The $5+ Patreon rewards are out: "Sonnet For A Spider Girl" (Mp3, WAV + Art) + a title and artwork reveal (with story) from Jabun's upcoming 3rd album for the $10+ patrons!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a good start to 2021! It's the final Wednesday of the month which means it's time for some $5 and $10 Patreon rewards, and with last year's Jabun album out to the world (completing the current Jabun discography), it's time to go waaay back and explore some of my classic tracks as plain old Nick Standing!

This month it's my very first acoustic solo track: "Sonnet For A Spider Girl"! Released on Halloween 2012 (before even the very first Jabun track but not before the first Better Than The Book demo), this song is a love ballad for my greatest childhood fear! The lyrics are pretty self explanatory and as expected my production has improved a tonne since this was released (unlike my drawing or handwriting) so the mixing/mastering isn't to today's standard, but it's a trip down memory lane which always brings a smile to me, and I hope it does to you too! If you're an arachnophobic, I hope this changes your mind even if just a little!

Listen to Sonnet For A Spider Girl on Bandcamp:

https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/track/sonnet-for-a-spider-girl

For the $10+ patrons, you've also got an exclusive sneak peek at this year's upcoming 3rd Jabun album to look forward to (aiming to release in the spring) with a cover artwork reveal and story as well as a title reveal! Become a $10+ patron to access that and many more rewards now, and remember that you'll gain access to all historic rewards and posts for your Patreon tier too when you become a supporter including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies and much more! With the newly updated REWARD ARCHIVE it's never been easier to catch up with all those posts and music downloads you've missed too! I hope you enjoy them!

Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Discover the Reward Archive: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

That's it for this month's rewards! Next time we'll be continuing with the Nick Standing song back catalogue with 2 shorter tracks, one of which I've already mentioned here on Patreon! Until then, I hope you have a great February to come and thanks as always for supporting my music, Jabun, and Better Than The Book on Patreon! Take care and I'll see you in the next one!

Hmm, had to digging just to make sure, but you're right, just those two so far. Had my Dream Flow and After Summer Stuff ones included earlier as well, all these mentions combined I guess it's been feeling like a whole lotta more features than it really was. XD A few opportunities for further mutual collab inclusions too then hmm, not too hopeful about the earliest ones getting showcase space, wonder if they'd work well in a mix, but there is that one BTTB feature too hmm, and whatever the future holds now! Good to know.

Timed the new page just perfectly with this one! :D Beautiful song too...

Cheers CD :D

Ah nice about those other features (well done!) and too true with all the mentions XD Indeed only time will tell! We'll have to wait and see :D

Keep waiting yet keep making good music, that's the way. ;)

HUGE NEWS: The Save The Ska Show fundraising compilation album has been released featuring 64 bands including Better Than The Book! Let's save The Ska Show with Beefy together!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great weekend so far! Following the big announcement earlier this week, I'm super pleased to tell you that the Save The Ska Show compilation album has just been released! Featuring 64 ska bands from around the world in all sorts of ska flavours, this album will act as a fundraiser to help keep the great Ska Show with Beefy (proudly the 2nd most listened to Ska music show in the world) broadcasting during these crazy times. You'll even recognise my own contribtuion to the album on track 62: Better Than The Book's The Hardest Part! Check out the full album on bandcamp below and I hope you enjoy it!

https://theskashowwithbeefy.bandcamp.com/releases

It's been an absolute honour to be part of this fundraising compilation (the first EVER compilation album I've been a part of in fact), and if you're a lover of ska music and/or the show, then that's 64 tracks from around the world for as little as 12 Australian Dollars (not even £7), with the option to donate more if you wish. Let's keep the skanking going and save this great show!

That's it for the news today and I'll be back on Wednesday for some more $1+ Patreon rewards! Until then, I hope you have a great weekend ahead, and thanks as always for supporting my music and all the things related to it in any way you can! Take care and keep on skankin'!

It's pretty crazy how elaborate an album you get for that price :) Let's keep the vibe alive and the Ska the vibe!!!

Seems your track worked pretty well with the rest of 'em too, and stood out in a good way too, so many with that more traditional/very recognizable I assume somewhat more basic instrumental Ska pattern to them.

I think it works less than 20p per track which ain't half bad at all XD On behalf of Beefy, a big thanks for the support! Indeed "The Hardest Part" is definitley in the more ska-punk camp (empahsis on the punk) rather than the traditional ska side of things. Nice contrast indeed, but all good! Cheers :D

Good to see I'm not the only one who types that one wrong occasionally. XD

For sure, all the better because of it but there definitely wasn't any bad track included otherwise either. :) Some interesting other bridges of genre too, the folk/country influence with Ska in particular was new to me. And Brazilian! XD Among others. Some very new vibes herein...

