Collide have released their new single “Are You Better Now” with a video. The track is taken from the album “Notes From the Universe” out on February 22^nd.

“Notes from the Universe” will be released as a special edition digipak with 11 songs, as well as a strictly limited edition (250 copies) 2CD version with a bonus instrumental CD which will only be available on the band’s website. They will also have 2 new limited run T-shirt designs to go with the release.

For now, here is the new video for “Are You Better Now”.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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US dark wave act Collide are doing a collectors item special re-release of “Chasing The Ghost” (20 year anniversary) and “Some Kind of Strange”. Each release contains and Blu Ray disc, and a CD, and has:

• 5.1 Surround Mixes
• New (2020) Sterio Mixes
• New (2020) Instrumental Mixes
• Unreleased Early Versions
• Unreleased Bonus Songs

If you order the items straight from the band you also get a signed card and original folded poster. Pre-sales are available now and it will ship in October. Each release gets a limited release of 500 copies each. The release is available only through the Collide website.

Darkwave since 1992

Collide is an American music duo founded in 1992, in Los Angeles, California, United States, that has incorporated elements of trip hop, synthpop and music from the Middle East into their sound. Collide’s debut album, “Beneath the Skin”, was released in 1996, followed by a remix album, “Distort”, in 1998 containing remixes by artists such as Kneel Cohn of the bands Spirits In Sin and The Dead Stars On Hollywood.

Dissatisfied with the music industry, Collide started their own record label, Noiseplus Music, and in 2000, they released their second studio album, “Chasing the Ghost”. Three years later, they released their third studio album, “Some Kind of Strange”. The following year, the band released another remix album, “Vortex”, containing remixes by numerous remix artists, including Charlie Clouser.

In 2005 Collide released a DVD, entitled “Like the Hunted”, along with a live CD. Together with Curve’s Dean Garcia they recorded and album for a new project, The Secret Meeting. The album, “Ultrashiver”, was released under their Noiseplus label on June 26, 2007. On September 23, 2008, the band released their fourth studio album “Two Headed Monster”. Special guests on the album included Danny Carey from Tool and Dean Garcia from Curve.

Halloween 2009 saw the album “These Eyes Before”. It was a 10-song album of cover versions of well-known songs by artists such as The Beatles, Depeche Mode, Radiohead, and Pink Floyd.

Since then they released “Counting To Zero” in 2011, “Color Of Nothing” in 2017 and “Mind & Matter” in 2018. The band is currently working on new material.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Man Of Moon return with a brand new single, “Skin”, which will also be the closing track on their upcoming EP “Chemicals” (which they funded via PLedgemusic, so not sure if they will see their money). The single follows athe “Ride the waves” single released just a few weeks before.

The single turns out to be a very electro tainted tune which many will like we think.

You can check out the track below.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Earlier today we posted an article on a botched PledgeMusic campaign by electro act ohGr (ohGr still waiting for almost $100,000 in funds from PledgeMusic). The platform has issued a new statement with further info on how they want to address the situation they have found themselves in for the past few months.

In it PledgeMusic says that it is working around the clock to address everybody’s concerns and they add that they are “hopeful of reaching a positive resolution soon”. The company is in discussions with several parties about a potential partnership with or acquisition of PledgeMusic. PledgeMusic says that it is also in advanced discussions with an independent third-party company to manage all artist funds going forward, which proably means they want to keep the funds pledged as far away from their own operational costs as possible (which would also be a better guarantee towards future investors and acts launching campaigns via the platform).

Co-founder Benji Rogers has also returned to the company as a volunteer strategic advisor and observer to the board of directors. He will assist and advise the new management and finance team on the inherited and existing issues, as well as with the forward planning for the company. Rogers: “I have agreed, on a short-term basis, to return to PledgeMusic as a volunteer strategic advisor and observer to the board. I will remain as full time CSO to Dot Blockchain Media and I am grateful to my amazing DotBC team for their understanding and patience. I have been in discussions with the management team and board of Pledge over the last few days and I am convinced that they are committed to fixing the artists payments situation as their first priority. I have seen first hand how tirelessly the team, management and board have been working to right the ship and that is why I have agreed to help where I can.”

