Written by Älymystö on Saturday, January 9th, 2010
We’re on a lovely mobile broadband connection here, wishing you were here.
EDIT: And that’s that. Unfortunately mr. Eskola decided to protect the streaming computer from his wild stage antics by closing the lid of the laptop. Hence, no video from Riga for you.
Written by Älymystö on Friday, January 8th, 2010
This is live video and audio stream from Tallinn / Club Rockstars. Älymystö will perform at 23:00 (in 40 mins), followed by ATYD around midnight. Enjoy!
11PM local.
9PM GMT.
4PM EST.
1PM PST.
EDIT: Unfortunately justin.tv had a hiccup just as we were saving the stream, and nothing got archived. Which is annoying, as this may have been a pretty nice set. If anyone has tips on how to recover a lost stream, let us know, OK?
Anyways, thanks for watching, we seemed to get a pretty nice crowd tonight. Tomorrow it’s Riga for us, hopefully with a net connection. If we can get our filthy paws on one, expect to see OVRO, us, and NIKO SKORPIO live tomorrow.
EDIT2: Internet problems are no obstacle for our furious skills. Click here for the show. Audio is direct from the board this time.
Danger, Will Robinson – the button doesn’t open a new browser page!
Written by Älymystö on Thursday, January 7th, 2010
Ladies and gentlemen, we are happy to have you join us live @ Kuudes Linja. Here we go!
EDIT: The gig is now available as a recording. Click to make go. Yes, next time we’ll be using something other than the built-in mic on the laptop.
EDIT2: We cleaned up the clips a bit, so there’s no dead air there.
Enjoy!
Written by Älymystö on Friday, December 25th, 2009
Hey, gang.
The split release with And Then You Die and it is now available at least on iTunes Music Store. Spotify should follow soonish. There will be a collectors’ edition 12″ vinyl picture disc of this available on April 1st, at which time we’ll also put up a free download of our half of this split vinyl.
Meanwhile you can listen to our half of the whole thing on our website by clicking on the Sounds of Waking Dreams in the banner.
Here’s a press release on the proceedings as well as the mini tour we’ve got going.
Onwards toward 2010!
Written by Älymystö on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Jan 06 2010 Tampere, Vastavirta (FB, Last.fm)
Jan 07 2010 Helsinki, Kuudes Linja (FB, Last.fm)
Jan 08 2010 Tallinn, Rockstar’s (FB, Last.fm)
Jan 09 2010 Riga, Elektra (Älymystö single act + support) (FB, Last.fm)
So, after a bit of a pause Älymystö will take on the road again, this time to celebrate the release of our new split vinyl album with ATYD! This time we’ll making a road trip of traditional proportions – we’ll start off from Tampere, get down to Helsinki, then hop over the Baltic Sea to Estonia and Latvia.
Check your calendars people and see you on the road!
Written by Herra Honkonen on Friday, November 13th, 2009
A couple of weeks back we had another Band Camp practice weekend. For the first time ever we didn’t go to Mr. Haapanen’s home farm in middle of nowhere, but did the deed in a civilized urban area. Well, in Tampere anyway. The weekend was very productive: we got most of our new songs approximately in a shape to be played in front of an audience, so just a bit more honing and we’ll be ready for our new album tour in January.
Oh, speaking about the tour, most of the dates have been confirmed, so there will be more information soon.
In any case, here’s the video!
Written by Älymystö on Monday, November 9th, 2009
Now it’s finally official: Älymystö / And Then You Die split album titled 19:38:00 will be released in 24th of December as a digital download. The album will be available in iTunes Music Store, Nokia Music Store, Spotify and selected other on-line services right in time to offer you some easy listening for the Christmas Eve. If you are more into large discs and diamond needles than download services, you’ll have to wait a bit longer: the collectors edition picture disc will be released in 1st of April 2010.
We will also be on tour in the beginning of the year and you’ll be seeing and hearing us in both Finland and Baltic countries. More information incoming as soon as we nail down the exact dates and venues.
Meanwhile check out this ad / mood piece of the oncoming record, made by Skithund Records:
Written by Herra Paalanen on Saturday, November 7th, 2009
An article regarding Spotify payments has been making the rounds in Finland over the past few days. According to the article the Finnish record label Sakara has received a whopping 31,40 euros from 118 119 streamed songs, and they are somewhat understandably upset. 0,027 cents per one streaming of one song isn’t exactly even a micropayment.
Here’s the thing, tough. I have yet to see any figures on what Spotify (a service currently in BETA, no less) is actually making at the moment, and what percentage of their earnings are being forwarded to the labels/artists. The article didn’t include a single word regarding the difference between a download and streaming models, either.
Certainly Spotify should be getting a lot more transparent with regard to its profit sharing model these days, but in its current form, this is just Bad Journalism and simplistic populism. Now, if Jonathan From Spotify is currently well on his way to making his first million, I’ll change my tune. Something tells me he’s still got a ways to go.
