-2012 Attempt

On July 6th 2012 my grandmother passed away. She had been a mother figure for me my entire life. In fact as far as anyone is concerned, she was my mother. The following couple of weeks I just isolated myself in my bedroom and watched the entire Twin Peaks series back to back, eating less than one meal a day. My phone was off and “supposedly” a lot of people were trying to get in touch with me. Apparently people aren’t able to respect your wishes of privacy because my uncle Dan ended up breaking into my apartment to see if I was still alive. Jeremy was also sending me messaged on Facebook and emails saying that so and so were desperately trying to get in touch with me. I had recently quit my job, June 13th 2012 Trigonix, just a couple of weeks prior to my grandmother passing away, so I was able to stay home and do nothing.

Following this I got hooked on the idea to do something in music again. I wanted to help people out. I had also been looking for compilations being put together to release the Citadel Swamp song that was composed back in January of 2011 but I didn’t find any. On August 18th 2012 I started working out the plan for a new follow-up to “Diluvian Temperals” compilation on Abridged Pause Recordings.

I was out of touch with a lot of the new music scene so right off the bat I contacted all of the bands that were on Diluvian Temperals (or members to see what new bands they were doing) and asked them if they had an exclusive song they could contribute. I also messaged all of my friends to see if they had something to submit as well. I asked Austaras, Beyond the Dune Sea, Black Autumn, Brainscan, Černá, Citadel Swamp, Dying Sun, Eliminator, Fear the Setting Sun, Gestalt, Last Minute to Jaffna, Nero di Marte, Oceanus, Omega Centauri, Omertah, Pet Slimmers of the Year, Seven Nines and Tens, The Great Old Ones, Wavre and Whales and Aurora. My hope was to have sixteen or seventeen songs on the album, regardless of time limit.

Alright so this is the official announcement to each of the bands that are going to be part of the new Abridged Pause Recordings compilation.

The plan is to have the compilation out for spring 2013. Therefore, the deadline for you to send me the song is January 15th 2013.

This gives you exactly four and a half months to do the song!

The rule is of course that this song must be exclusive to the Abridged Pause Recordings compilation, and you cannot use this song on any other release without asking my permission first. That rule is because, as you know, any person running a blog nowadays can put together a compilation with songs from albums. The only way to make compilations stand out is to have exclusive material on it.

By appearing on this compilation, you agree to send me everything of the following, no later than January 15th 2013:

1: One exclusive song in WAV format, produced and mixed. Mastering is up to you, but there will be a general mastering for the compilation once done.

2: Full information of the recording, which includes each person appearing on the recording (by their real name) and recording and studio credits.

3: A new or recent band picture of at least 1400px by 600px, for us to create a band page on our website. This MUST to be a picture of the band, and not a landscape or internet found image.

4: The full band information at the time you send the song; band members, location, year of forming, and direct band links to official site, facebook, bandcamp, last.fm itunes, etc.

5: Lyrics of the song, if any.

All material is to be sent to alex@abridgedpause.com

Please confirm that you will be on this compilation by responding to this message.

Thanks a bunch, and I hope to make this compilation as successful as “Diluvian Temperals”!

Eventually, when my birthday came around, the collected songs were a complete failure. I didn’t have enough to release anything and after looking quickly to see if I could find more bands that I liked, decided to abandon the project entirely. I had some problems for “Diluvian Temperals” but it seemed like more people were interested in being part of it. This time it was as if people just didn’t care. So what was the point in helping them right?

-2013 Attempt

I re-contacted the same bands in June of 2013 to find out who was still on board, if anyone had actually recorded their songs for it, and asked a few new bands. Need to do more research about this. Seven Nines and Tens, Wavre, Oceanus, Orpheus were for sure contact during this time. Probably Brainscan too. Asked Valleys of the Living.

-2015 Revival

On July 12th 2015 I was looking for a compilation to release the finally recorded Ephemere song. Again, failing to find something suitable I decided to bring back the APR idea again.

I started contacting bands. This time I was going to have.