Seems like a cool thing to be a part of. Playing along with the diversest of adversaries there.

Well there is a lot of crossover between subgenres so it's not always super clear cut unless you comparing extreme differences (like 60s vs 3rd wave for instance where it's definied by era), so no worries there XD Indeed to the best of my knowledge there is a big ska/skapunk community in South America so wouldn't surprise me the intertwining of cultures :) It's shame there isn't any Japanese ska on the album as I love that stuff! A destinc flavour :)

Hehe, I prefer to think of everyone as a community rather than adversaries but rivalries to be expected I suppose XD Cheers!

Ah didn't know that! :D Maybe makes sense with the culture, a lot more brass in general with music there too. Real exotic though if you haven't listened in before.

And that would've been even more so! :D So much stuff yet left to explore... thought 'A destinc flavour' might've been a band name for a moment there. XD Wonder if you might've linked to some J-Ska earlier though now that you mention it, seems possibly a bit more familiar...

Competition's what keeps the challenge and self-betterment alive though hmm. ;) But for sure, a creative community that fuels all with mutual musical unity and strife for incremental mastery, that does sound even better.

True too! I guess with the very nature of (certainly almost everything beyond traditional) ska being a fusion genre of sorts, it makes sense that it would to lead to even MORE fusion down the line with all the cultural cross pollination :) Fun times!

Haha! That'd be a great band/album/song name :D I must've sent you some ORESKABAND at some point at the very least? I'm sure they'll be familiar if you search on YouTube :)

Too true again! XD Such is the fine ballance of challenge and support for growth!

Mmm that makes sense yeah!

Yeaaah i do recognize that name! :D Most certainly, though still haven't delved into their discography enough it seems...

True that.

Tsumasaki, Pinocchio, Carry On and What A Wonderful World are great places to start (and various nods on the other comments) :) Enjoy!

Thank you! :D Adding to my listenlist...

Woot woot!

The $1+ Patreon rewards are out: "Sonnet For A Spider Girl" (Mp3 + Art) + a title and artwork reveal (with story) from Jabun's upcoming 3rd album for the $10+ patrons!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a good start to 2021! It's the first Wednesday of the month which means it's time for some $1 Patreon rewards, and with last year's Jabun album out to the world (completing the current Jabun discography), it's time to go waaay back and explore some of my classic tracks as plain old Nick Standing!

This month it's my very first acoustic solo track: "Sonnet For A Spider Girl"! Released on Halloween 2012 (before even the very first Jabun track but not before the first Better Than The Book demo), this song is a love ballad for my greatest childhood fear! The lyrics are pretty self explanatory and as expected my production has improved a tonne since this was released (unlike my drawing or handwriting) so the mixing/mastering isn't to today's standard, but it's a trip down memory lane which always brings a smile to me, and I hope it does to you too! If you're an arachnophobic, I hope this changes your mind even if just a little!

Listen to Sonnet For A Spider Girl on Bandcamp: https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/track/sonnet-for-a-spider-girl

For the $10+ patrons, you've also got an exclusive sneak peek at this year's upcoming 3rd Jabun album to look forward to (aiming to release in the spring) with a cover artwork reveal and story as well as a title reveal! Become a $10+ patron to access that and many more rewards now, and remember that you'll gain access to all historic rewards and posts for your Patreon tier too when you become a supporter including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies and much more! With the newly updated REWARD ARCHIVE it's never been easier to catch up with all those posts and music downloads you've missed too! I hope you enjoy them!

Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Discover the Reward Archive: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

That's it for this month's rewards! Next time we'll be continuing with the Nick Standing song back catalogue with 2 shorter tracks, one of which I've already mentioned here on Patreon! Until then, I hope you have a great February to come and thanks as always for supporting my music, Jabun, and Better Than The Book! Take care and I'll see you in the next one!

It's the first Bandcamp Friday of 2021! Go pick up the Save The Ska Show fundraising compilation!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to February!

