AV's Q & A with Atmo Works |
James Johnson John Strate-Hootman
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Ambient Vision's Q & A with
AV: The both of you are very well known in the ambient
community as JOHN : Both James and
I have a very focused interest in releasing music at our own pace and on our
own terms. It's an empowering motion as
an independent artist and one that actually enhances our creativity and
productivity. We determine the flow of
our music which is essential to honestly representing our life as artists. JAMES: From the very beginning of Atmoworks, both John &
myself we're aware of the limitations and frustrations associated with
releasing works through traditional labels and means and felt restricted by the
current paradigm of "the way things are done" in terms of marketing,
promotion and releasing of our works. We wanted a more fluid and direct outlet
for our creativity and saw that there was nothing available that met our
criteria. AV: Were there discussions between the two of you as to what
AtmoWorks JAMES : Agreed...a label that is fueled by the old dream of
how things should be done. As John says, probably the largest single
misconception is that in order for a release to be valid, it must be on a
factory pressed CD and promoted with hundreds of free copies. What good does
that do for an independent artist or small independent label other than put
them largely into debt, unless they are independently wealthy? Over the past 5
years of releasing my works independently, I have yet to see a significant
enough increase in airplay or sales when sending out a ton of CDs as free
promos to justify the energy (both monetary & physical) spent in
"getting it out there" I would rather spend that energy in a more
constructive way and positive way. This is the thinking of the old dream and a
path we knew for sure we were not going to travel. In creating a direct link to
listeners and fans through AtmoWorks, we've created a direct conduit to the
people who enjoy our works, without a significant amount of the
"promotional baggage" AV: Obviously your own music was going to be featured on this
label but JOHN : Basically we go with stuff that inspires us, music
that makes us excited and proud to support. JAMES : Exactly.... AV: What are some of the pitfalls that you have faced in
trying to get JAMES: I would say
they are more like guidance from the energetic stream. Number one on the list
is how to schedule our time, so that we can remain fluid in our activities and
creativity. There are times when we would both like to be working on new works,
yet all energy seems to point us in another direction, albeit, a direction that
leads us to a positive endpoint. This probably sounds all vague and esoteric,
yet as John says, when we are both focusing our energy in the same direction,
we seem to tap into a very tangible Karmic stream. As we become more aware of
the events and processes happening around us and how they interrelate to what
we are doing through AtmoWorks, "pitfalls" dissipate into positive
energy. AV: As musicians has it been a hard transition into working
the business JOHN : There's a
natural adjustment that I've had to come to terms with, but it's a sense of
balance that actually enhances what I do.
It has forced me to work on time management skills, that's for
sure! But, I am still finding time to be
prolific as I naturally feel and to be successful with AtmoWorks. When one takes a close look at how they spend
their time, you can realize that there's plenty of time to do all sorts of things....One
tip, stay away from tv! JAMES : I think John had a harder time adjusting in the
beginning....in that I was already aware of the time requirements of releasing
work independently. As AtmoWorks has grown over the past couple of years, we
have both gone thru periods where we felt pushed to our personal limits and
AtmoWorks has benefited each time, in that we come out the other side of these
periods with more awareness and energy that in turn gets focus back into
AtmoWorks. We've never felt as though we ever wanted out. If there is anything
we want out of, it's our day jobs..:) AV: What kind of relationship do the both of you have with
the other JOHN : The people we
work with are generally friends of ours, or at least, if they weren't to begin
with, they quickly become that. We work
very closely with them and respect them 100%.
We become involved with the mastering stage as much as they want us to
and as is need be. JAMES : ditto..... AV: You have also started a new delivery method for the music
that you JOHN : The downloadable versions are about as near to cd quality
as you can get with compressing audio.
We encode our MP3s at 256k which is a 4:1 compression ratio. It does make for a larger download, but we
wanted to be sure to provide these at as highest quality we could. Many of our listeners have been asking for
this for quite some time and we've also felt that this does work well with the
lifestyle of many of them, as a lot of these people have broadband connections
and like to store their music on their computer or iPod or whatever new audio
gadget that is being rolled out....I'm sure there's been four new ones just
since I started typing this answer!
Things are changing so fast and I think it's important to be fluid and
open with new delivery methods. That, I
feel, is essential to any label, big or small.
The albums, as downloads, are less expensive and does facilitate an
immediacy that I know I enjoy. Now you
can listen to a new album and if you like what you hear you can have that album
on your harddrive fairly quickly. JAMES : We had a large calling out from our listeners for
this service. We looked into various ways to help facilitate the request and
came up with an MP3 encoded at 256kps. For now, this is the most acceptable
format for us in that it is virtually identical to CD quality and generates a
manageable file size. In the future we are considering lossless compression
algorithms, but not yet, as the average file size would be massive. Another
aspect of the downloadable release, is the tremendous creative freedom it gives
both John & myself. With the downloadable release, we are no longer limited
by time or space (beam me up Scotty) as we could theoretically release an
atmosphere that was 24hours long and not have to worry about how to get it to
our listeners. As more and more people get hooked into the web via broadband
connections, there will soon come a time when tangible forms of an audio work
will no longer be sold and we felt that we should get our feet wet now and be
well prepared for the next transition. I personally feel that we are nearing
this time exponentially. AV: I noticed from one of your announcements that you have
had to JOHN : Traffic is
very high right now. But, yes, the
storage space was very much needed for this as we plan to roll out our whole
back catalog into this format as well. JAMES : Both actually...our traffic is very very high, as well
as the need for server space and the ability to run server side programming
that was not available through our past server. AV: You are also a retailer of music other than what you
produce, yes? JOHN : I think we've
been fairly successful as a retail medium.
We are bringing in new customers from all over the globe on a continuous
basis. Basically, an artist would submit
their music to us and it's a process like anything else, meaning that we
represent what we feel adds a positive and exciting element to our own artistic
endeavours. JAMES : We consider AtmoWorks as a fluid outlet for both our
creative works and the creative works of others and to that end have been
extremely successful. We continue to grow at a very positive pace and
consistently see growth in sales month to month. In terms of being successful
in representing other artists works, I think that the level of success an
artist achieves is a direct mirror of how much energy they put into their own
work. JOHN & JAMES Michael, thank you! Thanks for taking the time to ask some very
interesting questions and giving us the opportunity to tell our story. You've been a great support of ambient and
electronic music and we're both glad to see Ambient Visions running! |