Long Awaited, Finally Created

Digital Savings Side:
Use code HALFOFF at the Ultraklystron Bandcamp for half-off all downloads until December 3rd. This makes many releases of mine only $2.50.

Physical Savings Side:
I’ve done some big markdowns in the store, specifically…
-30% off the Animatic CD with Deluxe Download Code, taking it from $10 down to $7
-40% off the Complete Karl Olson USB Key, taking it from $25 down to $15
-40% off the Complete Karl Olson USB Key and Animatic CD combo, taking it from $35 down to $21

Shipping is still $3 in the US and $7 internationally per item, but those are some pretty big discounts. Get them while the getting is good.

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Purchases & Downloads & People You Should Know

Posted on May 28th, 2012

Filed under: General,Music News — Karl Olson @ 12:22 pm

The webstore is back up. It’s still not pretty, but for the first time ever, I can offer international shipping. It is, in the words of Mr. Dink, “very expensive”, but it’s there. For those who don’t buy things, have a fresh mediafire upload of Animatic at the store as well. My friends said I should’ve made the free version .wma files, but I am not a sadist.

Meanwhile, I want to take a moment to recommend two releases by two artists who I think any fan of mine would almost certainly enjoy. In fact, both are at least two orders of magnitude more popular than me anyway, so I really hope my half-dozen regular readers already copped these releases and know these people. Let’s not leave anything to chance though:

Richie Branson – Otaku Tuesdays v.1: Richie is a dope mc and a producer, and he is self-proclaimed King of Otaku Rap. Normally, I’m not sold on boasts like that, but much like YT Cracker’s self-proclaimed crown, it’s 100% legit. He sticks to themes, while not sacrificing delivery and production. Every track covers a seminal piece of anime, yet it never feels impersonal nor like simple summary – he makes each track count. For any friend you can’t get into HipHop, Richie is probably the best gateway artist since Random, and like Ran, his style makes him a great Nerdcore artist to relay to Hip-hop-obsessed friends. He and I are currently working on a collab centered around The Big O, and really, I just hope I manage to keep pace. You should check him out.

Adam WarRock – NeoTokyo: Speaking of sticking to themes, Adam WarRock knocks it out of the park with his new Akira-themed release, NeoTokyo. Adam’s an amazing MC as well, and it’s definitely on display here. He definitely captures the story and setting of Akira, and DecepticoN punches in with fitting and clean production. The impressive part is that this is basically the average for WarRock; he’s been knocking it out of the park like this for a while now, and previous works touch on anime as well; for example, he samples Evangelion on his track “Human” off his second album, “You Dare Call That Thing Human?!?” and the usage was dead on. All this culminates in a similar refrain on my part: if you’re not following Adam WarRock, you should be.

All in all, otaku-centric Nerdcore was never something I could ever really lay sole claim to anyway, but these days, I really think anyone into me should be aware of artists working with the same themes. You’re missing out on too much otherwise.

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Animatic is Out

Posted on April 13th, 2012

Filed under: Music News — Karl Olson @ 3:01 pm

Buy the fancy version.

Steal the regular version.

Coming soon, get the regular version on a plastic disk, get the fancy version as audio files free!

It’s done. It’s apparently somewhere between 1000 and over 9000 tracks depending on whose twitter you follow. I really hope people enjoy it. I mean, I’d like people to buy it too, but frankly, I’ll be happy with as many people as possible embracing the album. I hope it connects with people. It’s all the stuff I love and think about, and it’s all wrapped into what I think is pretty catchy and fun package, even when I’m being more serious.

But, like I say right at the start of the album’s first first, “Sixth’s time the charm, but even I am skeptical.”

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Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop

Posted on April 3rd, 2012

Filed under: General,Music News — Karl Olson @ 1:36 pm

So, the lovely dose of early-00s cartoon nostalgia this past weekend was followed today by the lovely luck of getting a whole bunch of clothes for $3 dollars an item. After taxes I was only in it for about 20 bucks for 2 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of cargo pants and 2 new sweaters. Honestly, I’ve hit so much in the way of clothing deals in the past few years I really didn’t anything I picked up, but when you’re talking 3 bucks for any new item of clothing, it’s worth it if it fits. Of course, my neurotic side is just waiting for things to de-laminate and implode as often seems to be the case for me.

If this convention-loaded weekend goes swimmingly, I can only assume I’m going to be completely gutted by my finals, or my fans decide my new album is a national tragedy and generally awful.

Though, I am having a lot of trouble writing my final paper.

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Pre-Orders Are Over/Re-Orders Are Starting

Posted on March 22nd, 2012

Filed under: Music News — Karl Olson @ 12:49 am

It’s good thing I didn’t try to do a Kickstarter, because I doubt I would’ve made the money I asked for. Also, they take forever to setup and get cash to you apparently, and with any luck, pre-orders are set to ship by April 9th. I’ll keep people in the loop as the goods come in, but so far, I think we’re holding steady. Anyway, it looks like I’ll be in the black (barely) off the preorders. Well, maybe not after shipping, but hopefully, more than a few people want stuff at Norwescon and Sakuracon. We’ll just have to see how that goes. I have to say though, it was definitely only friends/super fans who preordering the album. I somewhat expected that, but at the same time, I hope one day I can see a name I haven’t seen on the order lists for my previous albums.

