AtmoWorks Update

[jkn]

Vir Unis posted this last night - reposting here.   

Greetings to all,

I find myself writing this in a mix of emotions, as I realize how complex our feelings can be when change is amongst us. AtmoWorks has now been in existence just a little over six years. AtmoWorks was created in late fall of 2001 by Vir Unis and James Johnson and with a huge amount of help from Brian McWilliams. Over the years we have expanded and have included several other artists to our small but growing collective. It's been an honor and privilege to facilitate the release of such great work by some very talented artists. AtmoWorks is dedicated to this very cause. We are designed to expedite the process in which an independent artist or group of artists can release music at will and without any third party agenda.  This is an honorable cause and this is our one and only goal.

This is an exciting process to be a part of. James and I built this from the ground up out of a combined will that resulted in a very transparent and rewarding friendship. It's this energy that carried us over the past six years. This is the part of the emotion in which I am proud and excited to continue. The other part is with sadness as James Johnson has decided to leave AtmoWorks and continue on a different rewarding path in his personal quest for artistic achievement. However, it is with this sadness that I also have a joy in seeing such a talented man and gifted artist follow his own muse.  A chapter of my life has been closed and a new chapter for myself and AtmoWorks begins..I have always, from day one, planned for AtmoWorks to be in existence as long as I live. It is such a part of my life, that as I watch it grow and sustain my works and others, that my will to empower it even more grows by the day.

In retaining the energy of friendship and transparent new business model that James and I have established, I have tapped two individuals who also share many of the same qualities. These are two individuals that I have known since I was a teenager and have shared countless days, years, and months working together on a variety of artistic projects and adventures that friends share. They are like family to me. Please welcome to AtmoWorks John Koch-Northrup and Matt McDonough. Biographies and extended information on both will be forthcoming on AtmoWorks.com, as there is too much to say about these outstanding individuals in this letter. I will say that they bring an extraordinary amount of talent and creative energy to AtmoWorks and I'm honored that they have chosen to work with me in this every evolving labor of love.

In the spirit of this evolution, we are in a state of upgrading AtmoWorks.com to include several new features as well as refine some aspects of our site that have worked well for the past six years. One of them being is the return of AtmoWorks live radio, AtmoStreams, which includes artists from around the world streaming live music from their studios. In the past, we've had such notable musicians as Vidna Obmana, Saul Stokes, DreamState, and the Elf Machine performing live on AtmoStreams. Also planning on a series of talks and conversations with various artists, both in music and other mediums to be streamed either live or taped. This is truly exciting..

New music is coming! Different types of music is coming as well.  AtmoWorks, in essence is a label that has been designed to work with ambient and electronic music. While retaining that essence, we are also in the process of expanding the definition of ambient, as it should, and including all sorts of new and eclectic music that may or may not fit the traditional definition of "ambient'. We'll let you decide on that one. It is you, after all, that we seek to connect with the artists. The artist/listener relationship is a timeless and sacred connection that is our honor to preserve.

Yours truly,

Vir Unis
February 2008

Obviously, I'm very excited!  It's been a whirlwind of a month since I decided to accept John's offer to help him run AtmoWorks along with Matt.   We sincerely wish James all the best (see his announcement here:  http://www.hypnos.com/smf/index.php?topic=422.0 ) - I'm sad to see him step out of running AtmoWorks, and of course, excited for the opportunity to step in.   

John

[MarkM]

Congrats, John.  I'm a big fan of AtmoWorks, and I'm sure you will add a lot to the project.

[1000snakes]

This sounds great John. Congratulations! As Mark said, you will add a lot to the label, hopefully this will include some new music of your own. Best wishes for much success and thanks for stepping up!
Peace, Kirk

[jblock]

That's great John. I hope this also means some new music from you!

[jkn]

Yes - I have projects in the works!   I've begun working on some solo stuff - and am talking with a few different people about collobrations.   

I've been taking a 4 year break from recording... I have a lot of ideas piling up in my head.  I have a few nice things I've been playing on piano - not sure if I'll record those as is or if they'll evolve.  We'll see.  :)

At the moment I'm focused on getting the AtmoWorks website upgraded.   James, John, and Brian built a fantastic website - especially with their album catalog and shopping cart systems.   There are several things we're trying to add to the site that I'm working on... :)

John has a new e.p. on the way this month.   

[bunkdata]

Glad to hear that Atmoworks will continue releasing great music!  Looking forward to the new web design JKN! 

BTW- Do you know what happened to http://www.virunis.com - it appears to have been shut down...

Best,
Nathan

[jkn]

John decided to drop virunis.com.   With AtmoWorks and his myspace page - he didn't feel there was any real reason for him to keep it. 

