ATTENTION! To all DJs, Webzines, Magazines: if you are interested in receiving the Adrenochrome Promo Package, please contact NOW Christian Bankes at Taurant Services.
We never once believed when we set up this fundraiser that we would meet our original goal so quickly. And so, with another 39 days still to go, we've put together a couple of stretch goals.
These are for things we didn't think we'd be able to do when we set out with this album, and especially without a label. With your help, these dreams may become a reality. If you'd like to see these happen, then keep on sharing and reminding people that this is happening! We'd love to be able to do both of these things.
If the total reaches $3000, then we will release a single off the album: on VINYL! These would be special collectors' items and severely limited, numbered and signed.
If the total reaches $8000 we will also put together a brand new music video, joining our forces once again with SOLOBUIO VISUAL FACTORY, the videomakers behind our 2008's video The Art Of Revenge and the ones responsible for a lot of great videos in the past years, among them Dope Stars Inc., Nachtmahr, Rome, L'ame Immortelle, Spiritual Front, Ordo Rosarious Equilibrio and countless others.
Another huge thanks to everyone that's supported this release so far.
The fundraiser was successful in 18 hours, more or less. We are now already $50 over the goal.
Due to the nature of these crowdfunding websites, we cannot stop the process and we need to let it run for the whole 40 days we originally planned, ending on June 16th.
This means two things: first of all, we can stick to our original plan and release the album on Bandcamp, iTunes and the other digital distribution networks on June 1st.
All of you who supported us and bought one of the perks including the immediate digital download of the album, will receive it in the mail between June 1st - June 4th.
This also mean that in the even we keep on receiving donations and support we'll be able to put the extra money towards funding a new video: it's been a while we wanted to do another full scale music video like we did back in 2008 for The Art Of Revenge, so maybe this is the right moment for it.
Some of you messaged us yesterday regarding trying to work towards a vinyl release: we are definitely looking into that as well.
With 39 days left, it really feels like the sky is the limit! If you want to keep on supporting the fundraiser, here's the link: http://igg.me/at/xp8/x/398211
Once again, THANK YOU ALL! and special thanks to Gerry and Jade of Hope Estheim for getting one of the two "SONG" perks: looks like there's a nice collaboration on the horizon!
it's not been an easy decision for us for various reasons, but in the end we decided to give it a try: here's the crowdfunding campaign to bring "Adrenochrome" to its full glory as a limited, deluxe digipack.
the fundraiser will run for 40 days, and we hope you'll join us and help us making this happen!
for those who are wondering: if, as it seems, we’ll hit our goal way sooner than the 40 days this campaign will run, we’ll update our goals and put all the extra money towards the recording of one (or two, maybe) new videos.
everything extra is going back to fund the band’s activities!
Hello everyone, Marco here… the bald half of XP8, that is.
This is going to be a strange communication: a few days ago I thought this would have been the news update where we'd announce you the release date and formats for the new album, Adrenochrome, along with the first details of the announced North American tour.
But it seems like fate played us another of his tricks: XP8 has always been a, let's say, less than lucky band, and it seems like luck is not on our side this time either.
As pretty much everyone knows by now, most of the bands in this genre and in this scene cannot sustain themselves merely on music - be it selling records, merchandise or touring, going full time professional is just no an option for many of us.
We struggled on the verge of the so-called "semi-pro" level for many years now, and to do so we - both me and Marko - kept our day jobs along making music and playing shows to… well, to survive, eat, pay the bills, and all that fancy stuff that's called "real life".
One of our good friends in this crazy roller coaster that's the life of the musician is Daniel Graves, of Aesthetic Perfection's fame, and more than once he stated in interviews and forum posts one simple truth: you cannot really be a musician AND keep a day job. Because as things start to pick up - and it takes many year for things to start to pick up… it took 10 years for us, but then again we are slowpokes - you just won't find time to accommodate both lives.
It's either one or the other.
Well, kinda: you can keep on releasing music of course (it's so easy these days, with the digital distribution and all!) and you can do the odd show from time to time. But to really push it all up a notch, you need to tour, and you need to tour A LOT: and as you can imagine, since "it's either one or the other", you end up being forced to make a choice.
