Better Than The Book's new single Meteor Shower is out, Hopes and Dreams album pre-orders are now open, cover art revealed, Patreon rewards sent out, a schedule for what's to come, press features, mental health, synth jams and more dinosaurs!

Hello everyone and hope you've all been having a great week since the last post! It has been an intensely busy week over here at JabunAudio as you can probably tell from the title of this post, so let's get straight to it with this week's big news!

Firstly and headlining this week, after tonnes of hard work and preparation, the lead single from the new Better Than The Book - Hopes and Dreams album , "Meteor Shower", has finally been released accompanied by a stunning lyric video courtesy of my great friend and musical collaborator, Vladimir Kuznetsov of World Beyond! Cheers Vlad! Check out the video below and prepare yourselves; this is BTTB's heaviest and most experimental track to date! I hope you enjoy "Meteor Shower"!

Not only that, but pre-orders have now opened for the Hopes and Dreams album on Bandcamp, and I'm super excited to finally reveal the cover art for the Hopes and Dreams album too:

Head over to Bandcamp to pick up a download of Meteor Shower and pre-order the Hopes and Dreams album now:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/hopes-and-dreams

Or get even more when you become a monthly subscriber on Patreon! This month, the $1+ patrons will receive an mp3 download of Meteor Shower + the album art, $2+ patrons will additionally receive the lossless CD quality WAV file for Meteor Shower, $5+ patrons will receive the ENTIRE Hopes and Dreams album (artwork, mp3s and WAVs) right now, over 2 months before the public release, as well as press photos for the album launch campaign, and $10+ patrons will receive all that + an in-depth look into the making of track 01 of the album "The Hardest Part", as well as a special thanks in the album credits for Hopes and Dreams!

Not only that, but when you sign up, you'll gain access to the entire history of rewards for your tier including the complete Better Than The Book discography (including the One Small Step EP and Two Years On albums) + many Patreon exclusive bonus tracks and more! There's never been a better time to subscribe to Patreon than today!

www.patreon.com/NickStanding

With the first single now released for the new album I also think it's finally time to reveal the schedule of what's to come, another two single releases, the album release + all the associated rewards on Patreon:

When the lead single is released and album pre-orders open (May 10th):
- $1 / $2 patrons will receive the lead single Meteor Shower
- $5+ patrons will get the full Hopes and Dreams album + press photos
- $10+ patrons will receive a WIP+Demos package for "The Hardest Part"  

When the 2nd single is released (June 7th):
- $1 / $2 patrons will receive the 2nd single
- $5+ patrons will get something else to share
- $10+ patrons will receive another WIP+Demos package

When the 3rd single is released (July 5th):
- $1 / $2 patrons will receive the 3rd single  
- $5+ patrons will get something else to share  
- $10+ patrons will receive another WIP+Demos package  

When the full album is released (July 19th):
- $1 / $2 patrons will receive the full album + all $5 tier extras shared

After that I'll be taking a little break before we go back to our usual Wednesday schedule sharing the Jabun music back-catalog starting for the $5+ patrons on August 28th, and the following Wednesday (September 4th) for the $1 / $2 patrons. It's certainly going to be a busy and fun few months! I hope you're excited as I am :)

Next this week, I thought it'd be cool to share some of the press that Meteor Shower has already received since its release less than a week ago including some kind words from my good friend and musical collaborator Vladimir Kuznetsov (as well as the various fans on the World Beyond YouTube Channel). Check out the various press features below:

May 10, 2019 - Vladimir Kuznetsov of World Beyond on Meteor Shower and the Hopes and Dreams album (Pre-release insight)
​May 13, 2019 - Meteor Shower lyric video featured on the World Beyond YouTube Channel (+ a nice write-up)
​May 13, 2019 - Better Than The Book's Meteor Shower lyric video featured on ThePunkSite.com

Next for this blog post, Mental Health Awareness Week has come around on the calendar once again, and as is the BTTB tradition, and also being aware that I've been very much overworking myself lately, I wrote a post about the importance of taking breaks even if it's away from something you're passionate about. You can read on the BTTB Facebook page, but I'll also post it up here too. I hope you find it insightful:

"It's Mental Health Awareness Week and despite the new album coming very soon filled with lyrics to inspire people to be true to themselves and follow their dreams, I'm very aware that I have been working WAY too hard recently and should take a proper break.
          "It's a great thing when you're passionate about what you do, as I sure am, but you've got to pace yourself and take care of yourself along the way to be able to keep that passionate fire burning. Don't burn yourself out for your dreams; keep tabs on how you're feeling and know your own signs that you're going at it too hard. If you're not feeling it, take a break; play some guitar, watch some cartoons, play some video games, brew a tea, just get away from work. Come back fresh later and you'll work better. A relaxed and balanced mind makes for better judgement and decision making which is essential for making your own path to your dreams. Sure, every decision you make may not be a good one, but at least you'll have made it out of balanced thought and not external stresses.
          "Time for lunch, a break, and to slow things down a bit until the next single release. 'It's not a sprint; it's a marathon. Just keep moving forward, another day, another step.'"

And in the spirit of taking breaks, following last week's 505 Day celebrations, I had another synth jam to get away from the BTTB admin and press work for the album which you can watch below! It's just a quick camera audio video, but it was great fun to take a break and get on the synths again. I hope you enjoy the little clip:

 
And for those of you interested, the equipment used was:
Korg Volca Keys (Melodies) and SQ-1 (Triggering the Moog) 
Roland Tr-08 (Drums)
Moog Werkstatt-01 [Modded] (Bass line)

Finally this week I have another amazing animation to share with you from Fun Station 4 Kids, a dinosaur remix of my favourite childhood fairy-tale: The Three Billy Goats Gruff! Unfortunately, I'm not doing the sound mixing for this one, but it still includes my track "See Ya Later" as the credits music. Nevertheless, the animation is as stunning as ever and I hope you enjoy T-Rex's latest adventure with some new 3 horned acquaintances! Presenting. The Thee Triceratops Gruff:

And that's about it for this post! The floodgates are open now and more Better Than The Book will be coming regularly until the album release on July 19th, so get ready for some more things ska-punky and familiar and more some things a little different like Meteor Shower, and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Better Than The Book and my various music projects! Next week is looking to be busy continuing with preparations for the next single release, as well as some admin goals I set at the beginning of the month, but a weekend away while I wait for some things to be sorted will be a welcome break. Until the next post, take care, thanks again and I hope you enjoy the new music and videos!