Hello everyone and hope you had a great Christmas and/or winter festive time however you were able to celebrate! I've been taking a bit of a break since the last post, but keeping up with a little bit of web update work, promo for Jabun's recent 15-4-20 album and of course this blog post! It's certainly been a bit of a strange Christmas this year, my first away from family and my hometown, but all things considered I think things were pleasant as I could have hoped for, and it's been nice to relax a bit after such a busy time last week with the various project and album launches (before a similar level of busy comes in January)!

Some fun things to share from the holidays: My twin Eamon and S.O. Eva chipped in together to gift me an Ammoon Pockverb reverb/delay pedal to help with creating some lovely ambient soundscapes, especially with my Yamaha YC-25D organ (though I've been playing it with synths and guitar too and it sounds spectacular)! Funny story: when it first arrived, I tested it and some strange glitches were happening with certain settings though the pedal itself apart from that was about 95% working as it should. I contacted Ammoon directly to see if there was simple fix to the problem (firmware update perhaps), but instead they decided to just send me ANOTHER one so now I have two of them! They both work about the same, and funnily enough using them together solves the initial problem I had! A super pleasant surprise which has made for some LOVELY ambient explorations over the holidays, though none recorded as of yet. Looking forward to putting these to good use for jams, inspiration and future music! On top of that, my parents gifted me a lovely and compact power supply to power those pedals (as well as some new wellies), Eamon made me a GLORIOUS dank meme mashup album, and Eva got the New "Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity" game for us to play together (If "Jabun" didn't give it away you must already know by now I'm a massive The Legend of Zelda fan)! Lots of snacks from care packages too which was very kind and I've been eyeing up some things to potentially treat myself too given the time of year and the recent album launch so I'm sure there'll be more updates on that later. Overall, a fun festive period, though I'm very much looking forward to being able to see family again; this covid thing really has been going on for far too long... 

Onto the main news for this week! Let's start with some more music! The next weekly new music upload is here and Jabun's 15-4-20 C is now streaming on YouTube and Newgrounds! Check out and relax to 15-4-20 C below:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tDNPCWS_TM
Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/991903

And if you like what you hear, pick up the 15-4-20 album on bandcamp:
https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/15-4-20

Or grab it with the entire Jabun and Better Than The Book discographies when you become a supporter on Patreon for as little as $1 a month! More music to come next year! Hope to see you there!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And the full 15-4-20 album is now available to stream on Spotify as well:

https://open.spotify.com/album/04UWDI1dPv1eVO674eZy1w

Next week I'll be putting up a full album stream for 15-4-20 (the final video in this 15-4-20 series) and calling the promo period for 15-4-20 to a close, but I hope you enjoy listening to the tracks individually until then. Not long to wait!

Next this week, Jabun's 15-4-20 album was featured in World Beyond's winter round-up blog post, along with a lovely rendition of Carol of the Bells as well as some free download codes for our Winter Legend EP and more project updates from World Beyond's Vladimir Kuznetsov! Check it out below and hope you enjoy the music:

https://www.worldbeyond.net/2020/12/merry-christmas-and-happy-new-year.html

And finally, as promised in last week's blog post, the new Cyberdevil INK 19 mixtape is now available for streaming on YouTube! Strangely, the first couple of seconds is a bit messed up but other than that everything's great (let's just call it a watermark of sorts)! If you haven't yet checked it out, read more about INK 19 on Cyberdevil's website below where you can pick up a free download ungarbled version of the album as well! Enjoy!

https://cyberd.org/the-fruits-why-fruits-though-why-dont-we-ever-say-vegetables-or-nuts-or-berries-or-something-of-inktober.html

That's about it for me this week and month and year! Man oh man has 2020 been a strange one, but a strangely productive one given the circumstances too. I'm looking forward to reflecting on everything in next week's blog post as well as unveiling the updated Patreon Reward Archive too, but until then, I think I'll be enjoying the rest of my holiday drowning in echos and reverb tails! Thanks for sticking with me over this past and crazy year and heres to a hopefully much better 2021! Take care and as always, thanks for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book, and my various projects in any way you can. All the best and have a great New Year's Celebration how ever you're able to!

