Hello everyone!
Thanks for being here, and thanks in advance for helping us finish this album!
Our 5th album will come out this year, we have 12 songs recorded with just the mixing, mastering, pressing and promotion left to do, and that is where you come in. By pre-ordering the album you will enable us to release the album and get it into your hands.
During the first years of Ma Polaine, we were able to earn release money through our album and EP CD sales - once we sold enough of the last one, we made a new one - but culture and the industry has changed so much recently that we need new a new way, hence our first crowd funding campaign. Even our last album Molecules needed some outside help, that time with a substantial and timely PRS royalty pay out.
Onto this album, we have recorded a very different project to our previous releases, having just one newly written song on it. The rest of the album takes songs from across our whole 13 years, and with the expert help of our buddies Nick Pini (bass) and Jimmy Norden (drums), we have given those songs new life. Some are a very different, and some are almost unrecognisable to the versions you may have heard live or on record.
An Ugly Taste, for example, has had a total rewrite lyrically, and Monster Swan Blues has gone from a mellow trot to a rollicking stomp. We recorded in our house, with a vocal booth made of blankets and speaker stands, leads running through a hole in the door, and a heap of pre-amps and mics borrowed from Nick and Jimmy, augmenting our own gear.
After recording Molecules at Bert Jansch studio, with their racks of top-tier equipment, four figure microphones and wealth of knowledge, returning to our usual recording method was a daunting undertaking, but one we enjoyed thoroughly. Having Nick and Jimmy on board to inject their vast studio experience and incredible musicianship was unmeasurably helpful, leaving us to hit record and play.
We will have the new album, working title Gasoline Can, available for pre-order on CD, LP (but only if we get enough pre-sales) and digital. We will send them out as soon as they exist, so you'll be the first to hear them, long before the official release.
We also have other goodies to buy, t-shirts for this new release and for 2020's album City Of Love, and we will be available for house concerts, with all proceeds going toward completing this album. The house concerts can be a grand affair, with a full band, big speakers and plenty of volume, or as simple as possible, with just Beth and Clinton playing as they often do, intimate and personal.
The next job is the mix and master, which is likely to cost somewhere around £1500. The CD and LP pressing is obviously dependant on units, but 500 CDs cost £600-800, and LPs roughly £1500 for 100, so it is clear releasing an album is not a project to be taken lightly! If we do make it, we will be delighted to have these songs get out there, and we'll also have more chance of making the 6th record!
Thanks a million for reading!