Hi everyone and hope you've had a great July and stayed cool during this crazy hot weather! Since all my personal backcatalogue has been uploaded now, this'll be the first regular monthly blog post without any Patreon reward downloads (unless you're a $10 patron), but I'm thinking this area's looking a bit empty so let's see if I can muster up something else to share in the near future while you're waiting for the next big project release from Better Than The Book or Jabun (at least for the Patreon supporters)!

In the mean time it's onto monthly updates, and it's been an intensely busy few weeks spent on a super exciting mystery collaborative project I'm still not sure if I can talk about yet. Only a few months until release time though so there'll be something to share on that very soon (and it's one of the biggest projects I've worked on yet). Meanwhile, I managed to find some free time in between heaving mixing sessions to continue arranging horns for the upcoming Better Than The Book album projects, and so 3 more horn parts are finished and only 4 are left to go! Slow progress but progress nonetheless and I'm super pleased with the way it's sounding at least!

Meanwhile, Vlad from World Beyond has released an amazing "short (but not really)" animated music video for our work together on the Nobody Asked For This So I Did It album! The new video shares the lore behind World Beyond's fictional storytelling with a super nicely put together hybrid animation and really showcases Vlad's creativity in the visual arts, storytelling, and of course music! You'll hear me pounding along on bass and lead guitar as usual too. Check out the new music video below and hope you enjoy it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85eFuRQarY8

Finally for this post as usual, it's time to reflect on some goals and set some new ones for June! Here's what I set myself last time.

1) Finish promo for Tides
2) Fully service the Leslie mechanics
3) Service my Sterling bass
4) Rearrange the studio (a bit)
5) Design the grill for the Leslie

And overall apart from the final goal, I think things went very well! 1), 2) and 3) went reasonably smoothly and I even managed to rearrange the studio slighty to better fit everything in. The only goal I missed out on was 5) to design the grill for the Leslie. After realising how long it took to service and that I'd need to disassemble much of it to install the grill (which isn't super urgent anyway), I've decided to leave it for the moment and potentially tackle it closer to the next service or when I know I'll have the tools/space to build the grill. It might be a while, but it's sounding and working great at the moment so that's the main thing!

Onto goals to set for June, I think it's going to be a busy one and I'm not entirely sure (apart from some time away) what's going on, so I figured it best to keep things light for now:

1) Update the Patreon reward archives + general page
2) Finish all of the Better Than The Book Horns for the new album (x8)

I think that should keep me busy in my JabunAudio time and 2) may be a push in terms of getting all 8 tracks done, but I'll have to see how far I get and try my best! All the best with your own goals and let's get productive!

That about wraps things up for this time! With all the past rewards available to my Patreon supporters now and the busy times recently with Jabun's Tides album release, there will not be any Patreon reward posts next month, as I'll be updating the reward archives and general Patreon page. I will be posting an update with what my future plans are for Patreon, rewards and more though, as well as some usual monthly updates, and as you can probably appreciate, things are going to be a little different now that all my past discography is all out. Nevertheless I hope you're excited for new music to come and thanks as always for supporting my music on Patreon, and however you can! Enjoy the 520 EP and I'll see you next month for some updated Reward Archives, and discussions on what's coming next! Take care!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to May! Today's finally the day and I'm so excited to share with you my 4th album as Jabun, Tides!  Check it out and grab a copy now on Bandcamp (it's Bandcamp Friday today) where you can read all about it including the album's backstory, track details (including equipment used and recording dates), album credits, special thanks and more! I hope you enjoy it:

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/tides

And if you're able to make it, come join me for a live premier listening party for the WHOLE album over on YouTube tonight (Friday May 6th) at 8pm BST where you can ask questions, chat, and more while we listen to Tides in its entirety! Hope to see you there!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0GFfoq3FCs
​
Of course now that it's finally been released, all of my supporters on Patreon now have access to downloads for the full Tides album and artwork package as part of their May Patreon rewards! For the $10 patrons, you also have an exclusive unedited version of Inner Space to look forward to! If that sounds good to you, feel free to join me over on Patreon and remember you'll gain access to all past rewards for your tier too including my full backcatalog discography uploaded so far (including many Patreon exclusive downloads and bonus tracks) as soon as you sign up! Find out more below:

$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/64618395
$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/64618394
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And a huge thanks goes to all patrons past and present who keep my music going each month with special mention to the current $10+ patrons: Nathan Puray, and Michael White! Thank you all so much for your help and support in making these dreams a reality! You folks are amazing!

Tides is a 70+ minute collection of 9 ambient and experimental live performances, together telling the tale of a fateful voyage at sea. The album begins by setting sail from The Beach at night and riding the rhythmic Waves, before being encountered by beckoning Sirens and lured into a terrible storm. Following The Storm, floating among the wreckage, you have nightmares of Ghosts, the other souls taken from the living world by the waters, but you survive only to wake up to despair, realising you are Lost At Sea. With no hope or strength left, you feel the Gravity of the situation, both figuratively and literally, as you’re pulled below the surface to meet the same fate. But with the sorrow comes a sense of acceptance, as below the waves you find a world much calmer than the one you endured among them. You sink peacefully to your final resting place, the deepest depths of the vast ocean: Mariana.