-Confirmed, have song

1. Citadel Swamp (“Moontide in the Shallows”)
2. Ephemere (“Half Light (Notte)”)
3. Black Sand and Starless Nights (“Heaven’s Fire”)
4. Black Autumn (“Rites of Passage”)
5. Pet Slimmers of the Year (“Untitled”)
6. Spectrale (“Sagittarius A”)
7. Brainscan (“Freedom, or How I Learned to Lie”)
8. Sky Flying By

-Confirmed, waiting for song

1. In Cauda Venenum (“Laura Palmer”originally didn’t plan to record anything new, but later offered a new Twin Peaks cover)
2. Feast
3. Cara Neir
4. Cerna
6. Cetus (working on new song, hope to finish it)
7. The Sound of Rescue/Hotel Neon
8. Somnam
9. Seven Nines and Tens
10. Ossific
11. Plaguewielder (Ohio)

-Maybe/Need to re-ask later

1. Den Andre Lys
2. (EchO) (lost their singer and couldnt record the rest of the songs, but then got new singer)
3. Fire Walk With Us

Confirmed, Song rejected

1. Moon Ate the Dark (sent in an unreleased song from first album plus two songs from EP that were not exclusive. When I listened to the unreleased b-side it was so awful that I couldn’t even finish listening to the song. There was no way I could convince myself to have the song on there, even if they were a “big” band.)
2. Lumnos (send me 128kbps mp3s of two already released songs, completely ignored what I had asked for. when i explained clearly what i needed, he stopped responding)
3. Louis-Claude Roux song (sent in a good song but just didn’t match what the compilation was going for)
4. Fedderweit/Great White North/The Zyphoid Process (“Predator’s Handshake”, “Gossip Girl” or new Fedderweit song. just didn’t fit the theme of the compilation. in the end they never even bother to get together to record the vocals)
5. Shaun Moffit doom band (from Semper Dolens, sent in a doom song which was just too slow for the comp)
6. Arboretus (All Humans, this song is bogus, boring as hell and with a disco beat at the end??? This guy has lost his talent)
7. Sorrowbringer (sent me a song that sounded too 1990’s hard rock, later accepted the 3 song he sent in)
8. Brave the Waters (sent me a bogus piece of junk song. after telling them I couldn’t use it, they insulted me and were extremely mean)

-Asked, Denied

1. Izah (didn’t want to send an exclusive song because they were worth too much money. offered a song from previous album)
2. Valleys of the Living (didn’t have good enough material to have published)
3. The Holly Springs Disaster (didn’t want to send me anything)
4. Drouth (no money to record a new song)
5. Slo (was only working on his electro project Fixions)
6. Arafúra (didn’t have any extra song to contribute)
7. Dying Sun (in the middle of writing new album, so nothing to provide and was also in a contract with label. used song original submitted on their album)
8. The Great Old Ones (did not want to/have contribute a new song)
9. Cartographer (didn’t have a new song)
10. Lethian Dreams (didn’t have any new songs and wanted to reserve everything for their albums)
11. Semper Dolens (didn’t have any new song and didn’t think they’d have anything new for another few years)
12. A Light Within (didn’t think that their label would approve of sending me a new song, offered to send some from past releases instead)
13. Majora (didn’t want to provide anything exclusive)
14. Grey Skies Fallen (wanted to but wouldn’t be writing new material until 2016)
15. Havarax (LCR sent solo song)
16. Hacride (LCR sent solo song)
17. Lyrids (didn’t want to contribute)
18. Janvs (flat out refused to participate)
19. Tsima (didn’t have the money to record a new song, though they wanted to be on the compilation)
20. Seas of Years (didn’t want to)
21. Sisters of… (sent me an email asking to be signed to APR. When I instead offered to feature a song on the compilation, they stopped responding and avoided the topic when I talked to them later. assholes)
22. Fear the Setting Sun (never got back to me)
23. Entropia (never got back to me)
24. Buckshot Facelift
25. Plaguewielder (Luxembourg, didn’t want to send in an exclusive)
26. Chelsea’s Gone Under/Empathy/Her Dark Host (all Nathan’s bands as backups to Knife, but they didn’t fit the mood)
27. Antithesis (didn’t want to participate)
28. Exgenisis (couldn’t record anything new)
29. Last Minute to Jaffna (wouldn’t have a new song ready in time)
30. Knife (“Burn the Witch” originally supposed to be sent but stopped responding by the fall)
31. Pile High (originally agreed in the summer but stopped responding by the fall)
32. Koda (asked but he never got back to me)

got idea to ask Hugo Cavailles from Studio Cardinal to do the artwork after seeing the Saul Hitner artwork.

