Message to Netlabel Curators

72-ish hours after release, we have managed to raise $250 for various charities that are providing relief in Japan, and the compilation itself has received more than 150 downloads! This is exactly what I had hoped for. People from the netlabel community, one that normally involves no exchange of money whatsoever, are coming together to show their support for an important cause. Never let it be said that free music is without value.

Netlabels, your help is needed! Or, at least, your help would be greatly appreciated. I have received numerous offers from netlabels to post about the compilation or to post the compilation itself since this project began. Unfortunately, I did not keep a list of every offer with contact information, so I am putting out the call to help again. As was sort of mentioned a couple of sentences ago, all that is asked is that a netlabel curator post the compilation as the label's own or make a major post about the compilation on the label website. The only requirement is that it must contain a link to the official donation page (http://www.globalgiving.org/dy/fundraiser/prevfund/gg.html?regid=5070) and have a method of downloading the compilation (be that through links to the Bandcamp or Internet Archive pages or by uploading it to one's own servers - or to other services entirely).

Interested? Send me an e-mail at internetlabelrelief@gmail.com if you want to discuss it or if you just want to let me know that you've gone ahead and done so already. I will be creating a list of all participating netlabels tomorrow, and I will continue to update it multiple times a week.

As always, I'd like to thank everyone for the continued support and assistance. I'm overjoyed to see our effort create tangible, positive results in this world - and to know that it's because of the charity of a truly global community.

Kevin Stephens

internetlabelrelief@gmail.com

Compilation is Released!

I have two things to say.

First: Thank you to every single person who contributed in any way. Seriously. And Tom and Steve deserve heaps of praise for the incredible mastering they did in such a short amount of time - truly above and beyond.

Second:

The compilation is out!

It's at the Internet Archive (though the vbr MP3 files seem to be taking their time with autoconverting, so I may have to upload them manually this next week) and Bandcamp. Donation page is here.

Go listen and donate (if you can)! And if you encounter any issues, please, please let me know.

Kevin Stephens
internetlabelrelief@gmail.com

Release: April 17th!

Due to unforeseen difficulties (mostly technical in nature), the compilation will be released on April 17th.


As much as I hate to push the release date back again, it needs to be done. Websites aren't working, file transfers have gone wrong unexpectedly, etc. Thankfully, everything is ready to go - it's just a matter of having the time to make sure that everything is perfectly stable once it is released.

I really appreciate everyone's patience. This compilation may be taking a while, but it's worth it.

Sunday!

Kevin Stephens
internetlabelrelief@gmail.com

Delay - Release: April 15th!

My apologies for the sudden announcement. I had hoped that we could overcome some of the hurdles in time due to the exceptional skill of the individuals working on this project, but unfortunately, it really just comes down to having enough time to do all of the necessary work. While it is feasible that this compilation could be released tomorrow, it would require an extremely rushed mastering process that would be detrimental to the quality of the product. It was difficult to make this decision, but ultimately, I came to the conclusion that releasing a mediocre compilation (compared to what it could be) would be more damaging than waiting a week to officially release it. Additionally, this will allow me more time to prepare a good press release and to distribute it more widely; this will include giving me time to discuss releasing this with more labels.

Here's a more succinct version.

To give this project the time it needs to really succeed, The Sun Will Rise will be released on April 15th, not April 8th.

I promise that your patience will be rewarded.

Kevin Stephens
internetlabelrelief@gmail.com

Cover Art and Track Listing

  cover art by Oliver Levy

The Sun Will Rise - Ichi

01. Gale Force Logic - Secret Earth

02. Bubble - Silence

03. Ninestein - Papa November

04. Le Berger - 0008 [Thanks to the teen I once was]

05. Carya Amara - Elements Unbalanced

06. earthbreather - Mirror of Ise

07. chriss h lynn - Four Nights

08. Western Standards - 

09. Madrayken - SoLow

10. Nux Vomica - I Search Through Salty Tears

11. Masaya Ozaki - Afterwards

cover art by JamFlavored

The Sun Will Rise = Ni

01. Kristopher Fisher - Tsunami

02. Nomoredolls - Another way of living

03. Mark Preston - Essex

04. the runnies - Going My Way (Lyrics & Music by Adcock, Moseley, Robertson)

