Jabun's 4th album Tides has been released along with a tonne of Patreon rewards! Purchase Tides now on Bandcamp and join me for a live listening party on YouTube Tonight at 8pm BST + building the Leslie cabinet, birthday funtimes, setting goals and more!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to May! Today's finally the day and I'm so excited to share with you my 4th album as Jabun, Tides!  Check it out and grab a copy now on Bandcamp (it's Bandcamp Friday today) where you can read all about it including the album's backstory, track details (including equipment used and recording dates), album credits, special thanks and more! I hope you enjoy it:

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/tides

And if you're able to make it, come join me for a live premier listening party for the WHOLE album over on YouTube tonight (Friday May 6th) at 8pm BST where you can ask questions, chat, and more while we listen to Tides in its entirety! Hope to see you there!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0GFfoq3FCs
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Of course now that it's finally been released, all of my supporters on Patreon now have access to downloads for the full Tides album and artwork package as part of their May Patreon rewards! For the $10 patrons, you also have an exclusive unedited version of Inner Space to look forward to! If that sounds good to you, feel free to join me over on Patreon and remember you'll gain access to all past rewards for your tier too including my full backcatalog discography uploaded so far (including many Patreon exclusive downloads and bonus tracks) as soon as you sign up! Find out more below:

$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/64618395
$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/64618394
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And a huge thanks goes to all patrons past and present who keep my music going each month with special mention to the current $10+ patrons: Nathan Puray, and Michael White! Thank you all so much for your help and support in making these dreams a reality! You folks are amazing!

Tides is a 70+ minute collection of 9 ambient and experimental live performances, together telling the tale of a fateful voyage at sea. The album begins by setting sail from The Beach at night and riding the rhythmic Waves, before being encountered by beckoning Sirens and lured into a terrible storm. Following The Storm, floating among the wreckage, you have nightmares of Ghosts, the other souls taken from the living world by the waters, but you survive only to wake up to despair, realising you are Lost At Sea. With no hope or strength left, you feel the Gravity of the situation, both figuratively and literally, as you’re pulled below the surface to meet the same fate. But with the sorrow comes a sense of acceptance, as below the waves you find a world much calmer than the one you endured among them. You sink peacefully to your final resting place, the deepest depths of the vast ocean: Mariana.

Each track from Tides was performed live and recorded as a single take during 2021 with only the lightest of further processing to bring the album together in mastering. Included in the album is a bonus track, Inner Space, which while initially recorded live was slowed down post recording and further processed in a similar way to the semi-live 15-4-20 album. It provides an ambient epilogue to the album, a modular synth soundscape representing the deep and vast Inner Space that is the ocean. The tracklist is as follows:

Jabun – Tides

01 The Beach
02 Waves
03 Sirens
04 The Storm
05 Ghosts
06 Lost At Sea
07 Gravity
08 Mariana
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09 Inner Space (Bonus)

To my ears, Tides is undoubtedly my most experimental album yet, with much of it more like soundscapes than actual melodic music. Despite the extended length, I decided to include the full performance for every track, as a captured moment in time, rather than a premeditated composition on a studio album. Similarly, I wanted to keep editing to a minimum, with only minor adjustments, and the mastering really just to balance the tracks against each other (and my previous discography) and add a little bit of sheen. 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 uncut live ambient experimental performances, a collection of meditative moments from another strange year of restrictions and lockdowns.

Tides will be available for streaming on Newgrounds, YouTube, Spotify and more places very soon. You can also check out the Tides album teaser on SoundCloud. Happy listening and I hope you enjoy Tides!

SoundCloud Teaser: https://soundcloud.com/jabun/jabun-tides-soundcloud-teaser
HurpADervish YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/hurpadervish
Jabun YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialJabunMusic
​Newgrounds: https://jabun.newgrounds.com/audio/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6Ig1iozkpNv4mOGHJFny73

Onto monthly updates, it's been super busy these past few weeks preparing for today's album launch as well as being away for some birthday funtimes, the first spent with family since the lockdowns of 2020/21! Food was eaten (a bit too much probably) and gifts were given, and this year I received from my twin Eamon a Fender Mini '65 Twin amp (which is suprizingly loud and sounds great both in the room and for recording) and a limited Suzanne Ciani 7" vinyl (who was a huge inspiration writing and performing this latest album and I'll be seeing in concert next month)! I also received from Eva something I've wanted for ages, a real life vintage style label maker like I used (digitally) on Better Than The Book's Two Years On album cover! I've been having a little too much fun with that lately! 

