The CDs are back from the printers, and they look lovely. I missed the window to ship them out before the long weekend, but they'll go out first thing Tuesday morning. If your shipping address has changed since you filled out the form on Kickstarter, or if you never submitted it at all, get in touch ASAP!

Also: I have a handful of CDs left over from the print run, and I want to give you guys first dibs for those who want an extra for a friend or got the digital download and changed your mind. If you're interested, you can buy one here, and I'll get it in the mail on Tuesday. (One per person, please!)

Thanks!

-- Andy.

In case you missed out on the Kickstarter project, or wanted to share the album with friends, digital downloads of Kind of Bloop are now officially now on sale for $5:

http://kindofbloop.com/

If you liked the album, spread the word!

I'm proud to announce that Kind of Bloop is officially released!

http://kindofbloop.com/

If you're a Kickstarter backer, you'll receive an email in a moment with your private password to stream the album or download it in high-quality MP3 or FLAC format with high-resolution cover art.

If you're not, don't worry! The digital download of the album will be available for purchase to the general public ion Thursday. In the meantime, enjoy the short previews on the site.

Thank you to everyone for making this possible.

-- Andy.

Only three days left! I can't believe we passed $7,000, over 350% of our original goal. Thanks so much to everyone backing the project for making this possible.

In case you're new to the project, the digital download of the album will be available on August 17, the 50th anniversary of Kind of Blue's release. The physical CDs will be shipped by the end of August, as soon as they get back from the printers (I'll post updates here as it happens).

Also, as I've said before, the logistics of cover song licensing means that this is the only time the album will ever be produced and sold... I might have a handful of CDs left in this batch to sell next month, but I can't release the MP3s to anyone that isn't backing this Kickstarter project! So tell your friends if you think they might want a copy. Thank you, everyone!!
Updates:

• 
  
• The five musicians have been making great progress on their tracks, and the work-in-progress material I've heard far exceeds my original hopes for the project. I hope you'll agree.
• 
  
• I've decided on Cravedog/CD Forge here in Portland, who will be printing the limited-edition CDs in a full-color, four-pane Digipak with a color disc face. I met them yesterday to look at some samples, and I think it'll look great. I'm working on the artwork right now... and I'm planning on listing every one of the Kickstarter backers inside the album!
• 
  
• Gaming weblog GameSetWatch just published a nice interview with me, talking about the history of the project.
• 
  

That's it for now... See you in three days!

A recent surge in the last 24 hours pushed us over the $6,000 mark, with nearly 300 backers! Incredible. Thanks so much to everyone putting their money behind this project. Where did you new people hear about it? Was there some new publicity for the project? If so, we'd love to hear about it.

Updates

Currently, everyone's working on their tracks and coordinating solos. I've been researching options for the CD printing and packaging, and am fairly sure it'll be a cardboard four-panel Digipack (like this one).

Also, ast0r kindly took some time out from his track to write up an update about his progress:

"Welp, I've nearly run out of patterns in schism tracker, I'm pretty sure due to a limitation of the .IT format :) Nine and a half minutes of chipped up jazz is about all this format can take I suppose :) I realized though, I could've opted for 128-row patterns and been well under the 200 pattern limit. Anyhow, I've got the whole Miles solo down, working on adding the next 3, but I'm still struggling finding good sounds for the horns.. Really, the attack is the hard part. Making a chippy beep of an instrument come out with the dynamics of a horn or sax is hard :)

Another oddity is lack of ambience with the chip, it's just so anti jazz.. jazz is so organic, so live, and chips are so not.. so I ran the Schism Tracker output through my workstation keyboard's reverb and delay.. pretty interesting, but I'm not sure if I'll ultimately opt for a wet chip. Good times. The two sax solos have like three times as notes as the trumpet solo so this next step will be a pretty deep endeavor :D I can't wait to play the recording I've got sync'd up with the chip, as I've been doing every time I finish a chunk.. Trip."

Thanks, ast0r! More updates as I get them.

Meteor Radio

Late last month, Rich "Disasterpeace" Vreeland and I were interviewed on Meteor Radio, a talk radio show about videogame culture on Fox 92.7 in Louisiana. We talked about Kind of Bloop's origins, our experience with jazz and chiptunes/VGM, and the use of Kickstarter. Brett "Axtuse" Wooley, the show's host, was kind enough to provide MP3s of both interviews and allow me to post them here exclusively for Kickstarter backers. You can listen to both interviews below.

It's looking very likely that we're going to hit the minimum for the project by tonight, so this project is definitely happening!

To be clear, the project won't end the moment the goal's hit... We'll keep it running until August 1, so anyone who wants the download or CD will be able to get it.

But obviously, we won't wait until August to get started. The minimum goal was designed to pay fees and the bare minimum for fairly compensating the work of the musicians involved, so they'll be able to get going right away.

Thanks again, everyone! You are all amazing.

Clearly, I'm not the only one in the world who wants to hear this. $600 in two hours!? You guys are amazing.