It's been another busy and exciting week at JabunAudio, and although this blog post probably won't be too long there's a couple of cool and exciting things to share! Most of the week was spent finishing off this track below as well as working on Episode 14 of Yu-Gi-Oh! which is well on the way to completion, but will be taking a backseat for a moment as I'm already ahead of schedule and another awesome project has come my way! More on that later, but first lets get onto the main news for this week.

Firstly, I'm super happy to be able to finally share the intro music I was commissioned to make for Nathan Puray's upcoming show "Starting Point". As mentioned previously in Nathan's own word's, the show will be a series of interviews with upcoming creatives including artists, animators, musicians, and voiceover artists, and will be a sort-of spotlight and discussion to help get the word out about their work and craft! It's been a pleasure working with Nathan again (last time was on Hikarian Animations' Tales of Zale Episode 2), and while the actual show is still a little wait away, I've been given permission to share the intro music as a little teaser for what's to come! Hope you enjoy it and I'll be sure to share the first episode of the show comes out too!

 Artwork by Nathan Puray. Be sure to follow him on Twitter for more great artwork and to keep up with his projects!

Next this week, I had an amazing surprise when I received an email out of the blue from Red Dog Music (a UK music shop and web blog which I follow) saying that my projects Jabun and Better than The Book had been chosen as this week's Sunday Spotlight featured artist! It seems like ages ago when I registered my interest of taking part in their blog and it's an honour to have been chosen as their artist of the week. You can read the short interview I did with them on their blog here. It covers a little about my musical history, but as expected of the blog of a music shop is mostly about gear (which is equally as exciting!). Hope you enjoy reading it and thanks again to Red Dog Music to inviting me to take part!

Read the interview here: http://blog.reddogmusic.co.uk/2017/02/26/sunday-spotlight-jabun/

​Finally this week, a glimpse of what's to come next! After much success on the Fun Station 4 Kids YouTube Channel, my first ever post-production job "The Three Little Raptors and the Big Bad Tyrannosaurus Rex" is finally getting an amazing sequel! I can't reveal anything at the moment (and that would be spoilers anyhow), but animation is complete, and (most of) the audio is in front of me to mix, add to and do my magic on! I'm so excited to share this magnificent animation with you soon and in the mean time feel free to check out the other Fun Station 4 Kids animations on YouTube! Hope you enjoy them!

That's it for this week! The week to come is sure to be filled with more animation work (the new FS4Ks animation and Yu-Gi-Oh!), and maybe even some other exciting stuff will happen! The world is a mysterious and unpredictable place, so we shall see what happens. Until then, I hope you enjoy the new track and interview and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and all my projects. Hope you have a great week and take care!

It's been a super busy couple of weeks and a belated apology for the unexpected lack of blog post last Friday. You can read last week's short update on Facebook here, though to summarise: it was mainly spent working on Yu-Gi-Oh!, my old track "Mayhem Market" got licensed for an exciting game (details to come) , and my new flat had some bird problems which unlike last time have been fixed now! Not a lot to share this week in terms of media, as it's been a working-on-stuff rather than a finishing-off-stuff kind of week, but there's still a lot of exciting news to tell! Lets get to it!

Firstly this week, only a few days remain to grab a 20% discount on anything on the Better Than The Book Bandcamp page using the code "2YEARSON". As I've mentioned before, this was part of the Two Years On first anniversary celebration, which also included the release of the Two Years On [Instrumentals] bonus album, and the launch of the BTTB newsletter, both of which have been warmly received. A big thanks to everyone for their comments and replies to the newsletter as well as their reviews of various tracks on Newgrounds. There's been some amazing feedback and it's certainly kept celebration spirits high this month! The discount codes expire at the very end of February (11:59pm on the 28th) so be sure to grab some music before it rises back to full price in March. I hope whichever album you pick inspires and motivates you to greater things, and I look forward to sharing some more BTTB with you very soon!