Each track from Tides was performed live and recorded as a single take during 2021 with only the lightest of further processing to bring the album together in mastering. Included in the album is a bonus track, Inner Space, which while initially recorded live was slowed down post recording and further processed in a similar way to the semi-live 15-4-20 album. It provides an ambient epilogue to the album, a modular synth soundscape representing the deep and vast Inner Space that is the ocean. The tracklist is as follows:

Jabun – Tides

01 The Beach
02 Waves
03 Sirens
04 The Storm
05 Ghosts
06 Lost At Sea
07 Gravity
08 Mariana
---
09 Inner Space (Bonus)

To my ears, Tides is undoubtedly my most experimental album yet, with much of it more like soundscapes than actual melodic music. Despite the extended length, I decided to include the full performance for every track, as a captured moment in time, rather than a premeditated composition on a studio album. Similarly, I wanted to keep editing to a minimum, with only minor adjustments, and the mastering really just to balance the tracks against each other (and my previous discography) and add a little bit of sheen. Whether you sit down to listen intently, have it on in the background while doing something else, or simply immerse yourself in the sounds, I hope you enjoy these uncut live ambient experimental performances, a collection of meditative moments from another strange year of restrictions and lockdowns.

Tides will be available for streaming on Newgrounds, YouTube, Spotify and more places very soon. You can also check out the Tides album teaser on SoundCloud. Happy listening and I hope you enjoy Tides!

SoundCloud Teaser: https://soundcloud.com/jabun/jabun-tides-soundcloud-teaser
HurpADervish YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/hurpadervish
Jabun YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialJabunMusic
​Newgrounds: https://jabun.newgrounds.com/audio/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6Ig1iozkpNv4mOGHJFny73

Onto monthly updates, it's been super busy these past few weeks preparing for today's album launch as well as being away for some birthday funtimes, the first spent with family since the lockdowns of 2020/21! Food was eaten (a bit too much probably) and gifts were given, and this year I received from my twin Eamon a Fender Mini '65 Twin amp (which is suprizingly loud and sounds great both in the room and for recording) and a limited Suzanne Ciani 7" vinyl (who was a huge inspiration writing and performing this latest album and I'll be seeing in concert next month)! I also received from Eva something I've wanted for ages, a real life vintage style label maker like I used (digitally) on Better Than The Book's Two Years On album cover! I've been having a little too much fun with that lately! 

On top of a busy week of celebration however, I was also busy woodworking for my homemade Leslie Speaker project, and after an INTENSE week of some of my proudest woodwork, it's pretty much done! All that needs doing it making a front panel, sorting some grills for the sound holes, and servicing the motor/mechanical system to optimum performance! Super pleased how it turned out and check it out below:

In the garage:

​In the rig:

And I must say it sounds MEGABOSS with both organ and guitar! It's really a dream come true to have one of these in my life again, and super cool that it's a homebuilt project this time. I don't have a video to share yet of the finished article, but if you're a supporter on Patreon, you have a quick clip of it before I built the outer cabinet (but after I'd mostly fixed up the electronics) to look forward to in your rewards for today! Enjoy! 
​
In other news this week, last year's Inktober Cyberdevil collaboration "No Cap Life" was featured on Newgrounds' Tank Tribune No.55 in their phonograph playlist! Thanks as always for sharing the music peeps and check out the full post below:

https://thetanktribune.newgrounds.com/news/post/1264762

And finally for this month's blog, let's take some time to reflect on last month's goals and set some new ones. Here's what was set for April:

1) Do my taxes
2) Renew the website, etc....
3) Finish preperations and launch pre-orders for Jabun's 4th album
4) Build the Leslie speaker into a functional cabinet

And it's pretty obvious this time that all of that was achieved well (I even got a bit of money back form the tax man too)! While I was planning on adding tolex to the Leslie later, after finishing it with clear varnish on the natural birch plywood, I think I'll likely keep it that way (I'm super pleased with those finger jointed corners)! Probably still worth putting some lights on the footswitch but I'm managing well at the moment, so we'll see! Something for another time, but it works at least! With that said, I've got a tonne of stuff I'd like to get done in May, so here's what I had planned:

1) Finish promo for Tides
2) Fully service the Leslie mechanics
3) Service my Sterling bass
4) Rearrange the studio (a bit)
5) Design the grill for the Leslie