Today is the first Bandcamp Friday of 2021 and if you're not familiar with what that means: in support of musicians impacted by the coronavirus, Bandcamp is waiving its revenue share fees on the first Friday of the month from midnight to midnight Pacific Time (that's today) for Bandcamp Friday! That means that if you purchase anything from Bandcamp this Friday 5th of February, the artists you support (including myself) will get more of the sales revenue than usual since Bandcamp doesn't take its cut, and you'll be able to support the music you love more directly than ever on the platform! More information below:

https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-fridays-2021

And if you're unsure whether it's Bandcamp Friday in your timezone, it's easy to check here:

https://isitbandcampfriday.com/

It's the first Bandcamp Friday since the release of Jabun's new 15-4-20 album, so if you've been itching to pick up some ambient vibes, head over to Bandcamp via the links below! It's also the 5 year anniversary of Better Than The Book's debut full-length album Two Years On tomorrow (man how time has flown), so maybe you'd like to add that or Hopes and Dreams to your basket? 

My basket this month has been filled with the new Save The Ska Show compilation album by The Ska Show with Beefy, 64 donated tracks from ska bands of all flavours around the world to help keep the 2nd most listened to ska radio show in the world on the air, following financial difficulties due to the covid disruptions! It's a great compilation which I'm honoured to have been a part of (check out track 62), so if you want to help save an amazing ska radio show now is the best time to do so, and I'm sure it would make Beefy's day! Let's save this amazing ska show together!

Check out the Bandcamp pages below and thanks again for supporting my music or Beefy's show in any way you can, it really means a lot:

Better Than The Book (ska punk)

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/

Jabun (ambient electronic)

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/

Nick Standing (< The sillier old stuff)

https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/

Save The Ska Show

https://theskashowwithbeefy.bandcamp.com/releases

That's it for today, but I'm sure I'll be back with some more news soon! Until the next one, I hope you have a great weekend ahead filled with great music and thanks again! Take care!

My Patreon page was featured in The Tank Tribune No. 30 here on Newgrounds.com!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to the week! A quick cool press feature to share with you today as my Patreon page was featured in The Tank Tribune Newspaper here on Newgrounds.com! Check it out and a huge thanks to @TheTankTribune for the plug!

https://thetanktribune.newgrounds.com/news/post/1142472

If you're reading this and haven't done so yet, then come join me on Patreon for as little as $1 and get the full Better Than The Book & Jabun discographies (and much more) when you sign up to support my music for monthly rewards; it really helps me out to keep making all these tunes! Thanks for the love and hope to see you there!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And for a big list of all the past rewards you'll have access to when you sign up, check out the reward archive below I put together for the convenience of new patrons! There's a TONNE of stuff:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

That's it for this post, and I'm sure I'll be busy until the next one preparing for the release of Jabun's 3rd album in spring! Until then I hope you have a great time to come and thanks as always for suporting my music in all the ways you can. All the best and take care!

Nice, Congrats again! :D

Cheers CD :D

The $5+ Patreon rewards are out: "Mr. Knife" and "I Won't Eat My Broccoli!!!" (Mp3s, WAVs + Art) + another sneak peek demo from Better Than The Book's next album for the $10+ patrons!

$5 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45792428

$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45792387

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great February so far! It's the final Wednesday of the month which means it's time for some more $5 and $10 Patreon rewards and this time I have not one, but TWO classic Nick Standing songs to share with you (including some extra bonus content as well)!

Let's start with the earlier and lesser known of these two, a parody VERY rough punk rock song called "I Won't Eat My Broccoli!!!"! This was originally released on the same day as Sonnet For A Spider Girl: Halloween 2012 (according to the earliest dates I could find), and really was just me messing around recording for an afternoon to experiment (as I recall) with my newly homemade Super Fuzz pedal (which you'll be able to hear the bass guitar blasting though on this, as well as in some of my other discography)! I also wanted to try out getting some valve saturation and grit on the vocals which were recorded though my Korg ESX sampler for extra character. It was a fun afternoon with a silly song to show for it. Call me a phoney too, but full disclosure: I actually LOVE broccoli (probably one of my favourite veg), but those were the words which came to mind that afternoon, and so it's history now! The track was remastered for a Bandcamp release on May 7th 2014 and I've included both the original legacy version as well as the remaster as rewards for your enjoyment. Hope you enjoy a little silliness and you can listen to I Won't Eat My Broccoli!!! (the remaster) on Bandcamp:

https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/track/i-wont-eat-my-broccoli

