Solstice Coil
New Videos!
Hello everybody!
Man, these last few weeks have been hectic. We’ve been working on two new videos and today the work was finally complete.
We’d talked about making another music video for a long time, one that would match up to our first official video, Deep Child. As you might recall, that video provided a plot-based narrative, and contained almost no footage of the band except for small cameos. Our policy was clear: no band member shall be seen playing an instrument on our music video – that would simply be a cliché. It was a very complex production, which also cost us quite a bit of money.
Following the positive feedback we received for the Recipe for Eternity video, which was basically footage of us that we shot ourselves while in the recording studio, we decided to continue in this direction: with a very limited budget, we shot a straightforward band-in-rehearsal-room video, for perhaps the most complicated song on Natural Causes - Too Many Regrets.
However, the screenwriter in me wanted more. I wanted to take advantage of my story writing skills and create something truly awesome. So of course, what better use is there for these skills than for making a parody?
The progressive metal fans among you have without a doubt seen the one-hour long documentary of Dream Theater’s search for a new drummer. While some people found this documented quest to be very moving, in our mind it raised many questions marks.
To make a long story short (relatively, this is a progressive rock band’s website, after all), we decided to make a parody of this journey, considering how we are actually in a similar spot: our drummer, Yatziv Caspi, left Israel a while ago, and consequently, the band as well. If we were to make a music video of the whole band playing, we would need someone to fill in for him. But who will we choose?
So, without further introduction (in prog terms, we’ve finished the 5 minutes long overture, and now the 20 minutes long five-part suite can be begin), here are the videos:
Last.fm Contest Winners!
We’ve had some trouble with the automatic system provided to us by Last.fm for calculating our Top Listeners, which is why we immediately launched a meticulously comprehensive manual investigation, and got the real results, faster than you can shout “George W. Bush!”
So, without further ado, we would like to congratulate the winners of our Last.fm contest:
At third place, with 609 plays is silvertree aka Jean-François from France
At second place, with 1,060 plays is el_opx, aka Orlando from Chile
And at first place, with a whopping sum of 2,087 plays and still counting, is g0b0s0x aka Greg from the United States! Give him a hand, ladies and gentlemen, as his ears must be ringing by now!
Our three winners should be expecting a free copy of our new album, Natural Causes! The Last.fm Top Listeners (inaccurate as it might be) will remain on our website, so if you want to appear here, keep pumping those scrobbles!
As for the rest of the participants, we’d like to thank you for participating, and invite you to purchase a copy of your own:
Bandcamp
http://solsticecoil.bandcamp.com/album/natural-causes
CD Baby
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/solsticecoil2
Oh, and merry Summer Solstice, everyone! I’m sweating like a pig here…
Last.fm Contest – Win a Free Copy of Natural Causes!
How Would YOU Like to Win a Free Copy of Natural Causes? Read Further to Find out!
While there are many social networks on the web (and one might say, too many) one of our favorite networks is Last.fm. This is a wonderful platform where users from all across the globes can get together and talk about their favorite bands and artists and discover new music, as I’ve shared last week.
If you’re new to Solstice Coil, there is a good chance to you’ve encountered us on Last.fm, either through our official Last.fm profile, my personal profile poetic-killer, or the profile of our fictional band manager Warman Globing.
The cool thing about Last.fm is that you can allow it to track what you’re listening to on Winamp, Media Player, iTunes or your mobile phone, and then get it to recommend new music that you might like. It also calculates your musical compatibility with other people.
This is All Very Interesting Indeed, but How Do I Win a Free Copy of Natural Causes?
I’m getting to that! As I said, Last.fm counts how many times a song is played, and all this information is displayed on a user’s profile as well as on the music page of the band they were listening to. The band’s page also includes a Top Listeners list, which displays the users who’ve played the songs the most.
Which leads me to the fun part (or simply put - how to win a free copy of Natural Causes): the first three users to appear on our top listeners list on the day of the album’s release (21st of June, 2011) will each win a free copy of Natural Causes!
Here’s what you have to do:
- If you don’t already have a Last.fm profile, sign up for one here
- Download the Last.fm Scrobbler in order to keep track of your plays
- Download our new single Recipe for Eternity here for free
- Play Recipe for Eternity and other Solstice Coil songs as much as you possibly can
- Occasionally check the Top Listeners List on the right sidebar of our site to see where you’re standing
If you’re not there, you obviously haven’t been listening to enough Solstice Coil - leave the song on repeat while you go out if you have to!
Remember, you can also download our first album A Prescription for Paper Cuts for free on our music page, just to keep things more interesting.
Video for Recipe for Eternity Released!
Before Natural Causes is finally released, we’ve prepared a little treat for you. As you may recall, we recorded a string quartet for two songs – Recipe for Eternity and Replacing People, and when we were recording the album I brought my video camera with me and shot some footage of the quartet, among other things.
So after we finished with the recordings, I took all the footage home and started playing with it on Premiere. And now, after many months of figuring out this very complex video with multiple takes and shots, the video for Recipe for Eternity is complete!