No musical goals this month as I'll be taking a post-album-release production break, though I'm sure I'll do some casual fun stuff in the mean time. 1) should be straightforward. 2) will be a challenge of sorts but should put the Leslie in even better order for recording and running for years to come. It's pretty quiet mechanically at the moment (certainly compared to some I've heard on YouTube), but I think I can get it quieter and apparently things need to be oiled yearly so I best get in the habit of it! 3) my Sterling bass has drifted a bit over the years moving around the country and I think it's time for some TLC to get it a just a bit more comfortable to play, straightening the neck and re-setting the intonation and string heights for the best ballance of comfort, playability and musical accuracy. It's long overdue so hopefully I can get it playing nicely again soon. 4) is a bit of a nessesary evil to accomodate the new Leslie, but things could do with a tidy up, putting some spares on eBay, clearing out papers etc... A medium spring clean of sorts at this appropriate opportunity! Finally 5) should be straightforward though I think finding the parts / equipment to do it here may be difficult. Something to design now and figure out later I think. On top of all that there's some things to renew, more Patreon posts to set up etc... so I think its going to be a SUPER busy month ahead too! Hopefully not too busy but wish me luck and all the best with your goals too! 

That wraps things up for this time! I have just one more exclusive EP from my back catalogue to share with the patrons next month, one which has never been released ANYWHERE else, and then my uploaded back catalogue will finally (after many years on Patreon) be complete, so there'll be another public post at some point with the updated reward archives! Until then, I hope you have an amazing May to come and enjoy all the new music, and I hope to see you tonight at the Tides listening party on YouTube! Thanks as always for supporting my music however you can, all the best and take care!

Announcing Jabun's 4th album Tides, a live performed ambient journey + the pre-release single Mariana! Pre-orders are now open + lots of Patreon rewards are out to celebrate (Downloads and Early Access)!

​Hi everyone and hope you're having a great April so far! Would you believe that today marks exactly 1 year since the release of Generation Supernova and 2 years since the recording of 15-4-20, and so it seems like a great time to finally announce my next ambient and experimental Jabun album - Tides!

Tides is a 70+ minute collection of 9 ambient and experimental live performances, together telling the tale of a fateful voyage at sea. The album begins by setting sail from The Beach at night and riding the rhythmic Waves, before being encountered by beckoning Sirens and lured into a terrible storm. Following The Storm, floating among the wreckage, you have nightmares of Ghosts, the other souls taken from the living world by the waters, but you survive only to wake up to despair, realising you are Lost At Sea. With no hope or strength left, you feel the Gravity of the situation, both figuratively and literally, as you’re pulled below the surface to meet the same fate. But with the sorrow comes a sense of acceptance, as below the waves you find a world much calmer than the one you endured among them. You sink peacefully to your final resting place, the deepest depths of the vast ocean: Mariana.

Each track from Tides was performed live and recorded as a single take during 2021 with only the lightest of further processing to bring the album together in mastering. Included in the album is a bonus track, Inner Space, which while initially recorded live was slowed down post recording and further processed in a similar way to the semi-live 15-4-20 album. It provides an ambient epilogue to the album, a modular synth soundscape representing the deep and vast Inner Space that is the ocean. The tracklist is as follows:

Jabun – Tides
01 The Beach
02 Waves
03 Sirens
04 The Storm
05 Ghosts
06 Lost At Sea
07 Gravity
08 Mariana
---
09 Inner Space (Bonus)

To my ears, Tides is undoubtedly my most experimental album yet, with much of it more like soundscapes than actual melodic music. Despite the extended length, I decided to include the full performance for every track, as a captured moment in time, rather than a premeditated composition on a studio album. Similarly, I wanted to keep editing to a minimum, with only minor adjustments, and the mastering really just to balance the tracks against each other (and my previous discography) and add a little bit of sheen. Whether you sit down to listen intently, have it on in the background while doing something else, or simply immerse yourself in the sounds, I hope you enjoy these uncut live ambient experimental performances, a collection of meditative moments from another strange year of restrictions and lockdowns.

Tides releases in full on May 6th 2022 but today I'm launching pre-orders and the pre-release single Mariana on Bandcamp where you can read more about the album's backstory, track details (including equipment used and recording dates) and explore the full album credits and special thanks (You can also listen on YouTube and Newgrounds):

Pre-order Jabun's Tides album on Bandcamp:

https://jabun.bandcamp.com/album/tides

Listen to Mariana on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i58OvpTvS2A

Listen to Mariana on Newgrounds:
https://www.newgrounds.com/projects/audio/1853313/

Of course, all of my supporters on Patreon are receiving downloads for the album art and Mariana (Mp3) today, and if you're a $10 patron, you also have exclusive early access to the full Tides album and artwork package as well, right now 3 weeks before release time! If that sounds good to you, feel free to join me over on Patreon and remember you'll gain access to all past rewards for your tier too including my full backcatalog discography uploaded so far (including many Patreon exclusive downloads and bonus tracks) as soon as you sign up! Find out more below:

$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/64618391/
$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/64618389
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And a huge thanks goes to all patrons past and present who keep my music going each month with special mention to the current $10+ patrons: Nathan Puray, and Michael White! Thank you all so much for your help and support in making these dreams a reality! You folks are amazing!
​
That about wraps things up for this post! The next post and set of Patreon rewards will coincide with the album release on May 6th which will include the usual monthly updates and $10 DEMOlition Pigeon reward too. I'll also be announcing a live premiered listening party for the Tides album if you want to come and join for chats and discussions on YouTube while listening to Tides to celebrate the release! Until then, I hope you enjoy the new music and have a great month ahead, and thanks as always for supporting my music however you can! Take care and all the best!

