We all know how prevalent illegal filesharing is on the Internet. The debate whether or not it does damage will never be truly resolved. Some say that they download only to see if they enjoy the music. If they don’t, they delete it immediately… otherwise, they purchase it. Others say that it can act as promotion for the artist, exposing their work to people who may have never heard it otherwise. This is why the debate will never end, because in their own twisted way, they are valid points to some people. But it’s technically still illegal, no matter what.

I know that this issue doesn’t affect me directly, as I freely give away my work. But in the case of my fellow ambient musicians, who can rarely make ends meet with their music, I absolutely believe that filesharing is harmful.

I beg those of you who do download music illegally to please stop. Do it as a sign of respect for the artists you love. The intimate genre that is ambient allows people, in most cases, to purchase directly from the artist. They work hard in their craft, and by purchasing their music from them, you’re letting them know without a doubt that you appreciate that hard work.

I hope my words have made an impact, however small, on this on-going problem.

This was my first attempt at writing music to visuals, and I’m very happy with the results. At this time, I can’t share it with you all online. However I believe that once it’s made the rounds at various film festivals, it will be made publicly available.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a large number of people never heard it since it’s only available in the OGG format. OGG is excellent compression technology (better than MP3), but not supported out-of-the-box by the two most used players (Windows Media Media and iTunes). Of course, neither is FLAC, but my FLAC releases are for a specific audience.

If you’ve not heard Rapid Eye Movements yet, please take the time to either install another player, or the codec to work with your music player of choice. There’s details on the download page.

You can also check it out at last.fm, but keep in mind that they are heavily compressed and takes away from the experience.

You can now download both Excursion releases (MP3 & FLAC) directly through their site.
http://earthmantra.com/excursionone
http://earthmantra.com/excursiontwo

If you click on the “Release Mirror Site” link on those pages, you can directly download just the FLAC files if you prefer.

And if you think we’ve heard the best collaboration works yet, then let this one surprise your ears. Mister Vapor (aka the extremely prolific Mystified) joined up with Altus (one of the ambient great netlabel artists). Well fitting in some of the other ‘deep sea dives’ of this months JNN releases this album takes you deeper. Where the wonderful string-drones of Altus meet with the dark-drones of Mister Vapor this is a clash of experimentalism that cannot be missed. We are proud to host this for your ears.

FLAC download available at altusmusic.ca

I’d also like to send my best wishes you all for a happy 2010. I’ll be posting my yearly “what’s to expect from Altus this year” fairly soon.

Creating these FLAC files is a good test of my audio CD masters. I’ve discovered the master for this release was full of bad sectors after only three years. The moral of this story: Always have redundant backups!

While I was outputting a new audio CD from my data files, I found the following blurb amid the wav files.

Long lost thoughts emerge to the surface, brought up by sight, sound, smell or touch. At times it brings a reflection of happiness… a longing to return to a past event. Perhaps a haunting memory, dulled by the passing of time.

Altus invites you to explore your mind, to remember memories long forgotten.

For those who are unaware, the FLAC format is a lossless audio codec, which means that the quality is the same as any audio CD. It also allows you to listen and burn to CD without any gaps between tracks that exist when using MP3 files.

You can learn everything you need to know about FLAC here:
http://flac.sourceforge.net/

http://www.altusmusic.ca/discography.html