These days Marko (the not bald half of XP8) got offered a new job in a very good position, and he decided to take it: to be fair, with all of you, I might have make the exact same choice. When you are in your 20s, you can always say "let's try this, I'll settle down later". But we are not in our 20s anymore, and since long. I guess we were just too late to the party.
So he made a choice, and he chose the "day job".
This drastically change the outlook for XP8 as a band: we just cannot go on a proper tour anymore, one that lasts more than a mere weekend, and so we need to re-consider pretty much everything we have planned for the next year and the future.
To begin with, there won't be any North American tour: we are very sorry to disappoint all our American and Canadian fans like this, and we hope that we'll be able to do a one off show sooner or later. I personally want to thank Troy Hilton and everyone and Darker Side Of Light Promotions for the AMAZING work he's done to get that show on the road, and all the local promoters who showed interest and enthusiasm from day one: again, a classic stroke of "XP8 luck", that the moment we finally find a serious and committed booking agent is the moment we are forced to retire from the touring business.
We will release Adrenochrome on June 1st. You will still see the announced "bigger project" we hinted and teased about, set to release along with the album: you won't have to wait too much for it tho, as it will debut in a couple of weeks along our newly revamped website. At the moment we are still discussing the actual format of the album, and we should be able to give you all the definitive details around mid April.
We are NOT "quitting": even if I would be a liar if I wouldn't tell you all that I personally feel like we kinda are, since I always wanted "more" for this band and we won't be able to achieve it now… at least not in the terms I wanted it.
Thank you all, once again, all for the unending support so far and over all these long years, and I can't wait to hear your feedback on the Adrenochrome songs.
Pinup, if I'm right the bands name is Dark Throne. (They've never played a live show and only sustain themselves on albums and merch, they also declined a headline slot at Wacken IIRC) Never even heard of you guys before, but from what I read the article is very heartfelt and you guys were passionate about what you do/did!All the best of luck in the future though!
As a poor musician myself, I completely understand. My band can't tour just for that reason, since we have a licensed electrician in the band he won't be quitting that anytime soon. That's why I do my own thing on the side. I produce electronic anything when the mood strikes me, but here lately have taken to just playing bedroom produced punk. It sucks, doesn't it? I want the thrills and pains of touring and having that experience for myself. The fun and arguments with members alike along the way. You know how it is. Here's hoping that better things come your way though man. You've got this.
This is rather heartbreaking...but I/we hear you. I shall continue enjoying all the XP8 that exists...and wish you the best in all future endeavours. Do what you gotta do!
We hinted at it... we teased... well, we can now confirm that we will come back touring North America in 2013!
"For Immediate Release:
Darker Side of Light Productions is proud to announce the partnership with electronic stars XP8! Darker Side of Light are now the official North American booking Agents for the band, and you all know that this means that you can expect to see XP8 onstage this year!
This Italian duo has moved to the UK, and with the move comes a new album set for release in spring 2013. Needless to say, XP8 is ready to bring their brand of dark dance beats to the stage across the world! Details on the album are intentionally being kept a mystery, however the band has big plans, not only for the record, but also its release."
More infos in the upcoming months, watch this space!
These days surely are quite hectic, with everyone suddently becoming an expert of Mayan history and anthropology and announcing the upcoming end of the world.
So let us tell you a secret: no, the world is not going to end.
The Mayans never managed their calendar to be a herald of doom: they only used to count time in a different way than we do.
What we are sure it will happen on December 21st, is that the Wheel of the Year will make another turn and it will be time for Yule once again. And Yule - or Christmas, if you are so inclined - means two things: parties, and gifts... and we have both!
First of all, here's one little gift for you: the remix we did for Icon Of Coil's new single "PerfectSex" - the first in eight years! While working on it, we found ourselves thinking if this is a new genre in the making: nu-ebm, industep? You call it.
Feel free to share it everywhere, and don't forget to download it from our Soundcloud, burn it to a CD or copy it on a USB drive and bring it to your local DJ and ask to spin it!
But we mentioned a party too, right?
And that's going to happen right here, on the Internet, on the very day that's scaring shitless all the doomsayers out there: on December 21st at 8pm, New York City time, we'll be online at the Vampirefreaks - The End Of The World Internet Party, along with Faderhead, Aesthetic Perfection, Imperative Reaction and many others bands, to answer questions, chat, and in general be drunk and irresponsible.