And speaking of silliness, we come to the next track which was released just one day after the IWEMB remaster on May 8th 2014: Mr. Knife! I've spoken about Mr. Knife in previous posts and for some reason, this Tiny Tim style track which was omitted from the original animation it was commissioned for has become one of my most popular tracks to date (I have no idea why)! To save some space on this already long post, you can read more about the creation of Mr. Knife on the 3rd part of this fantastic interview I took part in on Newgrounds which covers many aspects of my music philosophy and history and is my most detailed interview to date! Read more below:

https://theinterviewer.newgrounds.com/news/post/1119990

And I hope you enjoy the one and only Mr. Knife! Grab it as a reward on Patreon or listen below on Newgrounds & Bandcamp:

https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/track/mr-knife

For the $10+ patrons, you've also got an exclusive sneak peek demo from the next Better Than The Book album to look forward to! Become a $10+ patron to access that and many more rewards now, and remember that you'll gain access to all historic rewards and posts for your Patreon tier too when you become a supporter including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies and much more! With the newly updated REWARD ARCHIVE it's never been easier to catch up with all those posts and music downloads you've missed too! I hope you enjoy them!

Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Discover the Reward Archive: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

That about wraps up the rewards for this time! The next set of rewards will likely be a bit early and coincide with the announcement and preorder launch for Jabun's upcoming 3rd album, but until then, I hope you have a great March to come and thanks as always for supporting my music, Jabun, and Better Than The Book! Take care and I can't wait to show you my latest tracks as Jabun!

The $1+ Patreon rewards are out: "Mr. Knife" and "I Won't Eat My Broccoli!!!" (Mp3s + Art) + another sneak peek demo from Better Than The Book's next album for the $10+ patrons!

It's the 1st Wednesday of the month which means it's time for some more $1+ Patreon rewards and this month we're going waaay back again to 2014 for 2 classic Nick Standing tracks: "Mr. Knife" and "I Won't Eat My Broccoli!!!".

I'll also be sharing another exclusive sneak peek demo from Better Than The Book's upcoming album with the $10+ patrons! Read more about everything below and become a patron to download the tracks as well as my entire Patreon back catalogue so far (including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun Discographies and many Patreon exclusives). I hope you enjoy them all!

Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45792424/​

$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/45792426/

Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Discover the Reward Archive: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

It's Bandcamp Friday again!

Hi everyone and I'm sure you know the drill by now: today is Bandcamp Friday!

Building on the success of last year's campaign to support musicians impacted by the coronavirus, Bandcamp is again waiving its revenue share fees on the first Friday of the month from midnight to midnight Pacific Time (that's today) for Bandcamp Friday! That means that if you purchase anything from Bandcamp this Friday 5th of March, the artists you support (including myself) will get more of the sales revenue than usual since Bandcamp doesn't take its cut, and you'll be able to support the music you love more directly than ever on the platform!

If you've been itching to pick up Jabun's recent "15-4-20" or debut "Daydream" albums, Better Than The Book's "Hopes and Dreams" or "Two Years On" albums or last month's Save The Ska Show compilation album, now's the best time to do so! Check out the Bandcamp pages below and thanks again for supporting my music in any way you can, it really means a lot:

Better Than The Book

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/

Jabun

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/

Nick Standing (< The sillier old stuff)

https://nickstanding.bandcamp.com/

Save The Ska Show:

https://theskashowwithbeefy.bandcamp.com/releases

And if you're not sure whether it's Bandcamp Friday in your time-zone, you can check using the tool right here:

https://isitbandcampfriday.com/

That's it for today's post and I'll be back next week to announce Jabun's upcoming 3rd album set to release in April! Exciting times ahead, but until then, I hope you have a great weekend to come, enjoy the music, and thanks as always for supporting my projects in any way you can. All the best, take care and happy Bandcamp Friday!

First time with a cover now! Nice visual amplification of offer there.

Cheers, CD! Thought I'd try something new this time :)

Always do appreciate some true; fresh new newness!

Announcing Jabun's 3rd album "Generation Supernova" (releasing April 15th 2021)! Artwork revealed, pre-orders and pre-release single coming next week + a tonne of Patreon rewards are out in celebration including full early access to the album now for $5+ patrons!

Hi everyone and hope you’re having a great March so far! Some super exciting news to share with you today as following my improvised, semi-live, ambient and experimental 2nd album as Jabun – 15-4-20 (released December 2020), I announce my next experimental studio album as Jabun – Generation Supernova which will be released on the 1st anniversary of 15-4-20's recording: April 15th 2021!