Our guess is that only a takeover of the current company by another company could keep this boat afloat and restore some of the huges loss in trust. Story to be continued.

PledgeMusic launched in August 2009 as an online direct-to-fan music platform. Bands who still have active campaigns on the platform include Ladytron (their first new music in seven years), Orbital (“Monsters Exist”), Erasure (“World Beyond”), Moby (“Everything Was Beautiful & Nothing Hurt”) etc..

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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UPDATE: PledgeMusic looking for outside investors to keep the boat afloat, co-founder Benji Rogers back on board

A lot of artists have chosen to go the indie way, some leave their label and start things up themselves, distribution, production etc. others look for an extra buck by getting outside funding. All fine until your funding solution becomes a true nightmare. And that’s exactly what a lot of bands using PledgeMusic are facing including ohGr.

The electro-industrial band ohGr for instance launched a funding campagn via PledgeMusic in 2017 for its fifth full-length album, “TrickS”. Via the service Nivek Ogre wanted to cover recording costs and this by offering exclusive updates an direct pre-sales of the album. 8 months after ohGr’s campaign ended, the band is still waiting for PledgeMusic to pay almost $100,000 in funds. Funds it needs to pay for production of merchandise its fans have already purchased. As a result the only thing that has been available was a digital version of the album on July 18 2018, not really great when you also started a tour without being able to offer the actual album for sale.

ohGr is in the meantime also trying to explain the situation to its funders as you can see below.

As it seems many other bands also face a similar experience. Billboard contact the company who said this: “We accept responsibility for the fact that we have been late on payments over the past year. PledgeMusic is working tirelessly on this issue, and we are asking our community for their continued support and patience.” The problem with PledgeMusic is actually that it invested the funds gathered by band’s back into the company instead of using seperate funds for this. A clear breach of trust as PledgeMusic’s terms and conditions clearly stipulate that funds collected by PledgeMusic for a campaign “will be held on account for the Artist.”

PledgeMusic also released a full statement:

PledgeMusic has always been committed to serving artist and fan communities. It was established by artists and was born of a need to change the way in which the traditional music industry operated. It was designed to help artists and their teams at every level, and we believe that PledgeMusic has become an essential part of the evolving landscape of the music industry.

That said, we deeply regret that recently we have not lived up to the high standards to which PledgeMusic has always held itself. We acknowledge that many artists have and continue to experience payment delays. These delays to artists are unacceptable–not only to them, but to us.

Since its beginning, PledgeMusic has successfully serviced over 45K artists from emerging acts to some of the biggest names in the industry. We’ve supported 60 Grammy-nominated artists and helped springboard 100s of unsigned bands to successful careers. Our efforts have assisted over 375 artists with chart position on the Billboard Top 200. Our platform has provided close to $100m of revenue to its artist community.

Mid 2017, new investors came into PledgeMusic with the goal of strengthening the company and improving the value proposition for artists and fans. After substantial investments in the business over the past 18 months, we believe we have made good progress to that end, but it hasn’t been enough. That said, the company has cut its operating expenses nearly in half over the past year. We’ve overhauled key parts of our financial and operating systems, while adding talent to our roster and making enhancements to the platform like our Vinyl Store, D2C artist store-fronting and our data analytics.

While the company has made progress, we still haven’t reached our goals. PledgeMusic has been in discussions with several strategic players in the industry who have interest in the PledgeMusic platform. We are evaluating a number of transactions with those potential partners, and we plan to announce details of this in the next 60 days. It is our expectation that payments will be brought current within the next 90 days.

We accept responsibility for the fact that we have been late on payments over the past year. PledgeMusic is working tirelessly on this issue, and we are asking our community for their continued support and patience.