Artwork:

Hugo Cavailles

Slo

Jeff Grimal (great old ones, Spectrale)

Erich Kriebel

after Erich sent in the storm image, I reached out to Costin to know his schedule, but he wasn’t available until March.

Then I looked for a backup and found Martha Iserman of Big Red Sharks Studio. Never got to ask her because Erich deisnged a really cool sea turtle artwork.

artwork could feature a full digital booklet, and also a flyer

July 25th got the idea todo interviews with each of the bands, to publish on the AP Blog as promotion. got idea to publish all the interviews in a magazine, designed in the same fashion as the compilation, but i realized i would have also needed to include the compilation with the zine, which would make it look like a sampler, and the cost of promos and band copies would just be insane.

since I don’t want to interview myself for Citadel Swamp and I can’t trust Val to respond in a timely manner, I’m going to ask each member of the bands that I’m interviewing to ask me a question they feel is original and that they think no one else will also ask me, that’s relevant to the music.

December 1st email:

Hello . Hope all is going well. Please excuse the formality of the message bellow.

This is the official December 1st 2015 message concerning the new Abridged Pause Recordings compilation. This is to remind you that the deadline to send me your new song (and other requirements, listed bellow) is a month away. The deadline is December 31st 2015. But I’m human and I understand that if you need a couple more days/a week extra at the most for some unforeseen circumstance, I can give you that extra time. But I need to know if that’s the case. Just keep me posted on the progress.

As we have already discussed, I would appreciate if this song, or at least the version of the song that you are sending me, remains exclusive to the Abridged Pause Recordings compilation for at least 2-3 years. It just makes the compilation stay relevant in the future. “Exclusive” does not mean you are signing your rights away to me or to Abridged Pause Recordings. I’m not asking for a written contract, simply a verbal understanding that the song will not be used on other releases. Otherwise it’s just not cool. You and your band remain in complete control and ownership of your song. You are free to promote, repost and upload your new song anywhere you want, but only once the compilation is officially released, and as long as you include the artwork of the compilation and a link to where the full release can be downloaded.

Here is what I will be needing from your band by December 31st:

1: The song, fully mixed, in WAV, FLAC or AIF format.

2: The recording information for the song. This includes the full names of all the people who played on the recording along with what each played, the name of the studio, the name of any producers and engineers that worked on this recording, and finally the recording/mixing/producing date(s). I insist on crediting everyone properly.

3: The lyrics, if any, of the song you are sending.

4: Your most recent band picture, or something original that I can use as a band picture. I need a landscape picture, not portrait. The image needs to be high resolution, with a minimum size of 2500 x 1400 (in pixels). I know this seems big but trust me, it’s necessary with the current state of technology. No logo on the picture please.

5: Your band logo, with preferably no background, at least 1400 x 600 (in pixels). The bigger, the better.

6: The band information: band members, location (not just the country, I need at least a State/Province/Department/Region and if you can a city), the year and the month/season that the band started.

Everything can be sent to alex@abridgedpause.com or abridgedpause@gmail.com. You can use either email for Dropbox, or if possible send a zip file using Wetransfer.

 

Here is the rundown of what’s happening on my end for the compilation and why I need all of the above. Please keep this confidential:

Just to make this clear once again, this will be a digital compilation.

As part of the promotion for this compilation, I will be creating an individual artist page on the Abridged Pause Recordings website for your band. It will have a brief bio (that I will write myself) including general information of your band and links to your websites and social media pages.

