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DIY Album, Musicians' Diary

I’ll be waiting…

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Since last album, I had forgotten this odd “in-between” time after the album’s release. The time it takes to go from “the release” to “what’s next”.

Since the album’s release then, a couple of fans bought it straight away,  fans that follow us regularly, that were waiting for it- you’re probably among them: big thank you! :). It’s a big reward when the first orders come in. (and a relieve also, let’s be honest !!! )

songlines 4 stars review
Our first album’s review in Songlines magazine in 2013

In the meantime also, we keep sending albums+press reviews to magazines and radios, although net-works can be powerful, traditional media have their audience for which they will select the music they think they will like. And from previous experiences we know how it brought attention from people that now follow us on a regular basis. Because this is the concrete real outcome of a good review, it isn’t about praising our musicians’ ego with nice and pleasant words. It really can help to spread the word around our project, and make it successful, help to touch more people and also be a plus when it comes to book new gigs and concerts.

Being aware of that brings a tiny bit of pressure.

What if they don’t like it? What if they don’t play it?

And there is also something we all know, nowadays, everything goes pretty fast. In the case of radios, either our music will get played straight away, either it will never be. All of this has a direct crucial impact on the music we might or might not be able to create and play in the up-coming month. Not that we would stop playing music!!! 😀 But we have the intuition that a slightly bigger audience would inspire us quite a few new cool projects!

So… we’re waiting…

§ Simone

astrakan breton world music on facebook

Sound & Video

The album is out!!!

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Hear it here! We are so proud and happy to share it!

You can buy it directly from Bandcamp (don’t forget about the cool bundles we mentioned here) or from i-tines https://itunes.apple.com/fr/album/astrakan-project-b/id932864892?ls=1

It should be also soon anywhere else like Deezer or Amazon.

Ha!!!! We did it!!!

Musicians' Diary

How to fit a music studio AND an art studio in a car?

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Dear followers, if you’re used to read our diary between the lines, we have given a couple of clues already about our next destination.

It’s official! [first breaking new will start here]

We are moving very soon to Northern Greece, next to Kavala. This is the amazing place we are moving to :

Aegean see, inspiring place, Athrion, Nea Peramos, Greece
Athrion, Nea Peramos, Greece

This is one of the view that will inspire our upcoming projects and sounds, and actually we already composed/discussed/wrote many things from that particular place (if you want to share the feeling with us, you can check here on Google maps). Expect loads of pictures from Greece in next months!

So, how do we fit an art studio + a music studio above the usual staff in a car? Well… we don’t really know yet!

art and music studio in a car - special discound on astrakan project album
How to fit an art studio and a music studio in a car?

Because yes, we are moving with our car, Kavala is only about 450 km from Istanbul.

But for sure, it will help if we can sell some extra albums before we leave, it would kind of help…

Astrakan Project - celtic fusion world music - albums
Yes, we still have some of them…

So, [2nd breaking new starts here] we’ll offer until next Monday (December the 2nd, 2013) a special & ridiculously cheap price for our album, shipping included: 10.00€ which is about 13.50$ – just a little click on the link bellow and you’ll land on our on-line shop…

Help us with this campaign, share around with your friends and family, within your communities, by any way you prefer (over-use the social links bellow!) ! Only valid for one week! Then, we’ll come back to that later, we’ll have anyway to raise prices anyway, international shipping is much more expensive from Greece than from Turkey.

Musicians' Diary

Wrapping day… which colour is your music?

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world music albums astrakan project
Ready to travel around the world

We also used to have some blue wrapping tissue , and some other ribbon colours too… well, we’ll get some more, piles of albums ready to go looked much more harmonious!

It’s for a gift, can I request a colour if I order your album?

Of course my dear! Just add a note when you order it >here<

§ Simone

Lien vers newsletter newsletter

Album Songs and Lyrics, DIY Album

The album’s out… today !

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Our album is now released !

You can buy it from here (it will use PayPal), for 12€, shipping included for any destination.

First tune is called “tri martolod an oriant” (3 young sailors, some facts and a translation here)

Promo Video & Contest

If you hadn’t yet seen, here’s a short video where we share some steps during the recording process. The sample track is the “mouezhiou“, based on a traditional dance from the Vannes’ area (South of Brittany).