A story which is to be continued…

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Solsun (project from Keith Milo of Cause & Effect) has announced the pre-order of the debut Solsun album via PledgeMusic. Milo has put together a 4-minute trailer (check it out here) with a handful of pre-release song snippets, info about the album, and why he has teamed up with PledgeMusic to make this release possible.

He is now taking the album into the final phase of end production, mixing, and mastering. You can join him for exclusive updates/bonus content while together you see this album through to completion as a strictly Limited Edition gatefold Vinyl LP and CD release.

There is a long list of perks available via the project’s PledgeMusic page, too many to name, so just check it out for yourself! Here are already a few of the many available.

• SOLSUN Limited Edition Signed Gatefold Vinyl Album + AccessPass
• SOLSUN Deluxe Digi-Pak CD + AccessPass
• SOLSUN Deluxe Signed Digi-Pak CD + Extras + AccessPass
• SOLSUN Signed Vinyl Test Pressing + AccessPass
• SOLSUN Poster/Shirt/LyricSheet/Pictures
• SOLSUN logo t-shirt + AccessPass
• SOLSUN Bundles & Box Set
• SOLSUN Exclusive Bonus Content CD*
• SOLSUN Deluxe Bundle + AccessPass
• …

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

The gothic electro metal act Collide are getting close to finishing up their 7th full-length album. Starting now, you can pre-order the album on PledgeMusic and get exclusive behind-the-scenes access as the band finishes up everything.

Says kaRIN: “There are lots of great things that will only be available for pre-order, like getting your picture, or name on the album artwork, or bundles with items like posters, handwritten lyrics, t-shirts and more that will not be available anywhere else.”

Any item ordered comes with the Access Pass, and the updates that the band will be posting on their PledgeMusic page. The band is hoping for a May 2017 release.

For those not so familiar with this great act, the Los Angeles based duo consists of Statik and frontwoman kaRIN. Collide self-released their first cassette demo, “The Crimson Trial”, in 1995. Since then, they have released six full-length albums, along with various remix albums, a DVD, a live album, as well as a side project: The Secret Meeting with Dean Garcia (Curve, SPC-ECO) on their own label, Noiseplus Music.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

Genre/Influences: Alternative/indie rock

Background/Info: Tim Muddiman is known as the guitarist/bass-player of Gary Numan and is also producer/guitarist for the English alternative rock band Pop Will Eat Itself.

Content: This is the debut album of a musician who is deeply influenced by Nick Cave, Nine Inch Nails, Adam Ant, Nirvana, ’50’s rock ‘n roll, rockabilly, jazz, blues, country, 80’s electro and more.

Tim is a person who works according the DIY tradition. He is totally involved in the whole process of the creation of his music and his videos (songwriting, playing instruments, producing, directing, editing, designing, …) as well as updating his website and social media.

The cd contains 13 songs including the 4 previously released singles “Your Drugs/Hands And Claws”, “Rolling Stones”, “Glass Queen” and “Wildwood Stone”. The last track “Wildwood Blue Stone” is an alternative version of “Wildwood Stone”.

The songs are about survival and healing. Dark modern grooves and modern production have brought this album to have it’s own unique sound and character.

All songs are emotionally loaded and contain outstanding guitar-riffs and clearly understandable voices.

+ + +: Respect for Tim Muddiman who could release this well produced album via a crowdfunding campaign on PledgeMusic (including exclusively released limited stuff).

– – -: Not all songs are dancefloor orientated or uptempo, some of them are more to listen to and to let yourself be taken away into the created atmospheres.

Conclusion: A very nice album for music lovers who are not narrow-minded and are interested in a wider range of alternative music!

Best songs: “Bullet Stroke”, “Rolling Stones”, “Glass Queen”, “Wildwood Stone”, “Strangers”.

Rate: (WH:8)WH.

Band: http://www.timmuddimanandthestrange.com / http://www.facebook.com/timmuddimanband