Hi everyone and hope you're having an as-good-as-possible-given-the-circumstances start to the holiday season so far! It's been a busy week over here at JabunAudio and alas with the current crazy coronavirus news that's been going on in the UK, I'll be stuck up here in Leeds away from my family this Christmas... It's going to to be a strange one for sure, but on the bright side I have some extra cool news to share with you today, a great free gift from Cyberdevil to start the Christmas holidays with an 808 boom, as well as some more cool news worth celebrating! Let's get to it!

First of all this week, it is with great pleasure that today I share with you Cyberdevil's brand new INK 19 Mixtape, a free to download, just shy of an hour long remastered revisit to Cyberdevil's Inktober Challenge raps of 2019! Check out the cover art below!

We've been hard at work for the last month polishing this secret project and it's been a great thing to be a part of! I've been on mastering and additional mixing duties as well as providing the beat to "Away Fear" which was recently (re/pre)released as a full production track (the version in here is more a legacy mix of sorts)! I highly encourage you to read more about it on Cyberdevil's website here where you can pick up a free download:

https://cyberd.org/the-fruits-why-fruits-though-why-dont-we-ever-say-vegetables-or-nuts-or-berries-or-something-of-inktober.html

And listen to the mixtape in full on Newgrounds! We hope you enjoy it!

https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/990124

The full mixtape will be coming to YouTube shortly so I'll be back next week to share that! 

Next and speaking of YouTube, the weekly new music uploads have started and Jabun's 15-4-20 B is now streaming on YouTube and Newgrounds! New tracks from the 15-4-20 album will be uploaded each Wednesday until the first week of January! Check out and relax to 15-4-20 B below:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFiPTfAD9aU
Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/990130​ 

And if you like what you hear, pick up the 15-4-20 album on bandcamp:

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/15-4-20

Or grab with the entire Jabun and Better Than The Book discographies when you become a supporter on Patreon for as little as $1 a month! More music to come next year! Hope to see you there!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And the full 15-4-20 album is now available to stream on Spotify as well:

https://open.spotify.com/album/04UWDI1dPv1eVO674eZy1w

Finally this week, time sure flies past as Better Than The Book's debut EP One Small Step turns 8 years old today! Man it seems like a lifetime ago, a start of something special that's really bloomed into something greater than I'd ever anticipated over the last 8 years! Here's to the past and the future and if you've yet to hear it, check it out on Bandcamp:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/one-small-step-ep

And/or pick it up along with the rest of the BTTB and Jabun discographies on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And that wraps things up for this post! I hope you enjoy all the new music and revisits to old and with that I'm going to pack up for a few days and enjoy a well earned break! Next time I'll be sharing the final track from Jabun's new 15-4-20 album: 15-4-20 C, as well as a YouTube stream of Cyberdevil's new INK 19 Mixtape, and with Christmas just around the corner I'm sure there'll be some fun extra things to share then too! Until the next post, I hope you have a great holiday season (despite any disruptions that may take place) and I look forward to bringing you new music very soon! Thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various projects, all the best, seasons greetings, and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great December so far! It's been a super busy time here at JabunAudio preparing for this week's HUGE news as well as some equally monumental news I hope to be sharing next week and more exciting things for Jabun in the future too! No rest for me over here so let's get straight into things!

So after much wait, a tonne of hard work preparing and more social media posts about it in the last month than anything else, this week I’m super excited to finally release my 2nd album as Jabun – 15-4-20! Check out the album teaser video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79-h1xzgLxI
(Featured music: “15-4-20 B” – Jabun)

The album preview on SoundCloud featuring all 3 tracks:

https://soundcloud.com/jabun/15-4-20-album-preview

And most importantly, listen to and pick up Jabun’s 15-4-20 album now on Bandcamp:

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/15-4-20

15-4-20 is a one take per track live improvised ambient exploration and the first of its kind in my discography. The entire 33+ minute, 3 track album was recorded on the evening of April 15th 2020 with no overdubs or edits, just a single take for each track. I hope you enjoy the gently changing ambient soundscapes; a snapshot of an evening in lockdown during the strange spring of 2020!