It took us three long days to actually decide to write this blog: it's not easy for us to accept the utter debacle that was the Infest gig.
For many reasons: we have been wanting to play Infest for very long, the UK crowd is quite possibly the most dedicated fan base we have secured for ourselves over the years, and we did our best to improve the live set and to make it, in fact, as "live" as possible.
This is one of the most age-old problems with electronic music, expecially in the ebm/industrial underground: let's face it, most bands just go on stage with an iPod running the backings, and they just sing on it, maybe adding some keys here and there.
We admit to have done it for a while, in our early days.
But it did become boring quite soon, especially as the laptops and the softwares started to get better and more performant: running Ableton Live on a Mac Book Pro, you can indeed to wonders these days, such as (incoming tech talk, be warned!) running every song as separate track, i.e. drums, bass, melodies, and be able to remix them on the fly, or process the vocals directly, allowing us to use distortion and clean vocals in the same track - think Burning Down.
So we went this route a couple years ago, and we never regretted it.
Till last saturday, when both our computers decided to fail spectacularly like they did.
We did have a foreshadowing of the impending doom, in this post on our Facebook page, but then we did run our pre-gig tests and everything was fine, till the moment we started the gig, when Mac Book Pro #1 (Marko's) decided to start arbitrarily switching between mains and battery power, causing the whole system to stutter and reach 395% of CPU usage - or so that's what Live was telling us.
That was the moment when we tried to switch to Mac Book Pro #2 (Marco's), only to find that we could get any sound to get out of the external sound card.
You can see our expression of complete surprise in this very picture - we almost could not believe it:
At this point, we realised that we just needed to show to keep going and we managed to re-arrange on the fly our most famous songs and play them without extra frills, and so no on-the-fly remixing, no vocal effects, nothing "live": just the "good old" (not really) industrial karaoke.
What we learned from this terrible experience, the first in ten years of playing live?
That we need a third backup on the damn iPod, to avoid situations like these.
Or a live sound engineer to follow us on stage, should we ever be able to afford one. Again, we apologise for this mess-up, and we invite you to come and see us in one of the next UK gigs in October, either in Newcastle, Sheffield or Brighton. And the offer we had for Infest still stands: buy a presale for one of the gigs, send us a proof of it to info@xp8.org, and you'll receive a free digital copy of the new Burning Down EP. Don't say we are not deal-makers!
I don't agree. Hardware can fuck up as much as any software. In our case, it was a mix of truly bad lack and lots of complacency on our side... it DID work forever, so we never thought to upgrade the system. Then again, they say that you shouldn't fix what works...
Featuring the stunning work of both estabilished names and amazing newcomers such as Iszoloscope, Nitronoise, Antythesys, WormZ, Needle Fac7ory, People Theatre, Cryogen Second, Freakangel, the two British acts Skinjob and Kommand+Kontrol which will be our special guests in our upcoming gigs in October and the musical debut of DJane Pink Foamy, of Club Pi (Vienna, AT) and Resistanz Festival (Sheffield, UK) fame, teaming up with audio guru Phuncksztille and featuring the unexpected vocal appareance of Thomas Rainer (Nachtmahr/L'ame Immortelle).
Last, but surely not least, you'll also find The Night Of Pan, or our personal tribute to the teachings and philosophy of Aleister Crowley.
You can also stream the EP in full from our Soundcloud and Last.fm pages.
But it's still not all...
We're playing the Infest Festival in Bradford, UK, this very saturday, and we decided to add a bonus for any of you coming to the gig: we're giving out free copies of BURNING DOWN to anyone coming to the his weekend, and stopping by the stall to get a presale ticket from one of our upcoming gigs in October (Newcastle, Sheffield and Brighton)!
Just get your tickert, take a pic with it, and send it to info@xp8.org - and we'll send you your digital copy of BURNING DOWN!
Featuring the Burning DownVIDEO and remixes by Iszoloscope, Antythesys, Freakangel, Cryogen Second, Needle Fac7ory, Djane Pink Foamy and Phuncksztille, People Theatre, Skinjob, Kommand+Kontrol and NitroNoise... and the unreleased track The Night Of Pan.