I will also be sending each band a personalized interview. I’m sick of these webzines sending the same questions to every single band. Don’t you hate that first question “State the name of your band and have you released anything?” Shouldn’t they know this already!?! I’m already a fan of your band, and I will be asking things that fans want to know. I usually spend a week doing research on your band and band members’ musical past, so my questions will be very appropriate. I will be sending you the interviews in the order that I have received your songs. Please try to answer and get them back to me within a reasonable time frame. The deadline for the interviews will be January 31st.

As soon as I have all the songs (hopefully by December 31st), and all of the interviews (hopefully by January 31st), by then I’ll have figured out the track order and will be getting the compilation mastered. The artwork and layout will include a multi-page digital booklet with artwork by Jeff Grimal, check him out!

I plan to release this compilation sometime in February or March of 2016. I will be keeping you guys up to date with the progress in the new year. As soon as I have the track order, I will email you all to let you know who is officially appearing on the compilation.

Once the compilation is released, I will be publishing your interviews, one at a time, at a frequency of once or twice a week, on the Abridged Pause Blog section. This will provide roughly two months of relevant promotion for your band and the compilation.

I will also be sending the compilation out to all the big webzines for reviews and news announcements, most of which you are already familiar with, as I have compiled my list of contacts partly from links you’ve shared. Feel free to promote this compilation on your end as well once it is released!

If you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, let’s talk!

20 bands
60 pages
divided by 4 = 15
x20 copies
300 papers

only buy color paper for the top cover

then photocopies of regular paper would be 14cents a sheet double sided (10 cents a sheet if i do 500)
13 cents if i bring my own paper

maybe get t-shirts made. only through printful. all i have to do is pay for 1 for myself and make sure the shirt color is good.

coming up with album title:

Precipitation Catstrophical
Tempest
Tempestuous Surge
Tempestuous Billow
Tempestuous Billowed * no search results
Billowing Tempestus * no search results. this is the title.
Tempestuous Surging
Tempestuous Billowing

ask bands to submit the compilation to all their PR contacts, as they might respond faster to familiar names than a label they havent heard of before

started working on track order on January 8th 2016. on the mornig of january 12 i was satisfied with a tracklisting
sent for mastering on night of january 22nd/23rd.
for tracklisting, was constantly debating dropping Cara Neir song and Citadel Swamp song.
Beleive that the CN song was awful and was just not confident about the CS song.
asked Mike Krall to re-mix Sorrowbringer song. got his sexond mix back on January 22nd.
For track order, was considering starting the compilation with either Cetus of Feast.
got demo of artwork from Erich on January 22nd.
originally Black Birch has offered to promote the release for free, as they were bullshitting me with VE at the same time
emailed cvlt nation on january 11th 2016 about doing an exclusive premiere.CVLT Nation offered to premiere a song

Artwork email:

I’ve been working on a various artists compilation titled “Billowing Tempestus”, that I originally planned to release in February of 2016. The news announcement is here with the list of bands and all the details: http://www.abridgedpause.com/abridged-pause-recordings-2016-news-update
Here’s the best way that I can describe what I’m looking for in the artwork:
Faith No More is my favourite band, which is completely irrelevant to this whole compilation, except for the fact that I heard them say in an interview that they build their setlists for shows in a roller coaster manner. Constant ups and downs, heavy and light, loud and soft, in a way to always keep the audience interested. It’s also a way for them to have tension and relief, which makes everything more enjoyable. So that’s how I set up the track listing for Billowing Tempestus. The title too, “Billowing Tempestus”, is inspired by a huge sea storm. The sea which can be beautiful and calm and then out of nowhere that rush of danger. The first compilation that I released in 2009, “Diluvian Temperals”, had a similar theme and concept.
With that in mind I want to have an album cover that represents beauty and disaster without being too obvious. On the other hand I don’t want something completely abstract. I love the sea-themed colors; blueish-greenish hues. I want it beautiful without being feminine, like if you were watching an ocean-life documentary such as Planet Earth, with full brilliant colors. “Diluvian Temperals” had a crab on it (the artwork was actually already created when I started working with the designer Vincent Cassar), so I want the artwork for “Billowing Tempestus” to be an obvious followup without copying it too much. I love the idea of a monstrous sized creature that shows it’s power, but post-metal, sludge and post-black metal bands have pretty much overplayed all the big ones; deers, elks, moose, reindeer, owls, eagles, crows, ravens, octopus, squid, elephants, mastodons, mammoths, sharks, pelicans, wolves, bears… I’m sure you are aware of the overused Kraken monster (an octopus), reaching out above the water to tackle a ship. I want to do the opposite of that, showing an event that has already happened, now underwater.
Upon looking at sea animals, because of the title’s theme, I came across pictures of sea turtles (one in particular by Martha Iserman) and realized how amazing and peaceful they looked. Some of them can grow to pretty huge sizes and live for hundreds of years. But no one’s thought of making them into sea monsters.
So I started working with artist Erich Kriebel on the artwork. I told him about the sea turtle we came up with the idea to put a twist on Moby Dick, turned sea turtle. This monstrous looking sea turtle with battle scars from years of crashing into ships, battling humans and escaping teeth of orcas and sharks. But the sea turtle doesn’t look menacing itself, it’s just by size that you realize how dangerous it is. I also wanted to incorporate old wooden shipwrecks from the pirate, buccaneer and whale hunting days into the picture, because to me it’s a beautiful, peaceful thing. It would also show the damage the sea turtle had done. Then Erich had the genius idea to embed them onto the turtles back shell, encrusted in there from years of rotting and being stuck on it, after it had sunk them. It was a perfect way to show that this beautiful sea creature was in fact responsible for the shipwrecks, and it also showed its size right off the bat. Erich did a preliminary sketch and then vanished, only to resurface a month later to quit the project because of lack of time/motivation.
Obviously I would want the new design to be created from your own vision, and not reproduce the rough sketch that Erich Kriebel designed.
What I need, because this is going to be a digital compilation, is only 1 illustration. But I need it in widescreen/landscape mode. I will be using the center part of the image as the album artwork, cropped to square. The full landscape illustration will be used as the front cover of the e-zine that I am designing (I’m doing the layout myself in mobile/tablet size, hence why I need this is landscape and not portrait, because I think that digital magazines should reflect the screen we’re using and not the size of printed magazines). I also intend to use the background of the illustration as the background for the pages of the e-zine.So I need the design in layers, where I can remove the sea turtle, the shipwrecks and whatever else is in the foreground, and only keep a blueish, greenish, deep sea colored background, make it more opaque, and have that as the background for all the pages.

As far as the deadline, when I originally started this compilation in the summer of 2015, I was hoping to have it out by the end of that year. It took far longer to get all the songs together and when I announced the project publicly in January, I wanted it out by late February, early March at the latest. Again I ran into more delays and as things stand right now, I’d like to have it out by late March/early April. That means that I’m hoping the artwork could be done by mid-March (if that’s possible). Because I will then need a good 2 weeks to design the layout of the e-zine. This all depends on your time though, and since I am on a tight budget for this artwork, I wouldn’t want you to put other project aside for me.

December 2015, Bariann wants to co-release it through Feather Witch, says she will get a premiere through CVLT Nation and promo through The Black Birch PR.

need info about late january and february 2016

guy from CVLT nation wanted to come in and co release it, to do a physical version of it. i wasn’t very interested.

Costin Wwanted 300 Euros to do it
suggested Andrei Ionut who offered to do it for 100 Euros, negotaiable.
Was supposed to do a preliminary sketch so we could discuss the price but he never followed through.
At the same time I messaged Martha Iserman, who had done the sea turtle that actually influenced me
She did another sketch.

by the begining of March of 2016 I was fed up with waiting, my momentum had stopped and the compilation was already old news
I didnt even want to release it anymore.
Ossific and Brainscan still hadnt sent me back the interviews, and some of the answers from the other bands
were already old and inaccurate as they had released albums that they mentioned as being upcoming earlier in the year
I still hadn’t done a Citadel Swamp interview since I had no motivation.
I also wanted to kick out Cerna because he was such a dumbass wanna-be do-gooder, promoting a benefit compilation and kissing ass to a label that was screwing him
I also didnt want Spectrale’s song on there because it wasn’t exclusive
I also didn’t want to keep Brainscan’s song on there if he wasn’t going to answer my interview.

got the artwork from Martha on March 8th, looked amazing

took 2 days editing the white out of the turtle to fit over background.