Next this week, more Yu-Gi-Oh! news! Not too much to say here, but episode 12 is all finished, submitted and waiting for approval, and in the mean time I've started working on episode 14 which is looking equally as exciting! I've also witnessed the first sneak peek of the dub which has been super cool, though I've still no confirmed dates to share on when it'll be available to watch. I'll keep you updated as best I can, and in the mean time, I imagine next week is going to be mainly focused on episode 14! Fun times!

Onto the main attraction for this week, following our work together on Tales of Zale and after discovering Better Than The Book, Nathan Puray (one of the animators for Tales of Zale Episode 2) invited me to create the intro music for his new show "Starting Point"! In his own words, the show will be a series of interviews with upcoming creatives including artists, animators, musicians, and voiceover artists, and will be a sort-of spotlight and discussion to help get the word out about their work and craft! I'm super excited to see the show come out, and it's been an amazing week busting out guitar licks and slappin' da bass for this short pseudo-J-rock piece which I can't wait to show you! I'm just awaiting approval on the final masters, then it'll be onto the usual admin / art work before the track is released (hopefully) mid-March! There's a distinct possibility you may see me on there at some point in the future, but we'll see! A huge thanks to Nathan for inviting me onto the project. It's been a blast, and I look forward to sharing all I can with you all soon!

Finally this week, just a round-up of the other news for updates and upcoming projects. The Jabun album has kinda been on hold for a few weeks due to the sudden rush of freelance work and while I hope to get back to it very soon, I can't specify when that'll be unfortunately. As a reminder to its current state, everything has been finished in terms of composing and recording, and the album's just waiting on a final mix and master (so not much left to do audio-wise) + the usual art / admin etc... I'm hoping to get back to it at some point in March depending on how other work is going and I'll keep you all updated as to what's going on whatever happens. Next and finally, Fun Station 4 Kids has been brewing up a fantastic sequel to the much loved 3 Little Raptors story, and current progress says that the animation is at 95% completion (all aboard the hype train!)! It's been a long time in the works for this one, but having seen some of the results already I am stoked to share this with you all when it's done. I'm due to begin audio work on it in March, which probably means a release around Easter time (though that's purely a guess), but one things for sure, it's gonna be a fun one! Stay tuned for more updates on that soon!

That's about it for this week and it's only set to stay busy through into next week! Current predictions are that I'll be finishing off work for the "Starting Point" intro while working on Episode 14 of Yu-Gi-Oh!, and maybe starting on the 3 Little Raptors sequel too if possible? Busy but fun times, and I'll be sure to share what I've been up to in next week's blog post. Until then, remember it's only a few days left to grab a discount on bandcamp (code: "2YEARSON"), hope you have a great week whatever you're up to and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and all my other projects. See you next week and take care! 

It's been one heck of a busy week, firstly with the release of the Two Years On anniversary bonus album, then with some exciting Yu-Gi-Oh! animation work. I was hoping to get some mixing done for the Jabun album, but alas other things took over my schedule somewhat. It's no rush finish things up though, so no worries, I should be back to it soon. All in all, a lot to tell and celebrate this week so lets get to it!

Firstly and the main bit of news this week, on Monday one year ago, Better Than The Book released its debut full length album, Two Years On, and since then as you've probably read already, it’s been an amazing adventure for myself and BTTB! We’ve had our first international radio play, our first interviews, and the first use BTTB music in people’s videos, amongst many other cool things. As well as being a pivoting point in my career, both as a musician and as a producer /engineer, Two Years On has also shown me what a difference music can make to people’s lives. When I first released it, I did not expect all the amazing feedback, touching comments and people reaching out that followed shortly afterwards, and I want to thank you all soo much for all of that support!