Hi everyone and hope you had a good March! As another month starts (no April Fool's jokes this time btw), another set of Patreon rewards arrives, and despite the main reward being another EP, it's going to be a stripped down rewards post this time as it's mostly the same as last time (sort-of). More updates to share too, though let's start with your reward EP!

This month I'm sharing with you the instrumental version of last month's EP, a 5 track collection of blink182 covers called "5 Tracks, 4 Years, 3 Piece Band, 2 Of Us, 1 Leap [Instrumentals]". It's an instrumental version of a present I gave to Eva on our 4th anniversary, and although there is much to say, it's pretty much a repeat of last month so feel free to read all about it in last month's post:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/62327941

The tracklist is as follows:

01 First Date [Instrumental]
02 M+M's [Instrumental]
03 Wasting Time [Instrumental]
04 Eva [Josie] [Instrumental]
05 All The Small Things [Instrumental]

All Patreon supporters will be receiving an exclusive download of the EP (including music and artwork) this month, and if you're a $10+ patron, you also have an exclusive sneak peek at the final artwork for Jabun's 4th album to look forward to! 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 receiving all past rewards for your 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!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62327944
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62327945
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Onto this month's updates, I've been busy playing cello again for World Beyond as well as fixing up that Leslie rotary speaker I'm currently building, which is now fully working electronically and just needs to be put into a proper wooden box and finished (it's sounding amazing btw)! The BIG news for this month however is that that Jabun's 4th album is finally complete, and I've been super busy over the past few weeks preparing for its release, completing all the admin work, sorting out album streams and promo plans, uploading to stores etc... It's now only a few weeks until the album will be formally announced along with a prerelease single and pre-orders opening, and [NAME REDACTED] is set for release [DATE REDACTED]! The dates are concrete now so I've just got to make sure I can keep up with all the pre-release preparations! Wish me luck, it's going to be a busy month ahead!

Finally this week, it's time to set and reflect on some more goals! Here's what I set for March:

1) Finish master WAVs + Mp3s / Flacs for Jabuns new album
2) Get the Leslie Tremolo Unit fully working electronically and mechanically.

And a pretty successful month if I do say so myself as things went above and beyond these goals. Both were completed as previously mentioned, but I got SO much more sorted for Jabun's new album too! Worldwide distribution has now been approved on iTunes, Spotify, etc... and it's really just the YouTube and Newgrounds streams to sort and check, the Bandcamp page to finish, a little bit of promo artwork to make (website banners etc...), and the Patreon rewards to sort out. The Leslie's also doing well too, I really just need to go get the wood for it and start the construction work (it's mostly designed now too). With those goals set, and it being this time of year, here's what I'll be setting for next month:

1) Do my taxes
2) Renew the website, etc....
3) Finish preperations and launch pre-orders for Jabun's 4th album
4) Build the Leslie speaker into a functional cabinet

All those goals seem pretty self-explainatory, though it's going to be a challenge fitting it all in. For the Leslie, while I do hope to make it pretty with indicator LEDs on the footswitch and a tolex cover with a grillcloth front panel at some point, I'm only going to be aiming this month to get the structural and functional woodwork done. Aethetics and bonus bits can wait until later, but if there's time for it then that'll be fun too! Anyways, wish me luck. It's going to be a hectic month ahead and I hope you have a productive month too! 
​
And that about wraps things up for this post! More rewards will be coming sooner than usual to coincide with the announcment for the new album in a few weeks, so I hope you're looking forward to that and are excited to hear what I've been up to. Until then, thanks as always for supporting my projects, and all the best, take care and enjoy the music!

Hi everyone and hope you had a great February! It's the beginning of another month which means time for some more Patreon rewards and this time we're back to another old cover EP I gave as a present! Some more updates to share as usual including some new pieces of old gear I couldn't resist picking up, Cyberdevil’s new INK 20 Mixtape and more. Let's get started with that EP!
 
This month I'm sharing with you a 5 track EP of blink182 covers called "5 Tracks, 4 Years, 3 Piece Band, 2 Of Us, 1 Leap", a present I gave to Eva on our 4th anniversary! As with all my cover music I give as presents, this performance is free from any tuning or elasitic timing correction. The track list consists of 5 blink182 songs which are in some way romantic and reminded me of Eva and is as follows:
 
01 First Date
02 M+M's
03 Wasting Time
04 Eva [Josie]
05 All The Small Things
 
The cover of Josie has lots of the lyrics changed to be more personal to me and Eva too, hence the title change. It was all made for her, but I hope you enjoy it too!
 
