost in the thousands and work in a physical medium, creating a tangible piece, not a digital work. Neat! Stay tuned to see who the Premium Artist will be.

I've been working hungrily on completing Paces since I returned yesterday, trying to take it from the mostly-finished proof of concept that it is, to a completely finished track with every T crossed and I dotted.

We're still waiting on about a half-dozen contributors to return their Pieces, too. That's okay! Great work and creativity take time.

What To Do If Your Pledge Ran Into Problems

A half a dozen backers have written me to say that due to a changed credit card, expired card, wrong address etc, for one reason or another their pledge didn't go through but they do not want to miss out. If this sounds like you, wait for BackerKit to go up this week.

BackerKit is a service that acts like sort of a satellite of or upgrade to Kickstarter, that manages pledges and handles fulfillment after a project finishes. BackerKit also functions as an after-the-fact store where you can order from this Kickstarter like an online shop, as though the project was still live. So once I receive the funds, I go activate the BackerKit for Pieces, and then there will be a storefront where you can "re order" a unique Copy or an art book or whatever you like, and get the credit card information right this time.

BackerKit will also be handling my survey fulfillment. After the BackerKit goes live, expect surveys within about a week.

Live Stream Tonight Of Working On Tape Playback Engine

I'll be going live on http://twitch.tv/spruke at 6pm Eastern Time tonight to show off what it is like to build sampler and synthesizer engines from scratch. Remember how I said I was crossing every T and dotting every I? Well, part of that is spending an anguishing amount of time on things like the Radio Simulator and the Tape Playback Engine. They were good enough as proofs of concept, but they bear such a tremendous weight of how this project is actually executed, they need to be perfect. Details such as the clicks popping and rewinds/fast-forwards happening too infrequently or too often are unacceptable when they'll be repeated thousands of times.

I'm going to be fixing them up live on stream and spending a ton of time on every... laborious... detail. Warning, the stream will be incredibly technical and may be dull or boring to those of you who don't find engineering interesting. If you're an audio geek like me, though, you may wish to check it out.

See you at 6, if that sounds like your bag!

We did it. PIECES is happening.
almost 9 years ago – Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 08:09:35 PM

Holy cow. I was ready to go with a concession speech. I was ready to write up a post acknowledging that maybe I had made something too weird, too different, to succeed, and thank you all for your interest regardless.

Then with thirty seconds left, a large contingent of backers arbitrarily increased their pledges to make it happen, including one very generous backer who poured in the last two thousand. I don't know how to describe the amount of gratitude I feel right now to all of you. I'm just randomly screaming over here, literally. I'm typing and every few minutes a giant AAAAH escapes my lips.

It means a lot to me that so many of you showed up at the last minute to make this happen. I also know, though, that with many of you deliberately overpledging at the last minute, it's clear you think very highly of me and expect the best. I will not let you down.

This overall storyline is going to be just the right amount of mysterious. Generally solvable, but with details that surprise for endless listens afterward.

The individual stories themselves will make you laugh and cry depending on what segments you get.

The album within an album songs will tease you in the radio until you get to enjoy them in full at the conclusion of the project.

The music will vary from copy to copy and you will find unintended meaning in the randomized and algorithmically generated passages such as the nondeterministic hip hop, blues, rock, funk, and more.

Timeline for what happens next

Over the next two weeks, funds are collected (aka your cards are charged).

At the conclusion of two weeks, I receive the funds and Backerkit surveys will go out where you specify your rewards and choose shipping information.

Immediately, art director Jeff Good commissions twice as much artwork as we already have, to complete out the art book.

The album is about half done. (There are four tracks of 10:30 each, remember, one per side of vinyl). Track 1, Paces: 90% done. Track 2, Pisces: ~75% done. Track 3, Passes: ~50% done. Track 4, Peaces: ~25% done. So I need to finish out the remaining music. This will take about two months of creative work, roughly speaking.

Late January-ish, I'll have finished The First Piece. It goes in stores then. It is delivered to everybody. The First Piece will contain mostly tantalizing passages but not that many overall story clues. Vinyl production begins.

Once 100% of the art has been returned to Art Director Jeff Good, book production begins.

Over the next six months or so, I record ninety one individually numbered copies of the album. (I wish I could change the title of the Kickstarter from "a thousand albums at the end of america" to "ninety one albums at the end of america", but they don't let you do that.)

Around late summer, hopefully, I begin sending out digitals, in the order of backer number.

Individual, unique vinyls go to production around when their unique backer number is fulfilled.

When the last individual copy is fulfilled, the Album Within An Album comes out, and you can finally hear the glorious full versions of the tracks that have been teased within the radio.

Let's see what distributed storytelling can do. Let's see if the idea of "a work of art that is experienced differently across listeners" is the future.

Oh, and let's see what happened to America.

Final 48 Hours! Preview of Track 3, "Passes"
almost 9 years ago – Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 04:27:20 PM

Here we go, into the final 48 hours of Pieces. The project has come a long way since we launched, but it's not funded yet; that said, stranger things have happened than a Kickstarter project funding in the final 48 hours- it's actually quite common- so let's get excited and come together to help put Pieces over the finish line!

Even as it stands, I'm so thankful and humbled that 151 people want to take the plunge into this bold Distributed Storytelling experiment with me!

This is a great time to mention: if you're at the $25 tier, consider looking at a $69 "unique" tier. The "Unique Album" experience is what sets Pieces apart from all conventional music ever produced, and it's the way it ought to be enjoyed!

Review of "Paces" and "Pisces"

Two weeks ago, we heard a complete export of the mostly-finished "Paces", the first track of the album. It's cold, distant, features the radio simulator and hip hop generator, and is composed of piano, noise, and synths.

Then, last week, we heard a preview of the mostly-finished "Pisces", the second track of the album. It's warm, organic, and features the algorithmically created church choir passage and algorithmically generated blues track.

Previewing "Passes"

Now, enjoy a partial preview of the half-finished third track of the album, "Passes". "Passes" begins formless and ambient but becomes rock-focused, and we hear three different people distributing information as the apocalypse sets in. First, Elisa's "Educator's Tape", when things are just getting started; then, Ryan's "Scoutmaster's Tape" as things worsen; then, Laura Bailey's "President's Tape" as things truly fall apart. Bass lines provided by an algorithm that was trained by Geoff Boulden.

"Passes" is probably my favorite track of the album so far. The rock section can come out so many different ways. On some renders, the riffs are reminiscent of Rage Against The Machine; on others, Cake; on others, Red Hot Chili Peppers. Very, very cool.

Here's to a successful final funding push!