From Ash To Alabaster featured on Newgrounds' Tank Tribune Phonograph Vol. 23, Bandcamp Friday tomorrow (best time to pre-order Jabun's 15-4-20 album), setting and reflecting on monthly goals + some more updates!

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!