All Patreon supporters will be receiving an exclusive download of the EP (including music and artwork) this month, and if you're a $10+ patron, you also have an exclusive artwork sneak peek and title / tracklist reveal from Jabun's 4th album to look forward to! 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 receiving all past rewards for your 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!
 
$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62327941
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62327942
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding
 
Next month's reward will almost certainly be the instrumental version of this EP, so look forward to that if you fancy singing along without my voice, or just don't want to hear me singing!
 
Onto the monthly updates, despite being effectively away for about half of the month with my twin Eamon coming to visit (fun times), there's still a lot of news to share! Firstly, after many months away from it, I've finally got back to some Better Than The Book practice in preparation for hopefully some live shows at some point (though at the moment I don't have an ETA) and vocal recording for the new album. Meanwhile, Jabun's upcoming album is almost finished audio-wise and I'm just waiting on some feedback from other ears before I make my final decisions and calling it done. The artwork on the other hand is now fully complete, so things are almost ready to prep for release!
 
In other news, it's been a while since I had a press feature of sorts so I was super happy this month to hear that Better Than The Book and Jabun's "1314" single was featured in The Tank Tribune's phonograph playlist on Newgrounds! Thanks so much for the feature and you can check out the full post here:
 
https://thetanktribune.newgrounds.com/news/post/1251065
 
Onto some exciting gear updates, I have 2(ish) things to share with you this month! Firstly, after telling myself I really don't need another BOSS Overdrive pedal, an opportunity came up which I just couldn't refuse, so I bet you can guess what I did! I got another BOSS Overdrive: The BOSS OD-2r Turbo Overdrive, and it sounds phenomenal! I ended up doing a small modification to it to fine tune and perfect the sound, and after that I was craving another mod/build project, and ANOTHER opportunity came up too! After not being able to find a suitable small rotary speaker to pair with my Yamaha Organ, someone in the next town over was selling an OEM Leslie Tremolo Unit (basically the inside of one with bare wires and no case) and for only £15 so I figured, I’d try and build one myself! If all goes to plan and I can get the innards of the unit working properly then I hope to be rocking a small Leslie 16/18 style cab in the near future! Very exciting! The above paragraph was a heavily abridged version of the story behind those 2 purchases, so if you want to hear more, you can read more in this month’s Patreon rewards!
 
Next on the news, it's been a long while in the making but I'm super happy to finally present to you huge a sort-of collaboration, Cyberdevil's INK20 Mixtape! INK20 is a remastered collection of Cyberdevil's Inktober 2020 challenge where he wrote, recorded and released a new rap song every day for the month of October! The INK20 mixtape features all 31 original tracks + 2 more bonus ones (all remastered) and is free to download from Cyberdevil's website. I was on remastering duties for this, and unlike INK19 or last year's Inktober, there aren't any beats from me this time. Check out a grand collection, read more about it, and grab a free download below! There are some real gems in this one!

​Hi everyone and hope you've had a great beginning of 2022! It's the start of another month and time for some more Patreon rewards and this time, I thought I'd continue with the Christmas EPs theme of the last few months to bring you something extra special: a brand new Patreon EXCLUSIVE EP "Mouth (Season's) Greetings"! This EP was given as a present to my twin Eamon for Christmas 2021 and has not been released in any form anywhere else yet! Lucky for you, he's given me permission to share it with the folks on Patreon and spread the joy! I cannot stress how incredibly stupid it is, and you might lose a few brain cells while listening (or even just looking at the artwork), but I thought I'd share it with you as a special treat! More monthly updates to share on top of this including the brand new 3 track vocal single from World Beyond "REVOLT", but let's get started with this exclusive EP!

"Mouth (Season's) Greetings" is a gapless 22+ minute mashup mixtape EP containing songs and skits, and sampling whatever I could get my hands on! Full disclosure, this EP was made for an audience of one person alone, Eamon Standing, so there will no doubt be in-jokes and stupidity which will fly over your head, but I'm sure you'll appreciate some of it. Although the EP is a single gapless file, it can be divided into 13 rough parts/tracks as follows:

01 Fall Out Soulja Boy
02 One Summer's Day Of '69 Dudes!
03 These Are The References That Will Pierce The Heavens!
04 Sk8er Father
05 Hello Kira
06 Tears for Fears Don't Fall
07 My Ordinary Dog
08 Hybrid Stigmata Theory
09 Where Is My Paranoid Teenage Dirtbag?
10 Rap Godzilla
11 Shoddy Craftsmanship
12 A Million Nights Begin To Shine
13 Epoohlogue

That should give you an idea of what kind of ride you're in for!

All Patreon supporters will be recieving an exclusive download of the EP (including music, artwork and a tracklist) this month, and if you're a $10+ patron, you also have another exclusive Jabun LIVE jam from the upcoming 4th Jabun album to look forward to! 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 your 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!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/60760054
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/60760053
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Onto monthly updates, it's been a pretty hectic time as I've been ill for a few weeks which has put the brakes on some projects. Not covid thankfully (according to the tests), but certainly not an appreciated break... Despite that, I have been back to working hard on Jabun's 4th album, with the tracks mostly mastered and the artwork well on the way too. Hoping to have those complete by the end of this month, but some scheduled time away might delay that again. 