On top of a busy week of celebration however, I was also busy woodworking for my homemade Leslie Speaker project, and after an INTENSE week of some of my proudest woodwork, it's pretty much done! All that needs doing it making a front panel, sorting some grills for the sound holes, and servicing the motor/mechanical system to optimum performance! Super pleased how it turned out and check it out below:

In the garage:

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​In the rig:

And I must say it sounds MEGABOSS with both organ and guitar! It's really a dream come true to have one of these in my life again, and super cool that it's a homebuilt project this time. I don't have a video to share yet of the finished article, but if you're a supporter on Patreon, you have a quick clip of it before I built the outer cabinet (but after I'd mostly fixed up the electronics) to look forward to in your rewards for today! Enjoy! 
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In other news this week, last year's Inktober Cyberdevil collaboration "No Cap Life" was featured on Newgrounds' Tank Tribune No.55 in their phonograph playlist! Thanks as always for sharing the music peeps and check out the full post below:

https://thetanktribune.newgrounds.com/news/post/1264762

And finally for this month's blog, let's take some time to reflect on last month's goals and set some new ones. Here's what was set for April:

1) Do my taxes
2) Renew the website, etc....
3) Finish preperations and launch pre-orders for Jabun's 4th album
4) Build the Leslie speaker into a functional cabinet

And it's pretty obvious this time that all of that was achieved well (I even got a bit of money back form the tax man too)! While I was planning on adding tolex to the Leslie later, after finishing it with clear varnish on the natural birch plywood, I think I'll likely keep it that way (I'm super pleased with those finger jointed corners)! Probably still worth putting some lights on the footswitch but I'm managing well at the moment, so we'll see! Something for another time, but it works at least! With that said, I've got a tonne of stuff I'd like to get done in May, so here's what I had planned:

1) Finish promo for Tides
2) Fully service the Leslie mechanics
3) Service my Sterling bass
4) Rearrange the studio (a bit)
5) Design the grill for the Leslie

No musical goals this month as I'll be taking a post-album-release production break, though I'm sure I'll do some casual fun stuff in the mean time. 1) should be straightforward. 2) will be a challenge of sorts but should put the Leslie in even better order for recording and running for years to come. It's pretty quiet mechanically at the moment (certainly compared to some I've heard on YouTube), but I think I can get it quieter and apparently things need to be oiled yearly so I best get in the habit of it! 3) my Sterling bass has drifted a bit over the years moving around the country and I think it's time for some TLC to get it a just a bit more comfortable to play, straightening the neck and re-setting the intonation and string heights for the best ballance of comfort, playability and musical accuracy. It's long overdue so hopefully I can get it playing nicely again soon. 4) is a bit of a nessesary evil to accomodate the new Leslie, but things could do with a tidy up, putting some spares on eBay, clearing out papers etc... A medium spring clean of sorts at this appropriate opportunity! Finally 5) should be straightforward though I think finding the parts / equipment to do it here may be difficult. Something to design now and figure out later I think. On top of all that there's some things to renew, more Patreon posts to set up etc... so I think its going to be a SUPER busy month ahead too! Hopefully not too busy but wish me luck and all the best with your goals too! 

That wraps things up for this time! I have just one more exclusive EP from my back catalogue to share with the patrons next month, one which has never been released ANYWHERE else, and then my uploaded back catalogue will finally (after many years on Patreon) be complete, so there'll be another public post at some point with the updated reward archives! Until then, I hope you have an amazing May to come and enjoy all the new music, and I hope to see you tonight at the Tides listening party on YouTube! Thanks as always for supporting my music however you can, all the best and take care!