November Patreon rewards: "Postcards", another exclusive WIP instrumental demo from Better Than The Book for the $10 Patrons, new Cyberdevil and World Beyond collaborations to share + some project/news updates, goal setting, etc...

Hi everyone and hope you've had a great October since the last post!

It's the beginning of November which means it's time for the monthly blog and some more Patreon rewards! Since the last reward was a huge one with a brand new track, I thought I'd go with something a little smaller this time, a short track from 2016 called "Postcards" which also happens to be the final original (and non-commissioned) piece of the Nick Standing discography! For the $10+ Patrons, you also have another exclusive work in progress instrumental Better Than The Book demo to look forward to (a fun track called "Mood Swings")! If that sounds good to you then join me on Patreon to read more and download the rewards below as well as check out all of this month's project updates in full. Remember you'll be recieving all past rewards for you tier too when you sign up so check out the archives to see everything you can catch up on and hope to see you there!

Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/57269952
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/57269955​
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842

You can also listen to Postcards over on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX3ulK1MvWU

Onto other news, it's been a very exciting time for collaborative projects this month! As has become tradition, my good friend Cyberdevil has been continuing with his yearly INKtober rap challenge where for each day of October he writes and records a new verse and posts it up on Newgrounds! I was feeling super inspired earlier this month so quickly put together an early Limp Bizkit inspired beat for him to have fun with! It's admittedly an... "aquired taste" of dissonance but I had a lot of fun with it and sounds like Cyberdevil did too! Check out and download the full version of the track below:

https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/1084704

And as an extra reward this month, my Patreon supporters have the raw instrumental beat I sent to CD for the project in their reward downloads too!

With 31 raps in total over the month (and more?!), it's been quite the journey this year and I've really enjoyed following CD along with it each day! I highly recommend checking out the rest of them over when you can! Enjoy! (They're in the 2021 uploads!)

https://cyberdevil.newgrounds.com/audio/

If that wasn't exciting enough for collaborations, a mash-up cover / tribute I recorded cello for World Beyond on earlier this year is being released today too, a tribute to the video game Frostpunk! In Vlad's words:

"""
Frostpunk Medley is finally here:

youtu.be/Xo9pMCpAjhY

We have been working on this for quite a while - our tribute to the original soundtrack of the game Frostpunk. Ever since we listened to this deeply moving and emotional masterpiece inspired by the struggle of people with all their sorrows and hopes we knew we had to make it happen - and today feels like the right moment. Based on two amazing musical themes Frostpunk Theme and One the Edge Theme by Piotr Musial, featuring violin by Maritza Vilibic and cello by Nicholas Standing, this is our epic Frostpunk Medley:

fanlink.to/FrostpunkMedley

"""

Well done to Vlad and Maritza for putting this all together and an extra thanks to Vlad for the shout out to last month's new etter Than The Book & Jabun single "1314" on the World Beyond blog! Thanks so much Vlad!

https://www.worldbeyond.net/2021/10/mental-omega-trailer-frostpunk-medley.html 

Onto some more news/project updates for the month, it's been a hectic time these last few weeks as I've just started a new part-time job which happens to be working the night shift too. It's taking time to get my routine back to stability, which unfortunatley means I've not been in the best health for recording vocals for Better Than The Book's upcoming projects as I'd hoped, though I have been working hard polishing up horn arrangements and finishing off / finalising all the lyric sheets instead so there's some progress there (more on that in a moment). As has been the case for the latter half of this year, I've also continued recording some (mostly) monthly Jabun LIVE jams and I think it's just one more left to go before I'd like to collect them all for an album! There's over an hour of them now so hopefully those'll be ready to release to the world at some point early next year (the $10 patrons have already heard a few of them). Fun times ahead!

​Finally for this post, let's go through the usual monthly goals, see how I did and set some new ones! Here's what was set for October:

1) Finish promo and updating websites etc... for the 1314 single
2) Finish at least one track of vocals for BTTB 
3) Finish arranging and finalise at least one horn part for BTTB
4) Finalise all the lyric sheets for the upcoming BTTB projects

1) and number 4)  were all done and dusted, and while I've not even started on BTTB vocals yet, although I haven't finished any one horn part, I have made a lot of progress on most of the tracks, tinkering away with voicings and articulations when I've been able to. Not an ideal, month but not a bad one either all things considered! With the new job as well as many disruptions set to come in the November I'm going to have to relax on the goals for the forseeable future, but instead here are some aims which would be nice to complete:

1) Get started on BTTB vocals
2) Finish arranging and finalise at least one horn part for BTTB (again)
3) Record that final Jabun live jam and seperate the project ready for a new album!

I've also got a buttload of personal and more urgent goals to get to, so these'll have to do and are hopefully realistic given my current circumstances. We shall see and wish me luck! 

That's it for this month's updates! With Postcards now up on Patreon, that's all the original (non-commissioned) Nick Standing discography out now, so next time, I'll be starting to share my back-catalogue of cover songs given as gifts to people (and there's quite the lot of them)! Until then, I hope you have a great November to come and thanks as always for supporting my music however you can! All the best, take care, and enjoy all the music!