In the last few months of 2019, I started writing and gathering demos for what I’d hoped would be Jabun’s 2nd album, a continuation to my debut album Daydream in style which even included some repurposed ideas from those writing sessions back in 2016-17. It was an amazing feeling to be back to Jabun after all these years and I really couldn’t get enough of composing all this new music! At the start of 2020 however I had a week or so of being awfully ill, the worst I’ve felt in years, though this was before the whole COVID-19 situation really hit the UK. Lying in bed for the best part of a week, I was itching to keep composing and thought to myself “Boy would it be nice if the music just kind of wrote itself?” With no physical energy and nothing better to do, I spent my waking hours browsing the internet and researching and eventually stumbled upon, and fell down the rabbit hole of, the topic of “generative music”, the works of Brian Eno, Steve Reich, generative modular synthesis, Turing machines and more. It was an exciting and unknown world to me, and as soon as I was fit as a fiddle again, I was straight back to the studio to put some of the ideas I’d learnt into action!

The result was the first demo for a track which would eventually become Deep Space, track 2 on this album. Deep Space didn’t really fit in with the other demos I’d been working on at the time, and as I continued writing a mixture of generative ambient explorations alongside my more traditional Jabun works, eventually 4 generative pieces stood out from the others to form their own album which was soon titled Generation Supernova. Around this time I also had the inspiring semi-live ambient explorative evening session which would become the 15-4-20 album, and the rest of the year was spend polishing these 2 projects while I continued to write further demos as Jabun.

Generation Supernova is a 37+ minute collection of 4 tracks exploring generative music methods in the studio. Each track utilises a carefully designed system set up to generate a never-repeating and ever evolving soundscape which was conducted and guided to build an emotional and developing journey from the first note to the last.

Generation Supernova was a fun and rewarding exploration into generative music methods, with each piece very much the result of the unexpected fruits of conducted chaotic experiments in the studio, much like the 15-4-20 album. Whether you sit down to listen intently, have it on in the background while doing something else, or simply immerse yourself in the sounds, I hope you enjoy these semi-ambient, generative experimental soundscapes, from the strange early months of 2020.

The photo for the album artwork was taken looking out of the living room window from the flat in Rotherham where I was based in 2017-19. I’d been meaning to use this picture for another Jabun album ever since I took it, but I didn’t end up working on any Jabun during that time and the photo finally felt right for Generation Supernova. This Jabun album is the first where the cover photo wasn’t taken in the town where the album was completed.

With just over a month to go until “Generation Supernova” releases to the public on April 15th at 8pm BST, there’s an exciting few things happening before then! Pre-orders will be opening next Monday exactly 1 month before on March 15th at 8pm (GMT), along with the release of the pre-release single for the album “Turing Machine” which will be premiering on the HurpADervish YouTube Channel at the moment of launch! Tune in below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXiy8MPAlk

Of course my supporters on Patreon have lots of rewards to look forward to in celebration of this new album launch!

For the $1 patrons, you’re getting the full resolution album art today, as well as an mp3 download of the pre-release single “Turing Machine” when it’s released on March 15th, and of course the full mp3 album and all the additional artwork and bonus materials when they're released on April 15th! 

$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46779655/

For the $5 & $10 patrons, you’re getting early access to the full album download package today! All 4 tracks (Mp3 & WAVs) and all artwork including a high resolution scan of the original handwritten Turing Machine Generation Manuscript! For the $10 patrons, you’ll also be getting an exclusive unreleased Jabun demo from the writing sessions of 2019/2020!

$5 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46779658/

$10 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/46779661/

If any of that sounds good to you, then become a patron today for as little as $1 a month and remember that you’ll be also getting access to all past rewards for your tier including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies, many Patreon exclusive bonus tracks and more! I hope to see you there!

Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Explore past rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44575319

That's all the rewards for today and I hope you’re as excited as I am for the single launch on Monday 15th March! Until then I hope you have a great week chilling to the new music, see you for the premier, and thanks as always for supporting Jabun and my various projects however you can! Take care and all the best!

Another full-length album seemingly out of the blue too! :O Interesting. I like the cover, the motive seems a little Asian, text placement/style a bit like traditional Chinese calligraphy, bright/warm colors in back and all, reminds me of some possibly museum motives I've seen but can't really recall in detail or origin of... intriguing design.

Intriguing story too. Intrigued to hear this. The thing I'm still intrigued about after reading is the name itself, any particular inspirations behind the title? Seems the generation bit may be fueled by the generative style, but the supernova? Reminds me of a particular user here with similar name hmm, probably coincidence but curious if there's any intentional inspirations there.

Looking forward to this! Hope it sounds as good as it looks.