The re-order part comes in regards to Rai’s album, which we’re pushing back from her severe bronchitis. How severe was said bronchitis, you may ask? If she waited another day or two for treatment, we’d be using the word “pneumonia” instead. Probably also with the words “hospital stay.” However, this is not going to be time wasted – she can’t record vocals right as is recovering for the next few weeks (doctor’s orders,) but there are other aspects of her new album and the related materials she’s working on.

Frankly though, I’m just glad she isn’t in the hospital. Rai’s not just a great musician to work with, but more importantly she’s a good friend. Sure, I want just as badly as she does to get this record done, but her health comes first.

To end on a positive note, Nursehella and I will hit the studio again in the next couple weeks for atleast two sessions. Given the rate at which she’s been knocking down vocals, that means we’ll have the principal vocal recording done in those two sessions. That means in the next couple weeks, the vocal recording part of the long anticipated (even by me,) debut of Nursehella shall occur. Then we start working on some sort of Kickstarter equivalent for her. It should be a blast, and I already know the incentives for said donation campaign should be awesome.

Things may still not happen in the order now anticipated, but so I long as I live, they’re gonna happen.

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New Album Preorders

Posted on March 7th, 2012

Filed under: Music News — Karl Olson @ 5:55 pm

Actual Order Page: Here.

Key Information:

This is for the US only, unless you know me in real life.
If enough people internationally want this, I’ll stumble through and workout just how much more international shipping will cost. Just remember, shipping a CD internationally is around 8 dollars when you’re an independent like me.
I’m cutting off the preorders on March 21st. This is so I can place orders for the items in time for the ship date of April 9th or earlier.
I’m doing only one run of the shirts for the pre-orders. I might do a few more Norwescon, but I doubt it.
If you’re attending SakuraCon or Norwescon, I may be able to deliver your order directly to you at the con. Email me after your pre-order if you’d like me to do that.
All preordered CDs will be autographed.
The standard edition download will be pay what you want the first week of release, so no preorders will be offered for it.

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I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This

Posted on March 6th, 2012

Filed under: General,Music News — Karl Olson @ 7:24 pm

So, after years of fighting it, I finally caved and added a Mac Mini to my veritable harem of computing devices. After all, a lot of musicians use Macs, and more annoyingly, use Logic Pro, which is Mac-specific audio software. However, for all the gabbing about just how easy life is on a Mac, I find myself fairly unimpressed with certain aspects of Mac life. For starters, I miss Windows 7’s snap-to-side function. Grabbing a program Window and quickly giving it half my screen worked wonderfully, especially when writing papers. I was going to finish an assignment up last night on the mac as test drive, but I was quickly off put and back on windows.

However, that’s a petty nitpick compared to the big ticket problem: I can’t update the iLife suite. It came free with the computer, but I even after logging in, clicking to accept the apps does nothing. Clicking update brings up a ‘NULL’ error. This is comically bad. After all, I was able to pull an update for the OS itself directly from Apple, so I don’t get why this is such a chase for the apps. I’ve sent off a support email, but for now, I feel unimpressed. Windows may lack a store entirely, but what’s included with the OS updates almost too easily, and I can easily get what’s not included through great sites like Ninite.

I am corresponding with Apple support right now, and I hope I get to follow this up with a retraction, but I hate that it came to this in the first place. Considering I managed to build a Windows 7 box from parts and get everything running and lovely on it in about a day last weekend, sitting around fighting for an app update is annoying at a minimum.

I mean, this is the kind of goofy trouble Apple made fun of Windows for, and in fact, I haven’t even had this kind of trouble with Linux since I started to used it on the original eeePC in 2007. That’s problematic.

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“Specialization Is For Insects” – Heinlein

Posted on February 19th, 2012

Filed under: General,Music News — Karl Olson @ 4:12 am

Computer programming and music, the strands of art and science that simultaneously define my life, alternate between being in harmony and loggerheads with one another. This week has definitely been the latter.

On one hand, I not only have praise for my personal musical output, but for my creative work for other prominent individuals. To be blunt, I’m doing some production work for MC Lars, and he digs it. That’s praise is getting other parties interested in what I do as a musician. That’s good too, because I could use some pocket money and general attention. Doing production for other artists provides both.

At the same time though, I’m still enjoying fumbling my way around Racket for my AI class, while learning C# for a couple problems in my Multimedia class. I’m not a bad programmer, but I am a notorious procrastinator, and nothing gets me distracted like music. Add to that the general malaise that comes with recovering from a cold and a solid fall, and I’m surprised I’m on task at all. That likely speaks to how interesting I fine the programming work too; even the relatively dry AI class is pretty cool as the problems are quite thought provoking. Once I dig in, any track of time is lost. I become entranced by pondering how to attack and conquer the problem.

The multimedia class provides some excuse to fuse the two passions, but at the moment, I am balancing that fantastic Heinlein quote in the title again another very valid quote:

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” – Abraham Lincoln.

I can’t wait to get these bigger projects off my mind. I can dilettante about with collabs here and there during university, but doing that, plus 3 good albums, plus homework, is tricky. Though, I probably spend too much time on the internet no matter how you cut it, and that’s the lamb most worth sacrificing. Though, it’s hyper-distracting nature makes the internet hardest to shut off.

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