In case you’ve not seen them yet, you can also check out the full album credits, special thanks and descriptions on the Jabun – 15-4-20 Bandcamp page! Read more below and I hope you have fun exploring:

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/15-4-20

All tracks written, performed and produced by Nick Standing [Jabun]
Recorded, mixed and mastered at JabunAudio by Nick Standing [Jabun]
Album artwork, images and photography by Nick Standing [Jabun]
Recorded on April 15th 2020

15-4-20 is available now from all major digital distributors including, Bandcamp, iTunes, Amazon,Spotify and more and will be coming to YouTube and Newgrounds in the coming weeks too! I hope you enjoy it!

And of course, in celebration of 15-4-20’s release, there’s whole handful of rewards for my supporters on Patreon too! For the $1 patrons, you’ve got the full mp3 album and artwork including alternative album covers and the original album cover photo (with no titles)! Pick it up below:

$1 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41340585/

For the $5 & $10 patrons, you’ve got all that + the highest CD quality WAV files for all 3 tracks! The $10 patrons will also be getting an exclusive first look sneak peek demo from the next Better Than The Book album! Check out the rewards below: 

$5 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41340517
$10 rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41340589

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 too including the full Better Than The Book and Jabun discographies, many Patreon exclusive bonus tracks and more! 

Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
​
Now that Jabun’s 15-4-20 album is out, I’ll be uploading tracks from the album to YouTube and Newgrounds each Wednesday until mid January 2021, and with such a big release, I’ll also be taking a short break from Patreon rewards to update the Patreon REWARD ARCHIVE posts for the convenience of new patrons. I’ll be back with new rewards for the $5 & $10 patrons on the final Wednesday of January, and the first Wednesday of February for the $1 patrons! Until then I hope you have a great holiday season and enjoy the new music, and thanks as always for supporting Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various projects on Patreon and in any way you can! I look forward to sharing more music with you in 2021!

And speaking of new music, over the last few weeks I've been busy finalising things for the release of Jabun's 3rd album as well, including sorting the master WAVs, Mp3s and FLAC files and getting started on the admin side of work before uploading to distributors! Expect something slightly different, but a logical experimental progression from 15-4-20 coming in Spring 2021! More news on that next year!

And that about wraps things up for this blog post! If all goes to plan, I should be sharing an unrelated but equally exciting piece of huge news next time (man is it busy at the moment), as well as Jabun's 15-4-20 B on YouTube and Newgrounds, at the very least! With all the promo work going on too, it looks like I'll be continuing the JabunAudio blog posts throughout the holiday season this year (I think that's a first), but until the next one, I hope you enjoy this latest batch of Jabun tracks I've poured my heart into and thanks as always for supporting all my projects in all the ways you do! Happy holidays, stay safe and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to December! It's been a few weeks since the last post and boy what a busy time it's been with promo for Jabun's upcoming 2nd album "15-4-20", BTTB writing, more Jabun stuff for NEXT year's album, and another BIG project which I can't wait to share with you! We're in the calm before the even calmer Jabun induced storm on December 16th, but there's still a few cool things to share this week before we go through the usual monthly reflections! Let's get started!