If you watch carefully the video, you’ll see Yann holding a notebook with different languages statements. If you’re able to recognise those 6 languages, (appart from “the album is out” in English!) , enter the contest and get a chance to win your personal copy of the album ! If you’re following us either on FaceBook, on YouTube or here, you might already have some clues…They are all related to our personal journey, and we both can at least communicate in any of them.

Rules are very simple : (1) find the correct answer (2) share this video with your friends and let us know. Who knows? They also might like it too! (3) fill in your contact to enter the contest.

[ contest dead-line was 8th of October, and the winner was… ]

You want more ? If not done yet, you can follow our thoughts during the recording on the blog section.

DIY Album, Musicians' Diary

Our first sale ?

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What ? Yes, of course the release will only be on the 30th. But, in the meantime we are testing the on-line BandCamp forms to order, together with the paypal system, checking how long it really takes us to get threw the all procedure, fixing the order notification, the automatic replies and so on. We are really new to this, so we really wanted to make sure ones the sales will be launched, we won’t have to come back to solve this kind of details. And ? So far it works perfectly !

Meanwhile, a little amount of albums have also been sent for promoting the album itself as well as to apply to some venues. This will also give us an idea about how long it really takes for one piece of CD to be shipped from Turkey to other countries.

USA = ABD in turkish for Amerika Birleşik Devletleri
USA = ABD in Turkish for Amerika Birleşik Devletleri

Since we are into form and data-bases, we also got a nice on-line form to sign in for our newsletter. If you sign-in you get a free mp3 from Tri Martolod an Oriant, you’ll get updates on the project, but also to special releases, to work in progress tunes, to promos & more. We’re repeating it again, not more than once a month. Pour les francophones, la version sera un peu “rallongée” pour reprendre des news développées au fil du blog en anglais. 

Last but not least, we decided to re-invest the benefit from our first sale into this artist. Sofia Talvik is Swedish, and she’s organizing herself her 2 years tour threw the US, called the Drivin’ & Dreaming tour. We were very impressed by her story that we discovered in this very interesting for CD Baby. And… of course we’d like to tour in the US !

That’s all for now, thank you for reading !

§ Simone

DIY Album, Sound & Video

2 weeks left…

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Only two weeks left before the actual release. We’ve almost made our mind to sell the album online via Bandcamp. It has many advantages, including that those following us rather via facebook will also be able to get it directly from there.

We’re right now preparing a fun promotional video, which will include a small contest

In the meantime, here’s a taste of what it will sound like :

It’s called “tri martolod an oriant”, based on traditional tune and lyrics from Brittany, quite famous under the title “tri martolod yaouank” (3 young sailors). Share it, comment it, give feedback…

DIY Album

To sell or not to sell ?

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So, yes, things are on their way, which means :

  • all the CDs are now in our hands
  • we’re still waiting for our bank’s authorization to use PayPal so that we can start… well… selling this album !
  • we started to send our album to a couple of journalists that may write reviews about it

The PayPal part is indeed tricky, much more than we would have expected it. As we’re WordPress blog users, technically we shouldn’t be using it for commercial purposes. And technically we won’t really, since in French law, our album is produced by a non profit organisation (called association loi 1901), that we declared to the authorities. The main advantage is that we’re out of the scope of VAT, which makes it makes it more flexible and easy than a company. As long as there’s no financial benefit (and for now we don’t think there would be), we may “sell” some “products” to cover the expenses. Which is… exactly the case.

donate
donate or sell ?

To go back to WordPress and PayPal, they’ll only consider it as a sell. And PayPal “pay” button isn’t compatible with the blog itself. Only a “donation” would be. So… we’re trying to brainstorm and think about something that could easily work… Any idea is welcome…

§ Simone

DIY Album

In 3-D

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This is what came to my mind this morning, having the CDs on hand makes them real, I’ve seen the graphics on screen for weeks and then… they’re in my hands !

Astrakan Project first album
it is real !

Not all of them, we left a big box in Greece that we’ll get back within a week, but we have enough of them to start promoting. We need some time to prepare the web-site, and open a pay pall account so that anyone will be able to order from… anywhere ! So we’ve thought official release would be on September the 30th, for Full Moon. We’re probably gonna be playing around in Istanbul for the release but for those following us online, here, but also on FaceBook, on YouTube, or on our newsletter we’re thinking about a nice way to lunch the album. And… we have come up with a couple of interesting ideas we’re happy and excited to start sharing with you !

Thank you all, again, Simone & Astrakan Project