05. Räuberhöhle - My Heart Bleeps Noisy Beeps (Kirmes Remix)

06. Liam Stewart - German Army Coat (24-bit Mix)

07. NASA Technical Station - Stenographic Records

08. Aeroshell - Lighthugger

09. Dao Audio - The Traveller

10. Gerry Davis - Heavens Gate

11. IR - electric dragonfly

12. LCP - Light Splash Dream

13. Technology of Silence - Million Eyes of Dew

14. Cascadian - The Corinthian Sea

Congratulations to Oliver Levy and JamFlavored, and thank you to everyone else who submitted cover art for this compilation. Believe me when I say that it was a difficult decision.

Tracks will be sent off for mastering later tonight, and I'll be in contact with the artists about updating the rear covers with the correct information once I have the URL (tomorrow) and the front covers to have the appropriate CD number.

Oh, and don't forget that this will be released on Friday! Let me be the first to say, HOLY %@#&, it's almost done! If the excessive use of exclamation marks in this post and in all of my tweets hasn't made it clear enough, I'm extremely excited. I can't wait to see how much money we are going to raise for Japan.

Kevin Stephens
internetlabelrelief@gmail.com

Track Selection

And, with much fanfare...

Tracks have been selected for The Sun Will Rise!


Congratulations to everyone whose track was selected, and a profound thank you to everyone who submitted a track. I had not expected such a close race, but after averaging the scores, I found that very few songs had scores below 8 (out of 10).

The selected tracks are (in no particular order):


Aeroshell - Lighthugger
Kristopher Fisher - Tsunami
Nomoredolls - Another way of living
Ninestein - Papa November
Nux Vomica - I Search Through Salty Tears
Western Standards - 見ろ
Cascadian - The Corinthian Sea
chris h lynn - Four Nights
Dao Audio - The Traveller
Gerry Davis - Heavens Gate
Madrayken - SoLow
Mark Preston - Essex
Gale Force Logic - Secret Earth
Technology of Silence - Million Eyes Of Dew
Räuberhöhle - My Heart Bleeps Noisy Beeps (Kirmes Remix)
Le Berger - 0008 [Thanks to the teen I once was]
Masaya Ozaki - Afterwards
Liam Stewart - German Army Coat (24-bit Mix)
earthbreather - Mirror of Ise (for full disclosure, this is a track that I worked on with one of the evaluators; neither of us were involved in rating this song)
Carya Amara - Elements Unbalanced
IR - electric dragonfly
Bubble - Silence
LCP - Light Splash Dream
NASA Technical Station - Stenographic Records
the runnies; Lyrics & Music by Adcock, Moseley, Robertson - Going My Way



The release shall be in the format of two CDs. Track order will be announced in a few days, and the tracks will be sent off to be mastered!

Kevin Stephens
internetlabelrelief@gmail.com

Art Submissions Closed!

Yet another deadline has passed. This time, we've received numerous submissions for cover art, all of them excellent. Selection on cover art will be made and announced tomorrow. Thank you to everyone who submitted and worked on cover art for this compilation. Really.

Kevin Stephens
internetlabelrelief@gmail.com

Submissions Closed!

Thank you to everyone who submitted music, and thank you to everyone who worked on a song but was unable to get it in on time.

Songs are being evaluated right now. Listening is being done blind - that is, all songs have had their filenames changed to a specific number and all ID3 tag info stripped. All of the numbers are tracked to artist name and track name. Songs are given a numerical rating by each evaluator, and those ratings are then averaged. Selection will be based on those average scores, starting from the highest score and moving down until the compilation is full. The evaluators have been rating submissions as they've come in for the past week or so, and the ratings that I have seen so far indicate that there may be a lot of ties in the upper range - that is to say that the evaluators are really enjoying your music! 

We'll show the world that free music doesn't mean low quality music; that we can give our art away for free and create a positive impact in doing so.

Kevin Stephens

internetlabelrelief@gmail.com