News
Music Month on Kickstarter
For the past month, Kickstarter have been celebrating ‘music month’. During June they took the opportunity to highlight successful music projects that have been funded through the platform in the past, while also drawing focus to brand new music projects that are currently aiming to draw funding themselves. In addition, they took this opportunity to run various panels, and to invite musicians who have used Kickstarter to curate playlists for the site.
Kickstarter has to this point funded more than 20,000 music projects, raising over $150 million in the process. We’re big fans of the site, and the opportunities it offers to musicians, and music projects generally, so we thought we’d share a few of the music month highlights with you. Below we take a look at one cool project that Kickstarter funded last year, and two projects that are still ongoing – perhaps you will want to help fund one yourself.
A Legendary Record Finally Gets a Limited Release
Last year, a copy of an LP by “Caustic Window”, another aka of Richard D. James (better know as Aphex Twin) was put up for sale on Discogs at a very high price. Only four test pressings of this record were ever made. The owners of the four test pressings swore to never make copies of the music, and only two tracks from the album were ever commercially released – both on compilations. An Aphex Twin fan community noted that this record had come up for sale and agreed that it would be shame if the record was bought and then leaked online. With this in mind, they decided to try to crowd-fund the purchase of the LP. They contacted Richard James himself and asked for permission for each person who chipped in for the record to be granted a one-time license to copy the album. The artist agreed and the Kickstarter was set in motion. The album was offered to pledgers for $16, and eventually more than $67,000 was raised. A great story of fans getting to hear and own a legendary ‘lost album’, whilst also compensating the artist fairly for their work.
Gramovox Floating Turntable
Vinyl is widely regarded as the most aesthetically pleasing of the music formats, and Gramovox have decided to let you show off your vinyl while it plays with this revolutionary turntable design. The turntable looks fantastic and has understandably been a huge success on Kickstarter. At the time of writing, the project has secured $805,000 – way surpassing its $50,000 target. The campaign still has plenty of time to run however, so if you like the look of this, you can go and secure an early-bird deal on one of the turntables. This will save you a fairly decent $120 off the final retail price.
Oscilloscope Music
This project had not yet been funded at the time of writing, so go and take a look if you like the idea! Artist, Jerobeam Fenderson wants to create an ‘audiovisual album’; one that sounds great and will also look appealing when viewed through an oscilloscope. Take a look/listen to the video above for more information. A pledge of $33 and up not only gets you a copy of the album, but also access to the software used by Fenderson in its creation. This will allow you to create similar work yourself, if you are so inclined!