Trv Kvlt KrowdSourcing Vol. 2
Amazingly enough, it wasn’t as easy as I thought to find worthwhile crowd sourcing campaigns. A brief glance at KickStarter revealed a few duds, mostly from bands that can’t be bothered to write a good description of their project, bands with less than 2 rewards, bands that don’t even seem like they’re trying, and bands that double as some kind of weird church.
After wading through the garbage, I decided to try IndieGogo; KickStarter’s shitty younger brother. The difference between these two sites is minimal; basically, if the project doesn’t make it’s goal, they still get your money… but IndieGogo takes a larger chunk from it. Either way, the site takes a chunk, but this way not only is most of your money not going to the band itself, but how do you even know you’re getting anything out of your pledge if they can’t make their goal?
With this in mind, I found some surprisingly worthwhile projects. However, before I go into them, some advice:
If you’re going to do a crowd sourcing project, you need to get the word out. I found this campaign (Lyraka, Vol 2) while looking for campaigns to feature, and thought, WOW! I’d totally fund that! Except it’s been around since October and I just found out. The campaign is over, now, and they didn’t even make close to their goal. This album apparently has Graham Bonnet, Al Atkins, Veronica Freeman, and holy shit, Robert Lowe. Yet I’ve never heard of it? That’s a problem. You can have all of the best musicians in the world, but it doesn’t matter if you have no idea that they’re working together on a project. Had I known about this sooner, I would have blasted it to all of my friends. Instead I’m left thinking “why the fuck did nobody tell me?” People, you need to pimp the shit out of your projects. With that being said…
Alkaloid – Debut album ‘The Malkuth Grimoire’
This one is for all my prog nerds who don’t like knowing what happens next. It’s like music directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Suddenly you’re hit with a time signature change when you didn’t expect one to be there! What a twist! Anyway, Alkaloid shows some promise. Alkaloid is prog with death vocals, they’ve got some great musicians from bands such as Dark Fortress, Aborted, Obscura and God-Dethroned. They sound like they’re really interested in creating something new and interesting, so I appreciate their approach. After listening to their preview tracks, I can definitely hear some real potential. Their explanation for why they’re crowd funding, “labels like music that you can label”, actually made me pretty happy, because it’s absolutely true. If you want the freedom to be creative, crowd sourcing is where it’s at. I’m interested in seeing where Alkaloid goes in the future and happily throw my money in their direction.
In The Silence – Second Album
Hailing from Sacremento CA, In The Silence is an atmospheric metal band for fans of Tool, Katatonia, and Opeth. Once again, I’m shocked I had no idea these guys were raising money considering that they played Prog Power USA and apparently were named one of the top upcoming prog metal bands in the US. It seems like prog metal is becoming more popular these days, but who’s complaining? One of their dudes plays a guitar with a bow! BRUTAL! Their IndieGogo campaign is actually very well thought out and has some pretty good rewards. They’ve got a few weeks left to raise $7,500, which isn’t bad at all considering how much professional recording/mixing/printing can cost. Throw them some cash if you dig their vibe, man.
Unfortunately, those were the only two worthwhile campaigns I could find. It’s slim pickings, consider all the crap you have to wade through, but it’s worth it to find some gems that aren’t getting enough attention. If you know of any other campaigns worth sharing, do everyone a favor and post them in the comments.