ETA: Here’s the original article, in Finnish. I didn’t even want to link to it to begin with, but there you have it in all its glory.
Written by Älymystö on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
So, we have good news for all of you Spotify fans out there. As of today, our full length album Atomgrad is available in Spotify, so just click here and tune in.
Right now our latest publication, a split vinyl EP, is still in the production line, but things are certainly moving forward. Also, we have a new tour coming up, so stay tuned!
Written by Herra Honkonen on Thursday, August 13th, 2009
From the point of view of the consumers Spotify has been the only music service out there that can really complete with piracy on the ease of use, the amount of music available and of course, the price. There have been some random grumbling especially from the old school artist front, but now a Swedish artist called Magnus Uggla launched a rather scathing attack on Spotify in his blog. Since my Swedish is nonexistent, I’m relying on the article in TorrentFreak for translation:
Writing on his blog he says that Spotify is a really incredible, fantastic service which offers everything – for free too. But, he writes, it’s too good to be true. Like thousands of other artists, Uggla’s work is available via Spotify and, due to involvement of the major labels and a lack of involvement from the local torrent site operators, he of course expects to get paid a reasonable amount. Not so.
Uggla says that when he received his first earnings statement from Spotify it became apparent that he “earned as much in six months as a BUSKER could earn in a day.” Ouch.
Understandably upset, Uggla raised the issue in a long discussion with Sony boss Hasse Breitholtz but came away feeling that he should trust in the man and the service.
Ouch indeed. What was the last straw for Uggla was the last week’s revelation of the large record labels being actual shareholders of Spotify.
When it launched in October 2008, Spotify publicized music rights deals with Sony BMG Music, Universal Music, Warner Music, EMI and Merlin.
Behind the scenes, these five music companies were at that time made shareholders in Spotify. Combined, the record companies paid just €8,800 for an 18 percent share of Spotify’s stock, according to financial filings obtained by Computer Sweden from the Trade Register of Luxembourg, where Spotify is registered. Investments made this July, nine months later, have put Spotify’s market value at €193 million.
The feeling of betrayal here is kind of understandable, although maybe misdirected. After all, the record companies and the industry have been hammering home the message that the artists should be compensated for the work they do, no matter what. It’s easy to see this stance reeking of hypocricy, when it’s revealed that the same companies are involved in a service that some artists think pays them peanuts.
Oh, by the way, who is this Uggla guy anyway? Some half-amateur whiner who didn’t strike it rich with his first album and who is all butthurt about it. Well, no – Magnus Uggla has been in the business since the 70′s and he seems to be kind of a high profile artist in Sweden. Then again, a long history and high profile doesn’t always mean high airplay and sales in the current times, and there aren’t actually any hard facts over the ratio of plays vs. royalties Uggla got from Spotify. So, let’s just operate under the assumption that it was somehow considerably less than he’s used to getting from traditional sources.
Referring to the valuation, Uggla questions how this company can do so well – and comes to the conclusion that it’s at the artist’s expense. He says that Sony Music, after “suing the shit out of The Pirate Bay” is acting just like them by not paying the artists.
So, the situation developes and this whole debacle raises interesting questions. I don’t think Uggla will be the only old school artist who’ll be a bit miffed about the Spotify royalties now that we know the service is partly owned by the big record industry. If Spotify was more or less independent from the big industry, I don’t suppose that many artists would mind the small royalties, at least initially. Hey, it’s a little bit of money from a lot of people who haven’t brought in any money earlier. Now the labels, who should be the artists’ knights in shining armour, can be seen as making millions covertly without compensating the artists properly and maybe even eating into their “proper” album sales. Another interesting twist is that essentially all the independent artists and labels involved in Spotify are now making money for the big industry.
Then again, 18% of the stock divided by five doesn’t sound like a whole lot of actual decision power, but it helps to explain how Spotify’s been able to get such an extensive catalogue of music. Also, principles and the record company hypocricy aside, the streaming subscription based services are still the only way to effectively fight piracy right now, and the only way to get at least some money out of a demographic that wasn’t worth a dime earlier.
If an artist wants to pull his material out of a service like this out of a principle and settle for no money at all instead of little bit of money, that’s certainly his right. I would call that slightly stupid, but then again, principles hardly ever make that much sense. Then again, one might wonder if someone, who has been in the business for 30 years, might be a little set in his ways. The net has changed the rules, so keeping in control of every copy and second of airplay is impossible and one can’t expect radio-like royalties from all online services. Also I have this sneaking suspicion that there would be a whole lot of need to update the artist licencing contracts with the labels, both old and new ones.
The times are changing. Although I’ve said nice words about Spotify in here, it’s certainly not the all saving messiah of the music business – it’s just another great example of how the music distribution can work in the internet era. Nothing is perfect in the beginning and it takes a lot to hammer a century of extremely conservative business practice to fit into the new world.