March 10th, 20 minutes after paying Martha, Andrei sends me a preview of what he’s working on.

also listen to 2n mastering from Marc and it sounds awful again. he edited the songs again, and the songs are up and down over the album. asked Garry, Buckley and Joe for help.

march 18th: garry had offered to do the mastering for 50$, buckley for 100$, so went for him. came back pretty fast with a mastering but it had over a minute of added silence to it, which he denied adding. he wound up ignoring me and doing the same thing that Erich did.
cerna was being a piece of shit kissing ass to domestic genocide and wanted me to whitewash the interview. cara neir posted “upcoming releases” post on FB which didnt even mention the APR compilation. Ossific wasn’t getting back to me with the interview corrections. Eiman was stalling me, refusing to send me the interview, even though he kept promising it. I couldn’t finish the citadel swamp interview. sky flying by release their album a month early so I had to edit the interview again. Ephemere was busy and took forever to get back to me with corrections. PSOTY just didnt give a shit. somnam had a boring interview, spectrale’s song wasn’t going to be exclusive. And no band was actually asking me about when the compilation was coming out, meaning you could tell they didnt care. I had paid Martha 100$ instead of the 50$ she asked, and she never even thanked me. Then she wasn’t going to do the prints anymore. So before going off and paying extra money to master something that I wasn’t even feeling motivated about anymore, I decided to drop it again.

eiman then sent me back a bogus answered interview and insulted my music.

On March 27th 2016, Buckley was the first to ask me what was going on with the compilation, though asking me what I thought about his second mastering. My response to him on March 28th was:

“Hey Buckley. I want to start out by thanking you for all the efforts and work you’ve put into this. I really appreciate it.
I don’t want to get into details nor share all the drama but the participants of the compilation haven’t been as enthusiastic as I anticipated.
And that’s a huge disappointment for me, after working on it for months (years even, considering I started part of it in 2012), so I’m shelving the project for now.
I hope we can work together again on another project in the future. And of course, I remain a big Cetus fan!”

On April 10, 2016, I emailed all the bands to officially announce that the compilation was cancelled:

”

Hello [name of person]. Some of you have been asking about the status of the Abridged Pause Recordings compilation, Billowing Tempestus, so I decided to put together a final news update solely for the bands.

I want to start out by thanking you for all the efforts and work you’ve put into this. I won’t get into details, nor share all the drama that occurred, but the participants of the compilation haven’t been as enthusiastic as I had anticipated (you are free to interpret that any way you want). That’s a huge disappointment for me after working on it for so long, so I’m shelving the project.

Likely some of you will be asking about the future of the material that was put together; all songs submitted were by verbal agreement. Therefore you are free to use your songs anywhere you want. They are no longer exclusive to, nor associated with Billowing Tempestus nor Abridged Pause Recordings.

As far as the interviews being published; they were part of a package option: compilation + magazine. They came together and they were made to promote the compilation. When I decided to shelve the compilation, that also included the magazine and therefore all the interviews as well. In the far future, it is possible that I may contact some of you to publish a selection of these interviews. But as of now I have no plans to. Again, you are free to use your songs anywhere you want, but I do not grant any permissions for these interviews to be published anywhere.

Thanks again.”

Some people, like Michael Krall of Black Autumn, had this prefix to the message:

“Hello Mike. Just to let you know, the bellow message is generic, not personalized. You are one of the few bands on the compilation that I had no problem with, so if you want to know more info, I’m willing to give you a deeper explanation. Please don’t think that I am pointing the finger at you with anything I say bellow.”