Once “The Lanthanide Series” was finished, we had to figure out what to do with it. Our initial thought had been that we could release it ourselves, but it seemed more interesting to release it through a net label as we liked the idea of Kalte being part of a group of other like-minded artists. We had already been promoting our individual work for a number of years so we could easily do the same for Kalte, but in keeping with the idea of the AMBiENT PiNG and how they had established a community that inspired our own collaboration, we thought that putting out our first release on a net label would help us connect with even more artists that we could interact with and help us extend our existing community of shared support.
We started reviewing different sites to find a good match for what we were doing with “The Lanthanide Series”, focusing primarily on the idea of musical fit and a community based approach, and we found some really amazing music that was being made. Admittedly we were late coming to the net label party, which rose in popularity hand in hand with the mp3 boom, but in 2008 there was still a very vital culture of labels and artists putting out some truly awesome material. In particular Test Tube, Webbed Hand, and Kikapu were all releasing high quality work that we admired and were inspired by, and we made some really great musical discoveries on each of them.
But the gold standard for net labels in our estimation was Stasisfield. Curated by John Kannenberg, Stasisfield seemed to share a number of ideals with us, not only in terms of sound and community but also from an aesthetic standpoint. The Stasisfield website and releases were presented with a clean design with crisp lines and vivid graphics, and there was a dry sense of humour that ran throughout the site that we really appreciated. We sent a zip file of our tracks to John and we were quite flattered to hear that not only did he enjoy our work, but he was also interested in releasing it on his net label. John also volunteered to make a cover for the album, and when we saw the finished product we were thrilled with what he came up with, not only because it looked awesome but also because it so perfectly captured the sound of what we were doing.
“The Lanthanide Series” was released on Stasisfield on October 1, 2008, and we couldn’t be happier to have been part of such an incredible community of artists. Regrettably, Stasisfield is no longer putting out music and the releases have all been taken down, but we’re proud to be Stasisfield alumni and we’ll always be grateful to John for his early support. We’ve kept in touch with him over the years, and we strongly recommend that you check out his current project, The Museum of Portable Sound, a fascinating curated collection that celebrates the culture of sound, and where we are happy to see that John’s sense of humour is still very evident…
For the entire month of October while we celebrate #10yearsofKalte, if you buy a copy of “The Lanthanide Series” through Bandcamp you can send us your email at info@kaltemusic.com and we’ll send you a free copy of our latest release, “Covalencies“!
