Track 05 "Brighton" from Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams is now streaming, "The Hardest Part" featured on idobi Radio's Fresh Picks, BTTB debuts on Button Down Radio, introducing the Patreon REWARD ARCHIVE posts + Happy 808 Day!

Hi everyone and hope you're having another great week since the last post! The hype train just keeps chugging on over here and it's been another intensely busy week at JabunAudio with yet more radio features and news for Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams album, as well as some other fun things to share! It's gonna be another long post so let's get straight to it!

Let's start with another track to share from Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams album, and this time it's track 05 (the final track of side A) "Brighton" all about my favourite city by the sea! Check out the YouTube video below for nostalgic and summery vibes about fond memories growing up on England's south coast, and I wonder if you can pick up on all the references! You can also check it out on SoundCloud and Newgrounds if those are you usual haunts, and without further wait, I hope you enjoy, "Brighton"!

Purchase the “Hopes and Dreams” album on Bandcamp:
https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/
 
Or grab the full album and complete Better Than The Book discography now when you become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Next in the news, it’s been another crazy week for radio features for BTTB's new Hopes and Dreams album! Better Than The Book made its debut on Button Down Radio on Sunday, and there’s still a few more chances (5 at the time I post this) to catch “Artificial Ignorance” in the Featured This Week segment before they refresh the playlist this coming Sunday and it enters the general rotation. Check out the poster promoting the show below for all the times it'll be playing throughout the week, tune in now via their website below to have a listen (and catch more great tunes), and thanks so much to Button Down Radio for having BTTB on the show!

https://www.buttondownradio.co.uk/

More radio news next as the opening track from the Hopes and Dreams album "The Hardest Part" has been added to Fresh Picks on idobi Radio too! Tune in via the link below, check out another promotional graphic from the station, and thanks to idobi for having BTTB on the show! Amazing!

ido.bi/player

That makes 4 out of 10 tracks from Hopes and Dreams to have been featured on the radio so far! Amazing times, and a huge thanks to all the shows and stations who have been playing them! Better Than The Book just passed 500 followers on Twitter and 100 likes on Facebook too, so that's pretty cool as well! I’m so happy people are enjoying the new music!

Last of the big pieces of news this week: some major updates to my Patreon page as I announce the first set of "REWARD ARCHIVE" posts covering 4/10/2018 -> 7/8/2019 (including the full Better Than The Book Discography & more) for the convenience of Patreon supporters and new patrons! You can now use the tag "REWARD ARCHIVE" to access posts which summarize and collect all the rewards for your tier from October 4th 2018 to August 7th 2019, instead of having to search through posts manually to find the past rewards for your tier when you sign up! These months' rewards cover the full Better Than The Book discography (as of August 2019), and the posts are there for your convenience so you can pick up all these rewards (Mp3s, WAVs, artwork and more depending in your tier) in one place, including:

• One Small Step EP 
• Heartbeats [The Knife] + GG [Good Game]  
• Meteor Shower 2017 demo, MLGG + Stars Racing {Patreon exclusive}
• Two Years On album  
• Two Years On [Instrumentals] album
• A selection of pre-BTTB demos {Patreon exclusive} 
• Hopes and Dreams album + press photos, lyric sheets, and a behind the scenes studio photo and story     

Become a monthly patron for as little as $1 to access all the music so far as well as all the music to come in the future while you remain a patron! For those of you signed up the $10+ DEMOlition Pigeon tier, you also have access to all the work in progress, demos and behind the scenes monthly articles too including:
  

• A sneak peek at "(The Travelling To See Eva Song)" 
• Journey into "Get A Haircut"
• One Small Step's artwork story + a new mix 
• A deep dive into "Meteor Shower"
• More Better Than The Book artwork stories + another first(ish) draft mix from the new album
• Work in progress artwork for the upcoming Hopes and Dreams album + a demo master for track 06 "Get A Haircut"
• An in depth look into the creation of the Hopes and Dreams album cover (+ demo alternatives)
• A behinds the scenes look into "The Hardest Part"
• A behinds the scenes look into "Artificial Ignorance"
• A behinds the scenes look into "And I Fear"

Check out the full post on Patreon for all the details and thanks so much for supporting Better Than The Book, Jabun and my various music projects on Patreon!
 
https://www.patreon.com/posts/28928832
https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

Finally this week, some super fun celebrations to share because today is 808 Day! In case you're unaware, 808 Day (in the music tech community at least) celebrates my favourite drum machine of all time, the Roland TR-808 and its legacy on music since its invention in the 1980s!
          The TR-808 has been used on countless albums, in almost every genre imaginable by everyone from Phil Collins, to Marvin Gaye, to Blink-182, to Kanye West, to Limp Blizkit & Linkin Park, just to name a few (the list goes on and on)! In my own music, it was used to enhance every track on Better Than The Book's new Hopes and Dreams album, and was used more recognizably in my debut album as Jabun - Daydream, as well as on countless other tracks in my discography! I love it and to celebrate this year I fired up my more compact Tr-08 (Roland's modern reissue) for some big low end booms, robotic claps, sizzling hi-hats, and the most recognizable yet WTF cowbell sound in sampling history for a little jam which you can watch below
          It's my first time recording something like this live in addition to it being completely unrehearsed and improvised, but all things considered I'm super pleased with how it turned out (I might even make a fully fledged track based on this jam later)! All the sounds are from the Tr-08 with effects provided by the filter, mod delay, decimator, reverb and valve saturation from my Korg ESX Electribe (the big red/pink box), and recorded straight onto my Akai MPC 1000 (no post effects/editing). Hope you enjoy it, more electronic music to come soon, and a happy 808 Day to all!

And that’s it for the news this week! Next week we'll be onto track 06 of the album and the beginning of side B so there'll be that to share, but I'm sure there'll be many more pieces of news to share too! It's set to be a busy week regardless so we'll have to wait and see for what the next blog post has in store! Until next time, have a great rest of the week and thanks as always for supporting Better Than The Book, JabunAudio and my various projects! Happy 808 day once again and take care!