So exactly one year on as announced previously, I’ve released a little bonus album to celebrate! I know I've teased it a bit over the last month,  but now I can finally unveil the new BTTB bonus album: "Two Years On [Instrumentals]". It’s essentially exactly how it sounds: The Two Years On album, but without any vocals (and “Channel Surfing” which pretty much would be a minute of silence without vocals!). As a musician, I really love being able to jam over other people’s tracks, but it’s not too easy to find instrumental versions of a lot of songs, so I thought it’d be a cool and simple thing to do to celebrate such a great year for Better Than The Book. You can find Two Years On [Instrumentals] on the Better Than The Book Bandcamp page, and as with all BTTB, it’ll be on Soundcloud, YouTube, and Newgrounds for your streaming pleasure! I'm also pleased to announce that the new album has been approved for worldwide distribution and is available on iTunes, Amazon, and more, as well as streaming on the Dozmia App, Spotify and many more places. I Hope you enjoy the bonus album and that it satisfies your Ska-punk hunger until the next time I hit the studio! Thanks so much again for all your support, and without further delay I present to you, Two Years On [Instrumentals]!

Better Than The Book
- Two Years On [Instrumentals]-
​

BUT of course, I’d like to say an even bigger thanks to you all reading this for showing a special interest in BTTB and supporting me directly, and so to express my gratitude, for the whole month of February there’ll be a 20% discount for anything you purchase on the BTTB bandcamp page! Just use the discount code “2YEARSON” and you should be all set, and I hope whichever music you choose gets you motivated and ready to take on the world and spread some inspiration!

Also, if you'd like to use any Better Than The Book (or my other music) in your productions and media, please feel free to message me and we can try to sort something out.

Carrying on with the Better Than The Book theme, to help announce the celebration of the Two Years On anniversary, Better Than The Book also launched a newsletter, with the first post going out on Monday along with the album release. This is something I've debated doing for a long time, and with such a big celebration, I finally felt it was a good time to start it! So far I've had some wonderful replies and comments, so it seems safe to say that it'll be something worth continuing in the future. I'm not currently sure how often I'll be posting them out, but I'd love to know your thoughts on what you'd like to hear from a BTTB newsletter: Stories behind the songs? Recording methods? General news? and hopefully I'll be able to make it a more regular thing soon! The newsletter is still in its infancy, so while I get a proper system set up, feel free to sign up by using the JabunAudio message form, and I'll add you to the list! For those joining, I'll be upgrading that previously mentioned discount to 30% by sending you an exclusive code to use! Looking forward to hearing from you and I hope you enjoy the posts!

Next this week, Fun Station 4 Kids has yet another celebration as their debut animation "The Dinosaur Alphabet" hits a whopping 9 MILLION views on YouTube! This was the first animation I worked on with FS4Ks, and it's crazy to see it achieve such lofty numbers since it all began! A huge congrats to Fun Station 4 Kids on this huge achievement (just 1 million away from the big  8 figures!) and looking forward to working with you on the next animation very soon!

Finally this week, I'm excited to announce that after some delays, Yu-Gi-Oh! is back on the cards (heheh!)! Things were a little up in the air for the project in January, but I'm pleased to say it looks like we're back on track. Not only that, but I've been assigned 2 more episodes to work on too (episodes 12 and 14, along with the previous 8 (Done), 16, 24 and movie)! Episode 12 has been the main focus of this week's work and is taking shape well, and I expect to finish it in time for the next blog post before moving onto episode 14 shortly afterwards. As far as I know, the plan is still for the series to start airing in April, though I've yet to be given exact details on that. I'll keep you updated as the situation unfolds, and while that goes on, I'll keep working hard to provide a suitable soundscape! Exciting times!

That's it for this week! I imagine it's going to stay busy for a while, as in addition to the projects I've mentioned above, I've had some other exciting propositions cross my way this week too! Looking forward to sharing news of those as and when they're concrete and for the moment, I'll be concentrating on finishing off this Yu-Gi-Oh! episode! Until next week, I hope you all have a great time, enjoy the new album and as always, thanks so much for supporting, JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and all my projects! See you next week, and take care!

It's been a super hectic week finishing off recording for the Jabun album and preparing for the next week's Better Than The Book bonus album launch (amongst other things), but there sure is a lot of cool stuff to tell and share this week! Hold on to your hats because this one's going to be an exciting one. Lets get straight to it!

