​August 2026 Blog Post: A brand new Better Than The Book Single "Artificial Ignorance Part 2" (Patreon exclusive Mp3 download), early access to the extended single for $10 patrons, announcing Hyper-Breakers x BTTB animation collab + more!

Hello everyone and hope you're having a great summer so far! Woowee its been a busy month starting with an epic trip down south to see Metallica TWICE (saw an airship flying over London too), then back up north for an intense 2 weeks competing in the Knockout Round of the Newgrounds Underdogs Audio Contest (NGUAC) 2026 (more on that in a moment)! There's a tonne of news to share this month and I think the next few are going to be BUSY! Let's get to it:

First of all: SURPRISE! It's a brand new Better Than The Book song "Artificial Ignorance Part 2"! I made this for the Newgrounds Underdogs Audio Contest 2026 Knockout Round where we were given 2 weeks to make something from scratch, and man oh man was it a manic rush trying to get this done in time for the competition round deadline! I'm SUPER pleased with the way it turned out though! I think you can figure out what it's all about just from the title, but in case you can't, check out last month's blog post as that'll give you a good idea. Check it out (currently) exclusively on Newgrounds below:

https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/1598710

Of course my supporters on Patreon are getting an exclusive mp3 download for the Radio Edit which was the version I submitted for the contest above! Grab that download below:

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding/posts/august-2026-1-2-163434594

And the $10 patrons will be receiving early access to the full single (minus artwork) including the uncensored version, radio edit (as above) and instrumental versions of both: 4 tracks total in both mp3 and WAV formats. If that's something you're interested in check that out in this month's $10 post below:

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding/posts/august-10-reward-165151714

I'll be aiming to release it as a proper 4 track single in a month or so once I've had a chance to do some artwork and the admin (and get the other exciting things over the next few months off my plate), so expect to see this in a post again soon. In the mean time, keep raging against the machine as best you can and I hope you enjoy "Artificial Ignorance Part 2"!

Onto more news for this month, I'm am SO excited to announce yet ANOTHER Better Than The Book single this summer for one of the coolest collaboration projects I've been a part of to date! It's been one of my career goals and life's dreams to write the opening song for an animation, and this coming month (August) that dream will be coming true! Around the time the "Side Character In My Own Life" album was released last summer, I was contacted to compose a short electronic rock song for a 90 second anime style opening sequence, and after over a year of that audio being finished and sitting on my hard drive I'm pleased to FINALLY be able to announce that Better Than The Book will be providing the opening song for the animated show Hyper-Breakers, complete with an AWESOME 90 second animated opening sequence music video! I've seen the animatics and some test footage and holy moly it's looking amazing! Thanks so much to Robert Carducci (robc3) for having me on the project and being amazing to work with, and I really think this new track, and animation is going to blow all your socks off! Check out his announcement post below:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DaRjZeCDfD6/

And go watch some Hyper-Breakers on Newgrounds!

https://robc3.newgrounds.com/

Onto some more project updates, I've been very busy with Artificial Ignorance Part 2 and preparations for the above collaboration release this month, but if that's not enough music for you, I've just sent off the first full length test mix for Better Than The Book's Ten Years On live album to the rest of the band for their feedback before the final mix tweaks and mastering! The feedback so far has been a huge thumbs up so I'll be aiming to get back to that in September to finish it off. With everything else that's been going on, the next batch of Jabun's Lost Tracks are still just sequenced and awaiting mastering in the mastering session. The track fades and some minor fixes are sorted now at least, but not much progress since last time so I'll likely look back at those after this post goes out! Lots of music to come before the end of the year that's for sure!

Finally just another synth video for you, again with the KORG Volca Modular! This time I'm demonstrating using Function 1 as a Switch and "Reverse Gate" Generator! Check it out below if you're a fellow synth nerd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUxoPrRZS7Y

And explore the full updated playlist here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm

That about wraps things up for this post! With any luck I'll be super busy working on an entry for the NGUAC 2026 finals for the first half of August at least (fingers crossed), and then it'll be busy with the various projects above! Expect at least 1 more new single coming in the next post and as always, thanks for supporting my music and various projects however you can! A busy busy and music filled summer's coming! Get excited!

Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding