2008 outlook for Hypnos (and Binary and Hypnos Secret Sounds)

[mgriffin]

Just a comment, that, with these upcoming releases, and looking at all the latest additions to the Hypnos Store (new Aglaia!), Hypnos is becoming a 1-stop place for all the best ambient music now. The outlook for the future really looks great. Is it possible for a label to have 1000 True Fans as well?

Great job, Mike & Lena.

Thanks very much, Antdude.  That's the goal (to be, as much as possible, a 1-stop outlet for ambient), though we still have a lot of work to do, and many changes and improvements to implement.

[hdibrell]

I have to agree with Antdude. I wish I could get everything ambient from Hypnos. There are other labels that do a good job. but none give the service that I get from Hypnos. Whenever I see something that looks interesting to me, I always do a search at the Hypnos store to see if I can get it there first. Lena and Mike do a great job. [End of advertisement ]     Harry

[mgriffin]

Our thanks to you too, Harry.

Lena has really improved the customer service level of the Hypnos store, and it's great to hear people mentioning that fact.  I suspect there are many people out there who used to patronize the Hypnos store years ago, and probably received slow service during the period when I was having trouble managing it by myself, and haven't realized that those problems are all behind us now.

We've tried to use coupon specials from time to time, to lure people back in so they'll see that the service and selection are both better now, and that's worked to some degree.  We'll keep plugging away at it, adding new things to the store, and trying various ideas to get people back to the Hypnos store again (and eventually our soundswim.com spin-off store). 

Comments like yours, Harry, and Antdude's above, are a great help, and a wonderful & deserved pat on the back for Lena, too.

[Seren]

Credit where credit is due Mike, you both work bloody hard to make Hypnos a great place for fans and artists - it takes a lot of effort to maintain such a reputation nowadays

[drone on]

I'd like to echo all the praise--the label and the store are now everything I hoped Hypnos would/could be some years back when I had lost hope.  MG and Lena are doing an excellent job, I've had nothing less than excellent service on my orders from the store this year. Thanks!!

[Zyp]

As a newcomer to the forum,  I'd like, as my first post on here, to echo the above sentiments about the excellent customer service.  My last order took slightly longer than usual to arrive (Hypnos are generally extremely quick) and I found Lena to be extremely courteous, helpful and reassuring when she responded to my email asking if my order had been posted - the order actually turned up the following day and the delay was down to UK customs rather than Hypnos!   It's this friendly personal touch that IMO makes Hypnos an absolute pleasure to order from.

Regarding the music on the Hypnos label,  I am a newcomer to that as well and boy, what a voyage of discovery it has been.  I have managed to track down all of the in print Hypnos releases and I am absolutely staggered as to how a label can maintain such a high level of quality on all it's releases whilst embracing such a diverse range of musical styles.

I've read through the list of forthcoming releases for 2008 and there's so much to look forward to.

Huge respect to Hypnos and all the artists who have released work under its banner!


STEVE

[lena]

Aw shucks, you guys....





  

[Austere]

M. Griffin | Fabrications
All recording and editing is done, and just a few fine-tuning tweaks will be done (EQ and volume, mainly) before this one is sent out to be pressed.

We're just happy this is out, ten years late... makes us feel OK about the stuff collecting much (virtual, digital) dust.

Now we just need to get 1-2 copies!

[g.@.b.]

Any updates on Message From a Subatomic World's release?

[mgriffin]

Any updates on Message From a Subatomic World's release?

It's just days away from being sent to the CD manufacturing plant.  I had hoped to get it finished before taking a long weekend out of town, but didn't have a chance to do a last, careful listen, so it'll be this week that things get finished up.

I think this compilation promises to be at least as good as the last one... a little stranger and darker, I'd say.

[mgriffin]

There are so many places like this one that seem to ask for some kind of update from time to time, I often feel like I've neglected to keep everyone updated enough.

It actually is fun, but sometimes a bit overwhelming, to run through the list of what we have planned or pending at any given time. I was just firing off an email update to a mail order business that sells Hypnos CDs, letting them know what's coming soon, and I thought I ought to post that here.

Next up we will have:

Saul Stokes - Villa Galaxia (in production now, should have CDs by mid-August, maybe earlier, released on Binary)

Ben Fleury-Steiner - Drifts (Hypnos Secret Sounds release, coming in a week or two)

Various - Echoes of Polyhymnia (female-only ambient compilation, coming in September on Hypnos)

Matt Borghi - December Impressions (release on HSS in 3-4 weeks)

Nebulae - Path of White Clouds (Hypnos release in the fall)

Viridian Sun - Infinite in All Directions (Hypnos release in the fall)

Various - Nevertime (Binary compilation, probably late 2008 release)

M. Griffin and others - Vapors and Magnetism (video DVD, delayed to at least late 2008)

Evan Bartholomew - Tidal Phases of the Moon 1 (HSS release, delayed indefinitely but will still be released when Evan's schedule allows)

Matt Borghi - The Phantom Light (HSS release in the the last quarter of the year)

We are also talking to a couple of other artists about working together... one of them (Birds of Tin) seems fairly certain, and with the other (Deepspace, a name you've seen here on the Forum recently) the discussions are fairly early on.

Also I personally am in the process of trying to tune-up a couple of hours of work in my collaboration with Oophoi, and there's a good chance that could see release in 2008, though 2009 may be more likely.

[forestmage]

collaboration with Oophoi! Looking good Mike.

[mgriffin]

Both the Birds of Tin and Deepspace releases are firm now, and we have cover artwork for both.
 

[mgriffin]

Coming right up (before the two mentioned above), the second release in our Matt Borghi reissue series, December Impressions.

[mgriffin]

As we enter the last quarter of the year 2008, I wanted to offer a quick update on the state of things here at Hypnos.

We've recently released Villa Galaxia by Saul Stokes on our Binary sub-label, and Message From a Subatomic World, a various artists compilation, on Hypnos.  Both have been extremely well-received and we look forward to getting these CDs into the hands of even more listeners.





Most recently we released on the Hypnos Secret Sounds a reissue of Ben Fleury-Steiner's early Gears of Sand label release Drifts, in fact we have just activated this on the Hypnos store.



We have another various artists compilation coming soon on Hypnos, Echoes of Polyhymnia.  This one is a varied collection of sounds by a diverse group artists, all of them female.  This genre is so male-dominated generally that we had a lot of fun gathering interesting ambient sounds, including some works that have one foot in ambient territory and another foot in one of several different, related genres.  This project is finally finished and the CDs are being manufactured right now so we should have the discs ready to sell later in 2008.



Coming up next from Hypnos Secret Sounds, we will have our first release by Birds of Tin entitled Rinpoche, and after that The Glittering Domain by Deepspace.  We have several other projects in the works for this series, and hope to have more news for you on this front soon.





Upcoming Hypnos label releases include Infinite In All Directions by Viridian Sun (the first new recording from that super-fabulous duo in almost a decade), and The Path of White Clouds by Nebulæ (including Oophoi).





Later in 2008 we will have the third installment in our Matt Borghi reissues series, The Phantom Light (cover artwork not yet available).  We also still intend to release Evan Bartholomew's Tidal Phases of the Moon I but Evan still has to do some work on the recording.



Also, now that we're done with our 3rd various artists compilaton of the past year (for those keeping score, those would be Sounds of a Universe Overheard, Message From a Subatomic World, and Echoes of Polyhymnia) we're about to open up submissions for our first Binary sub-label compilation, Nevertime, which most likely will not see release until 2009.

[judd stephens]

Can we get a few of the artists' names for the "Echoes..." compilation?

[mgriffin]

Yes, here's the final track listing:

1. Margaret Noble:   "Nufon," 
2. Stellaria Fennica:   "Hibernia" 
3. Kristin Miltner:    "Slew Wave"
4. Clarissa Borba:   "Floating Tones"
5. Sara Ayres:   "There Was No More Time"
6. Rose Bolton:   "An Unheard Message"
7. Gydja:   "Wave-Particle Duality"
8. The Floating World:   "Kanam" 
9. K. Cornelius:   "Of The Ancients"
10. Lena Griffin:  "She Forgot, She Dreamed" 

[Joe R]

I wonder whatever happened to Meg Bowles...

[mgriffin]

I wonder whatever happened to Meg Bowles...

Somebody, I think it was Jeff Pearce (or maybe Bill Binkelman... I get those two confused) said that she had a baby, or maybe more than one, and was keeping busy with that.

[jim brenholts]

I wonder whatever happened to Meg Bowles...

Somebody, I think it was Jeff Pearce (or maybe Bill Binkelman... I get those two confused) said that she had a baby, or maybe more than one, and was keeping busy with that.

she did have a baby. last time i communicated with her she and her husband were busy with their producing and engineering work.
(there is no need to get jeff or bill confused. they do that quite well on their own.)