​First of all this week, I just wanted to share with you a super cool bit of news that came in my notifications on Monday! My old 2014 collaboration with the one and only Cyberdevil "From Ash To Alabaster" has been featured in Newgrounds' Tank Tribune Phonograph Playlist Volume 23! Thanks so much to The Tank Tribune for having us on there and check out the link below for the full playlist! Enjoy!

https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/830569fecb9da7ba72e285e0c540e405

More stuff from CD and I coming soon and of course it's about 2 weeks until my 2nd album as Jabun is released to the world too! If you've not already done so check it out the pre-order page and single below on Bandcamp:

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/15-4-20

And speaking of Bandcamp, in support of musicians impacted by the coronavirus, Bandcamp is once again waiving its revenue share fees on the first Friday of the month from midnight to midnight Pacific Time (that's tomorrow)! That means that if you purchase anything from Bandcamp this Friday 4th of December, 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 pre-order Jabun's upcoming "15-4-20" album or pick (it) up Better Than The Book's "Hopes and Dreams" or one of my other tracks or albums, now's the best time to do so! Check out the Better Than The Book, Jabun and Nick Standing 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/

Finally this week, it's time to reflect on the goals I set last month and set some new ones for December! Here's what was set for November:

1) Announce and launch the pre-order for this years new Jabun album (and start the promo)
2) Finish the 3rd Jabun album's Master audio WAV files
3) Finish 3 more BTTB first draft lyric sheets (bringing the total to 8)
4) Write 3 more BTTB first draft horn parts for the demos
5) Write and roughly demo the 2 extra alternative version bonus tracks

(+ keeping up with the BTTB live practice as best as I can)

And on the whole, a good month, especially considering the extra things I've been working on coming up which weren't mentioned on the list (you'll see soon). Of course Jabun's 15-4-20 album was announced with pre-orders and a nicely attended pre-release single premier on YouTube which was a pleasant surprise, so 1) was successful. 2) is just about done too, though I must admit I had one of my worst cases of "tweak itching" sorting it, calling it "finished" half a dozen times before tweaking again and saying NO MORE! Master WAVs have been complete at least ready for MP3 conversions etc... when needed, though that can wait. 3) was the only goal I didn't quite complete, only managing 2/3 of my target BTTB lyric sheets this time, but making a tonne of progress on the 5 lyric sheets which still remain as well as drafting out 5/3 horn parts for goal number 4) so I guess it evens out nicely. 5) was a success too with 2 more demos added to the bonus tracks, and I managed to keep up (the bare minimum) of my BTTB live practice too which went well but does feel a little demotivating considering the lack of gigs on the horizon.

Overall this month though I realised that I think I've been putting a bit too much pressure on myself lately to be productive, potentially as a distraction from the currently dire situation outside, for the music industry and the uncertainty and ethical worries for the future and what would usually be a joyous season with family so close now, but overall much to the detriment of my own mental health which I should be keeping better tabs on. I'm doing ok but feel a need to slow down at the moment with my own work and concentrate on one thing at a time for a little while at least. To think when I first started these monthly goals, I'd be setting 4 things each month (including stuff not shared publicly), though over the past year it's grown to a total of 12 somehow?! It's been insanely productive, but probably at the cost of my well being so the REAL reflection on goals this month will be to take a step back a bit and re-adjust myself. As such I won't be setting any formal goals for personal writing or production projects this month and instead will be focusing on the release of Jabun's 2nd album as well as a few other admin things. 

So for December 2020, here are my JabunAudio goals:

1) Release Jabun's 2nd album "15-4-20" to the world!
2) Sort the next set of Patreon Reward Archive posts which'll go live at the start of January.

That's it! I do have a tonne of smaller personal goals though they're more of a to-do list rather than than the usual goals. I would like to keep up with the Better Than The Book live practice just so I can stop myself getting rusty, but any (non-client) writing and production work will be deemed as casual. I'll do it leisurely when I can but no pressure. Hopefully the break will let me re-adjust and get invigorated for next year and we'll see how things go from there! Remember to take care of yourselves too and if you have any goals, feel free to share them in the comments, but don't put too much pressure on yourself!

And that about wraps things up for this week! It's going to be a busy few weeks leading up to and out of Jabun's 2nd album release on December 16th, but I'm sure there'll be things to share (and certainly things to do) until then and the next post. In the mean time, I hope you have a great week to come and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book and my various projects! Take care, stay safe and keep well!