[Vir Unis]

Hey, thanks to all for the well wishes in the continuation of AtmoWorks.  And thanks to JKN for posting my letter to the AtmoWorks listeners.  It's an exciting time for sure as the music industry is rapidly redefining itself.  Now is the time for the independent labels, like AtmoWorks or Hypnos to deliver the goods.  There's a lot of talented and gifted artists out there and it's exciting to discover them and an honor to release their music.

VU

[Scott M2]

Hi Johns, Best wishes for AtmoWorks Mark II!

If it's not too late John, I'd recommend keeping the virunis.com domain and just point it at your MySpace page or AtmoWorks. All the old links to you around the web will still be valid and later, if MySpace goes the way of MP3.com you can just point it to your latest space on the web. Also, if you let it go now, some unscrupulous trader may buy it up hoping to resell it to you later for bigger bucks. These days you can maintain a domain name through a company like Namesecure (with redirect included) for only 7 or 8 bucks a year. Anyway - just had to pass on my sagely advice.  ;) 

[jkn]

I hate to say I passed on similar advice a couple weeks ago... wink wink nudge nudge Mr. Unis...

Cheers,

mr. rxm

[jblock]

I'd also recommend that John keep the domain active. Someone else will eventually purchase it and who know where it will point to.

[Vir Unis]

I've actually been planning on getting it again.  It wasn't in favor of Myspace or anything like that.  It was more just trying to keep multiple websites updated....I didn't think anyone would rush to buy it out from underneath me.  Thanks for the sage advice.

VU

[mgriffin]

I'm gonna buy up www.virunis.com and redirect it to some raunchy porn site!

Seriously, I'm excited to see how this new stage of development for Atmoworks works out.  I wish you guys the best, and you'll have my full support if there's any way Hypnos or I can help.

[Vir Unis]

Ha!  Thanks Mike....now that'd be interesting!

Seriously, though, I appreciate the well wishes and offer of support.  I believe I have a good team in place now.  Obviously, you guys know JKN fairly well now and know that he's quite a capable and creative fella.  The other guy, Matt, is new to this genre of music.  He's actually been in a metal band, called Mudvayne, for the past 10 years, but has always been interested in "electronic" music and has created some very fine music in this realm and others.  He's a very talented guy and has been a good friend of mine for a very long time.  We have a lot of plans to develop AtmoWorks further and incorporate some music not traditionally seen as ambient.  We're looking at broadening that definition and have some bands that we feel fit in with this.  It's gonna be a little surprising for people that have listened to AtmoWorks music over the years, even though we do think we have been hopefully eclectic already.

Stay tuned....

VU

[jim brenholts]

I'm gonna buy up www.virunis.com and redirect it to some raunchy porn site!

Seriously, I'm excited to see how this new stage of development for Atmoworks works out.  I wish you guys the best, and you'll have my full support if there's any way Hypnos or I can help.

wait - isn't it already a raunchy porn site? oh, wait - that's www.jeffpearcemusic.com

[Scott Raymond]

I'm gonna buy up www.virunis.com and redirect it to some raunchy porn site!

Seriously, I'm excited to see how this new stage of development for Atmoworks works out.  I wish you guys the best, and you'll have my full support if there's any way Hypnos or I can help.

wait - isn't it already a raunchy porn site? oh, wait - that's www.jeffpearcemusic.com
[/quote

If only that were true, Jim. Then people might visit it more. Or at all.

:P

Scott Raymond

[jkn]

There are several artists working on new material...  the new Vir Unis release is an e.p. called "Stand Still Like the Hummingbird" which will be both download and cdr.   It's planned for release this month.   

Jonathan Hughes is also working on an e.p. release that I'm very excited about.   His "Trillium" album on The Foundry is one of my favorites and I had the honor of participating in his "Fluidities" group project a few years back.    Look for his AtmoWorks debut sometime in 2008.   

Of course, I'll be working on my new material as soon as I sort out a few of the website upgrades!   A fun collaboration is also in the works which I can't reveal much about yet.  :)

[Vir Unis]

look like some company snatched up my virunis.com right away.  I didn't think that someone would want some obscure name like this for anything.  I'm told they buy these things up since there was web traffic on it and just sit on them like real estate or something.  Kinda ridiculous, but that's how it goes....I'll probably just get a new one like virunis. net or .org or something....I guess I learned something in this process.

VU

[bunkdata]

That sucks man!  Have you contacted the company and see how much they want to sell it for?  It's always interesting to see how much they want.  Best of luck finding a new home on the web!

[sio]

Hey, whatever happens to the .Wav download of albums at Atmoworks? I thought that was a great idea as you get the best of both worlds, fast reception and good sound quality.