First of all, I'm super pleased to announce that writing and recording for the debut Jabun album (which is still in need of a final title), has been completed! Sessions have been sorted ready for a final mix and master and all that's left to do apart from that is decide on an album title, sort out artwork and of course do the truckload of background admin tasks needed to properly release music on the market. I can't tell you how excited I am to share this with you, and with over 12 years being Jabun online (and 5 years since the first Jabun electronic chill track (Free to download btw!)), it feels like this electronic / orchestral / chill album is well overdue and a landmark point in my development as a composer and producer! I can't give you an exact run-time just yet, as tracks have yet to be trimmed in the mastering stage, but I can tell you that the album will be approximately 42 minutes long in total. I'm also super excited to share with you as promised, the final track-list for the album! No ETA quite yet on the release date, but I hope to have the audio side of things finished by the end of February (depending on how other things fit in my work schedule), and a release in March or April! Hope you're excited as I am to hear it, and without further wait, here is the final track-list for the album!

                    01 Dreaming (Parts I - III)
                    02 Morning
                    03 The Grind
                    04 Distance
                    05 Daydream
              -----------------------------------------------------
                    06 Anxiety
                    07 Palindrome
                    08 Home
                    09 Evening
                    10 Dreaming (Parts IV - VI)

Get ready to chill!

Next on this week's news: more updates from Better Than The Book! Of course this coming Monday is when BTTB drops it's anniversary bonus album to celebrate 1 year since the release of "Two Years On" (and a great year it's been!), but there's also more news to share from my beloved Ska-punk project! In the spirit of spreading the work, the Two Years On album and One Small Step EP are now available to stream via the Dozmia music app! I'm not too sure about the inner workings of it all, but essentially it's an app for listening to and being recommended new music based on the music you've been listening to, and I'm super excited to share BTTB to an even wider audience and motivate more people with my music. Of course I'll be adding the new bonus album to the Dozmia library too after it's released, so expect to see that up there too by the end of next week! Hope you enjoy it and get ready for Monday!

Next, a bit of sort-of sad news to report. As feared for a while now it appears I've finally created too much music for my poor Jabun SoundCloud account to cope with, and since now Better Than The Book and Cyberdevil have their own pages to host the relevant projects, it is with sadness that I have removed the original BTTB and Cyberdevil streams from the Jabun account. It's a shame because this also meant deleting some really nice comments and words of encouragement, but fear not, you'll be able to listen to all the removed music on their new pages above, so no music is lost as such (It's also still on the HurpADervish YouTube channel too!). The moving of the music though, does have one major benefit in that now, I'm all prepared for releasing the new Jabun album up there too! A little while to wait but looking forward to it.

Almost done, and another dino celebration this week from Fun Station 4 Kids as my first ever audio post-production job "The Three Little Raptors and the Big Bad Tyrannosaurus Rex" reaches an amazing 6 million views on YouTube! Thanks so much to everyone for the support and I hope to be working on the next Three Little Raptors story soon!

And finally this week, it's been a while since I heard from Lars, developer of the game  A P O T H E O S I S  for which I'm composing the soundtrack, and I'm super excited (how many times have I said that this week?) to share with you some test game-play footage he uploaded to YouTube which includes some of the latest developments in the game! It's looking even more epic than the version I've been playing these past months, and I'm looking forward to working on the last few pieces of the soundtrack once it's ready for me. If you've yet to play the game, go ahead and download the free demo by clicking the link above (you'll only regret it if you get addicted), and to hear demos of all the music so far, feel free to check out this playlist on SoundCloud! Hope you enjoy it, check out the game below, and have fun!

And that's about it for this week. Of course next week, I'll be busy with the final post-release things to do for the new BTTB bonus album (my to-do list has been massive recently!), and if I have time I'd love to start on the mixing for the Jabun album too. Yu-Gi-Oh should be back on the cards (hehe) soon too, though currently, the director and I are having problems transferring the files, so hopefully we can get that sorted swiftly. I think that's about all the exiting stuff left to report. Be sure to stop by next week for the unveiling of the bonus Better Than The Book album at the very least, and hopefully I should have some more exciting news to report with it! Hope you all have a great and hopefully not too busy week, and thanks as always for support JabunAudio and the rest of my projects. Take care and see you all next week with a new album! Wooo!