How to promote an electronic album

eviltimeban

So. In October '13 I released an album, on a small label, which could broadly be described as "ambient electronica". Its done OK, got some good reviews, airplay on Dan Hegarty's 2FM show, and was listed in the top 30 Irish albums of 2013 on the Red Bull Music site.

However, I've hit a bit of a brick wall when it comes to further promotion. Normally you hit the stage and tour but I don't have a live act (and it would be hard to do live). I know I could put money into PR or management, but having come from an indie / rock band background I only really know how that side of it works.

So, the question is, how do you successfully promote something that has a more "selective" appeal shall we say? Hit the blogs? Or pay for advertising? Has anyone any experience doing this before?

old gregg

I suppose I might have a few thoughts on this one. I've been working in the area of ambient electronic music for 20+ years and released a bunch of albums. A big difference with me is that I do play live and that's an important one I believe.

In February 2013 I released my 7th album 'Berlin Alexanderplatz' which was the result of 2 years doing field recordings in Berlin and touring festivals in Europe. Reviews were really good. However, I gave some pre-release digital promo copies to festival/event organisers in countries where the music had been performed/recorded. One of those people torrented it and before I'd even released the album it had been illegally downloaded several hundred times. The result was that I pretty much lost everything on the release and am still trying to recover.

A huge bonus was having Bernard Clarke on Nova Lyric FM playing the music every few weeks and choosing it as an album of the year. That started to generate some new sales abroad.

It is the case though that it did get me another year's worth of paying live performances. Those in themselves more than make it worthwhile as they are all expenses paid trips abroad.

So, over Christmas 2013 I went back to another project that I'd not completed, an album based on field recordings made on Magnetic Island, Queensland, Australia. I spent only 6 days on this, released it myself on Bandcamp on the 01 Jan 2014 and for some reason it's already sold more copies and generated more actual income than the Berlin album before it. I'm actually ahead on this one after 11 days which has stunned me.

From there I'm already receiving invites to play Sweden, France, UK and even a single Australian event (which won't be feasible unless others turn up over there).

The thing is, most ambient artists don't/can't translate their music into a live performance and that's why I think very few ambient albums really go on to generate real income.

In May 2013 I spent a week as artists in residence in a gallery/performance space in Gdansk, Poland, wrote an entire concert of new material on site and performed it to an audience who will be happy to support any resulting release.

Beyond that, taking a lot of time to connect with audiences and people I meet around the world and staying in contact with them via social networks, email, etc helps build an audience for future releases. I also record all performances and make them available fro free download within a few days so audiences can get a copy of the gig they attended for free. Simple stuff that matters.

I've just started into a project about field recordings made in the South of France while performing there in 2011 & 2012. Slightly calculated on my part because I know there were a few hundred people who heard me perform there who will likely buy any resulting music from their area.

Just some thoughts and hope something is of help.

Best wishes with your music too.

Mick

shane9689

maybe youve considered this already, and its only a small thing really, but try get the ambient channel on youtube to promote it for you? and post it in places like reddit? small things, but sometimes the odd thing would explode on those sites...

im actually looking to start promoting stuff i make, i want to release an ep but i want to secure an idea of how im going to perform it first. i do mostly electronic house/hiphop stuff...weird mashup really but it works for me

eviltimeban

Thanks for the tips, I guess my main restriction is the lack of a live gig, or travelling abroad etc. Most of what I'll be doing promo-wise will be from behind a keyboard. I don't mind getting out and meeting people etc, and doing press or interviews (I did it before loads of times with my old band). Its just that (at the moment) I won't be able to make a live thing out of it.

However, I have just got a second producer / musician involved in Geisha and they are good when it comes to this kind of thing! I like the Ambient YouTube channel, I think we need to make a good video. A lot of the stuff isn't just "ambient"; there's lots of beats, so it could eventually lend itself to live performance (would need about six people onstage though!) ;-)

shane9689

sometimes you can get realyl far with just a keyboard though

to be honest, sounds like your doing just fine, its just live performance thats catching you out? (gets alot of electronic musicians i notice)

if you ever need someone for the live stuff id love to get involved! haha

you could have something like the bloody beatroots "death crew 77" (its their live band for big tours)

eviltimeban

Thanks Shane, you never know, Geisha might be expanding and already I have someone with me working on new stuff.

The video aspect has piqued my interest so that's probably the first thing I'll do, get a good high quality video made and that'll be something to promote.