Onto the BIG news for this month, World Beyond's brand new 3 track vocal single "REVOLT" was finally released on February 2nd (a reason for this slightly belated post)! The tracklisting is "Nobody is Safe", "Revolt" and "From Chaos" and Vlad has a tonne to say about it along with a teaser over on the World Beyond blog:

https://www.worldbeyond.net/2022/01/world-beyond-revolt-new-vocal-single.html

While I lent my ears to all 3 tracks, I'm only playing lead guitar, bass and screaming vocals for "Revolt" itself, but man oh man you've gotta check out Vlad's voice! Why hasn't he been singing sooner?! A massive congrats to both him and Maritza (who provided the choir vocals) for an amazing new release! Check out the lyric video for Revolt over on YouTube where you'll find all the links to stream and buy the full single in the description:

​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIijLYKAyKI

And super cool to see another long term collaborator David Klein II doing the 3D modelling for the video too! Great stuff, David!

For those who are planning to grab the new single on Bandcamp, it's also Bandcamp Friday again which means the artists get a bigger cut of the sales than usual. Check out REVOLT over on Bandcamp and thanks for supporting World Beyond and my collaborative projects!

https://worldbeyond.bandcamp.com/album/revolt

And there's STILL more collaborative stuff in the works with both World Beyond and more, so keep an eye out for more updates with that next time!

Finally this week, I think it's time to set some more goals! While I didn't set up any formal public ones for last month, I think it was a reasonably successful one considering the illness and time away, but let's see if I can make these goals for February:

1) Finish the artwork for Jabun's 4th album
2) Finish the master WAVs for Jabun's 4th album
3) Set aside ISRCs for Jabun's 4th album (no need to register yet, just get things set up in my own records)
4) Get back to practicing for Better Than The Book LIVE stuff!

It's looking to be another busy month with collaboration as well as some time away, so we'll see how this all goes but the first 3 goals would be super useful for getting this new Jabun album out in the first half of this year. Goal 4) has a 2 part purpose, firstly getting back to preparing for LIVE shows if the restrictions stay at ease, but also warming up my vocals again for recording for the upcoming 3rd full length album soon. I've got a fair few other things to do, but we'll see how I get on. Wish me luck and I hope you all have a productive month too! 

That about wraps things up for this month's post! Next time I think we'll be back to cover EP presents but we'll see what takes my fancy when I get around to sorting out the post later! Until then, I hope you have a great February to come, enjoy the musical silliness and thanks as always for supporting my music! All the best and take care!

Hi everyone and hope you had a great festive period last month and a fun New Years! It's the first week of 2022 and time for some more Patreon rewards, and following from last month's "Unwrap With Caution" EP, I'll be sharing another (mostly) acoustic festive EP from 2017, this time a present for my parents "Merry Christmas The Dings 2017"! As with the last, this is a Patreon Exclusive download at the time I'm writing this, and hope you enjoy it! More updates and another brand new World Beyond track to share this month too, but let's start with the EP.

"Merry Christmas The Dings 2017" is a 6 track collection of cover songs I'd sing back when I lived with my parents. It was recorded at the same time as "Unwrap With Caution" and apart from the lack of rap vocals follows a similar style and philosophy of production! I'm really pleased with these, and really do recon they're some of my best cover performances, recordings and productions to date (especially the final track)! The track listing is as follows:  

01 Perfect - Alice Cooper
02 Aliens Exist - Blink-182 
03 Wish You Were Here -Pink Floyd 
04 For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield 
05 Impression That I Get - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones 
06 Hurt - Nine Inch Nails / Johnny Cash

All Patreon supporters will be recieving an exclusive download of the EP this month, and if you're a $10+ patron, you also have an exclusive WIP demo of Better Than The Book's "Plot Holes" (with rough vocals and horns) to look forward to (from the upcoming 3rd full length album)! 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!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59947451
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59947446
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And you can listen to all tracks from "Merry Christmas The Dings 2017" over on YouTube. Check out the playlist below:

https://www.jabunaudio.com/merry-christmas-2017.html

Onto this month's project updates, I've been swamped with upcoming collaborative projects (more on that in the moment), and away for the festive period so I've unfortunately not been able to work on Better Than The Book or Jabun at all in December. I can say with certainty though that the delays will be well worth it once you hear what I've been up to and although I can't reveal all right now, I can give you a glimpse of one of these upcoming projects below!

