Saturday, September 26, 2015

"Willma im Wunderland" now on iTunes and GooglePlay!

I promised you to write here again once the album is available in the first big shops. This has now happened, well actually it happened a few days ago already. But some special events didn't leave me much time to write a blog. Yes, as the title already says: Currently the album is only available on iTunes, GooglePlay and Routenote. The others seem to take their time again. Here are the links:

"Willma im Wunderland" on iTunes
"Willma im Wunderland" on GooglePlay
"Willma im Wunderland" on Routenote

And what's next? Now we carry on. Indeed I already work on a new album concept and some tracks are also already in the works. So you'll get new pre-release versions soon, of absolutely new material.

I want to end this post by pointing you at a nice little AlionLive video, in which you can hear almost the first half of the album:

Saturday, September 12, 2015

"Willma im Wunderland" IS OUT...but...

Holy Moly! Just 3 days more and this would be the first post on this blog since a whole year. So if you are solely reading here about the project, you may have declared it dead already. And I apologize for that. But a lot has moved since then. This is why I always encourage all friends of my music projects to become a fan on Facebook, or even a friend on my personal profile (still some slots available there). I simply found no reason in repeating over and over again something like "the album is soon coming" on this blog. That's the reason for the long silence: Simply nothing new to report.

But today I have really great news for you: The album has been finished and uploaded to the distribution service. You can buy it directly from me, or you'll have to wait JUST A BIT more. Why? Ok, let me tell you something about the distribution process: First the distributor has now to check the release if everything is fine. As it is Sunday today, I do not expect the guys over at Routenote to get at it before tomorrow. After it has been approved, the album will be available in the Routenote Direct shop. It will take 1 to 2 weeks then until it is available at the big players like iTunes and Google Play. For some of the not so big players, like XBox Music, it will take up to 4 weeks. There's nothing I can do to speed up that process.

So, why did the finishing process of the album take THAT long? Oh, that's a complicated story. So, let's keep it as short as possible: First, what we had a year ago were rough pre-release versions, which needed a lot of polishing. I spent a good amount of time getting all those flaws in song structure and the mix wiped out. I also found the original idea for the album artwork / cover a bit simple and not suitable. I also spent a good amount of time turning that idea (you can still see it above the last post) into something great. You see the result above.Then I have a lot of other projects. And if I had spent all time on "Willma im Wunderland" some people would have killed me ;). And then, that was the thing delaying the album most, some personal problems got in my way. I had to re-think my whole "strategy", approach... well, everything. None of your busines anyway ;).

But now the wait is over and what's now? As you will hear, the Willma Poppen sound has grown up a lot. It's no longer "happy, happy, joy, joy" all the time. Some of the tracks on "Willma im Wunderland", for example "Strangers To Ourselves" sound very serious and even a bit dark. For the next album (working title "The Dark Side Of The Willma"), I will increase this. For the future I plan to create two lines of Willma Poppen albums: One, the "bright side", which will continue somewhat on the original approach of the project: Fun, Pop, easy stuff to party, and a "dark side", which will be very serious, more experimental and not just sometimes brutal. I have already some tracks for the next (first dark) album in the works.

But now: Just a bit of a wait, and you'll be finally get the album. I'll keep you updated here, once the album is available at the first online shops. If you want semi-realtime updates, connect via Facebook and/or Twitter!