Vlad at World Beyond has as usual been working a crazy amount and in December released the teaser and opening track for our upcoming collaborative single, a vocal version of "Revolt" from the 2018 album "Nobody Asked For This So I Did It"! I'm not playing on this extended intro track, but have been working hard with Vlad as his second set of ears and production mind to make this the best possible hybrid orchestral rock single we've released together to date! This single is extra special to me too as it's the first time (as I recall) that Vlad is singing on one of his tracks! I'll be joining him for the main single on guitar, bass and my own chords, but until then and without further wait, here is the opening to the "Revolt" single: "Nobody is Safe"! Enjoy and get hyped!

​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6x9rzpiyZo

And you can read more December updates from World Beyond including an amazing cover of the Halo Theme, some giveaways, and more below:

https://www.worldbeyond.net/2021/12/happy-holidays-halo-theme-cover.html

Finally for the updates this month, my twin Eamon got me a BOSS Blues Driver BD-2 guitar pedal for Christmas so expect to hear some more Green Day and The Pillows inspired guitar stuff in future recordings (it sounds very nice)! Thanks Eamon! It's looking to be another busy month of collaboration ahead but I hope to be back to some more Better Than The Book and Jabun by February! So much stuff in the works at the moment and I can't wait to show you soon!

For the last thing this month it's time to reflect on goals, and with no formal goals set last month and it being the beginning of the year, let's reflect on the goals for 2021 I set a year ago! Here's what I had listed:

1) Keep doing what I do, and keep getting better at it!
2) Make 2021 the best financial year for JabunAudio yet! (I can only try)
3) Release Jabun's 3rd album
4) Finish writing and start recording Better Than The Book's next album
5) Play the first BTTB live gig (still hoping)
6) Release or at least finish recording another (4th) Jabun album?
​
And given the uncertain year and another one mostly in lockdown I think things went pretty well! 2021 saw the release of Jabun's 3rd album "Generation Supernova", my first feature in a compilation album with The Ska Show With Beefy's "Save The Ska Show Complilation", BTTB & Jabun's collaorative single "1314" which I proposed with (and Eva said yes), along with an Inktober collaboration with Cyberdevil "No Cap Life", a cello performance on World Beyond's Tribute to the Frostpunk game, as well as an Apple Bottom Jeans Meme with my twin, Eamon, and on a less musical side of things, the creation and great reception of my custom NOISE oscilator for Korg's NTS-1 Synth! There is still SO much in the pipeline I can't reveal just yet too, but safe to say I think goal 1) (and 3)) are a resounding success!

Updates-to-the-studio-wise, along with the KORG Volca Modular and NTS-1 which you'l hear in the next Jabun album, there's been a tonne of guitar pedal rig expansions last year with the addition of the Sonicake Sonic IR speaker simulator (thanks Eva) and Digitech Whammy V, both of which you'll be hearing on the new BTTB album, as well as the 40th Anniversay of my favourite guitar pedal the BOSS Super Overdrive SD-1, the new Blues Driver BD-2 from Eamon, and my custom repurposed spring reverb unit made from recycled organ parts, the "Vintage 'Verb"! Not a lot of gaps left to fill in my armoury so I really don't expect to be adding much more in 2022, though there's just a few bit I'll be keeping an eye out for on eBay as usual (come on organ bass pedals)! We shall see!

Back to goals, 4) & 6) are going smoothly with Jabun's next album just awaiting mastering and the admin / artwork side of things, and BTTB's next album just awaiting vocals, horns, cello and a few other production extras before it's time for mixing! Unfortunatly with another mostly locked down year and leaning to the safer side of things, no BTTB gigs have been played just yet (5) and 2021 wasn't the best financial year for JabunAudio (2) though I must say things are getting much better in the past few month, despite the slight step away and more part-time approach I've had to take with it. All in all a good year I recon, so let's set some new goals for 2022:

1) Keep doing what I do, and keep getting better at it!
2) Make 2022 the best financial year (for JabunAudio?) yet! (As always I can only try)
3) Release Jabun's 4th album
4) Release or at least finish recording Better Than The Book's next album
5) Play the first BTTB live gig (still hoping)

Very similar to last year! There is a 5th(+) Jabun project still in the works since 2019 too, but I'll be doing my best to concentrate on finishing Better Than The Book's upcoming projects in my free time (whether that is) and we'll see how everything goes. Wish me luck!

With it looking like another busy month of collaboration ahead, I'll not set any goals (that I can reveal publicly) here, though I'll aim just to get all the silly beginning-of-the-year admin stuff out of the way (cleaning up emails and changing the website dates etc...) and hopefully I'll be back to set some personal creative goals in February. Hope you have a great and productive month (and year) ahead too!
​
That's it for this post and set of rewards and wishing you an amazing 2022 to come! I'm not 100% sure what I'll be sharing in the next set of Patreon rewards but it'll certainly be another Exclusive Download musical present of some kind so I hope you're looking forward to it (+ another Jabun demo for the $10 patrons). I'm sure there'll be more collaborative news to share as well! Until then, I hope you have a great start to the year, take care, and thanks as always for supporting my music however you can! All the best and see you in the next one!

Hi everyone and hope you've had a great November since last time! Advent is upon us, and it's time for another blog post along with some more Patreon rewards! This month I thought it'd be cool to start uploading the backlog of Nick Standing cover song EP's I've given as presents, starting with the most recent and going backwards in time. All of these (at the time of writing this at least) are Patreon Exclusive Downloads, and the first 2 of these happen to be ones I gave as Christmas presents which fits nicely with the time of year too! Let's start the collection with "Unwrap With Caution", my Christmas present for Eva in 2017! 

"Unwrap With Caution" is a collection of 2 mostly acoustic cover songs with a hefty dose of rap vocals! The track listing is as follows:

01 Papercut/PPR-KUT - Linkin Park
(a hybrid arrangement of the original and Reanimation remix versions)

02 The Juggernauts - Zebrahead

All Patreon supporters will be recieving an exclusive download of the EP this month, and if you're a $10+ patron, you also have another exclusive LIVE Jabun ambient performance from what will be Jabun's next album to look forward to! 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!

$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/58766278
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/58766276
Reward Archives: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50344842
Find out more: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

And you can listen to both tracks from Unwrap With Caution over on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYz2oyXL-jA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6wmiM7dId4

But that's not all for the rewards this month! More on that in a moment!

Onto the montly project updates and news, it's been an incredibly busy and hectic one this time and unfortunately I've not been able to make any progress at all on BTTB's next album. I have however recorded the final track for Jabun's next album, and the project is now all set up and ready for mastering! Next month is looking to be even busier and more hectic than the last though, so I'm not sure when exactly I'll be able to get to these, but in any case, there'll still going to be lots more music to share soon, even if it takes a little longer to finish my own projects. Thanks for your patience!

And speaking of new music, some news on collaborations! My twin Eamon has been concocting madness in his musical laboratory these past few months and has very quickly made a name for himself as a master of the Apple Bottom Jeans meme! For those who don't know, earlier this year a trend started where people would perform covers of songs  but sing the lyrics to "Low" by "Flo Rida" instead... and it's pretty friggin' good! Eamon's done DOZENs of them now, some of which I think have been his best vocal performances ever! I highly recommend checking them out on his YouTube Channel right NOW!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCap22RGbukp7aqu8zlYbuw

And with incredibleness comes incredible silliness! Earlier this month, Eamon pranked me with a cover of one of MY songs: Apple Bottom Jeans by Better Than The Book! I SWEAR it's not me singing, though he's using my instrumental version and did ask me to help out with making the artwork! It's, quite simply put, trippy listening to it for me! Great job bro! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv3ixgZz8eM

And very kindly, Eamon's let me share both these tracks and their artwork with you this month as a bonus reward on Patreon! Go show your support by checking out his channel on YouTube, and grab the Apple Bottom Jeans download pack in the rewards below! Enjoy:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCap22RGbukp7aqu8zlYbuw

​$1 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/58766278
$10 Rewards: https://www.patreon.com/posts/58766276

Next this week, some more updates from World Beyond! It's time for more bonus tracks and sales for the festive season, and WB has just released a new track of its own too "Bewitched"! I'm not playing on this track specifically, but I am featured on the Mindshell album which it's being added to as a bonus track! Check out what Vlad had to say about it below:

"""
Bewitched is now available as a Mindshell bonus track!

If you previously purchased Mindshell you might want to re-download the album to get our new track Bewitched, a Mental Omega exclusive remake of Witcher's Tale, as a bonus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jf6V9QGmJo

Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel not to miss the upcoming vocal single "Revolt"
"""

And I AM on that new version of "Revolt", and very much looking forward to hearing it released!

On top of that, Vlad's also runing a 50% off sale on the World Beyond bandcamp page, so if you're feeling in need for some EPIC music (and I don't use that word lightly), go grab some deals over there! Vlad says:

"""
It's the most wonderful time of the year!

World Beyond Bandcamp Holiday sale is on: worldbeyond.bandcamp.com

Use promocode "controlmore" at checkout to get 50% off any purchase. Thank you so much for supporting us and stay tuned for our upcoming releases on YouTube:

​https://www.youtube.com/c/worldbeyondsoundtracks
"""

Enjoy!

Finally this week, as is usual, it's time to reflect on the usual monthy goals. Here's what was set for November:

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!

And unfortunately as you've already read, only 3) was completed this time... It's looking to be an incredibly busy month ahead too, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to these projects. As such, and with the possiblity of festive downtime too, I'll not be setting any formal goals here this month, but as you'll no doubt soon see, I'll be busy nonetheless! All the best with your own goals, and I'll be back to set some more in January I'm sure! 

That wraps things up for this month's rewards/updates! Next time we'll be continuing the  Patreon rewards with another mostly acoustic cover EP from 2017, this time made as a gift for my parents! Until then, I hope you have an amazing December to come and enjoy the festive season however you celebrate, and I look forward to sharing more music with you in 2022! Thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio, Jabun, Better Than The Book and my other projects however you can, and take care, seasons greetings and all the best!