Hi, Submariner-in-Chief Rob speaking. I just wanted to send a seasonal message and update you on news for next year.
So, what a year! It was, I suppose, SBC’s first full year as “a thing” (we first released stuff in 2017 but I think it was this year that earnt our spurs, carved our niche, twisted our sobriety…?)
We did a lot of stuff, we did a lot right; we did a few things wrong too, but I look on those as part of the learning process and we live to fight another day. Lots of achievements, both artistic and technical:
- Our first cassette release
- A release nominated for the Schallwelle Music Awards
- Three releases available as hardback book/CD packages
- Our first play on BBC 6 Music
- Our first review in “proper” music magazines
- True multimedia, with a series of original paintings in our merch shop
- Launched a monthly playlist, Submerged.
- A new drop-ship CD manufacturer, enabling release of CDs where it would have been cost-prohibitive previously
- Experiments with new streaming services, Choon and MusiCoin
We’ve also raised a shedload of cash for charities (you may recall the initial reason for us existing at all was the One String Inspiration project, which raised money for Syria Relief). Since then we have raised many hundreds of pounds for:
- Depaul International
- Medecins Sans Frontieres
- The Shaw Mind Foundation
- Make The World Better
- The Petar Radovanović Children’s Home, Užice, Serbia
A huge thank you to all the artists who donated their time and talents to the projects that made this possible.
So with the Christmas season approaching, I think we’ve deserved a rest, so you’ll see the activity and social media posts start dwindle now until the New Year. Regardless of your religious persuasion, I’d like to think we’d all want some peace, and maybe even muster up goodwill to all men. And if you are really stuck for Christmas gift ideas, who doesn’t love a Bandcamp download?
2019 on the Submarine
So… one of the big lessons that 2018 taught me was not to bite off more than I can chew. A number of artists have approached us regarding potential releases and we’ve had to turn them away, because next year is going to see a change to the rate of releases from the Submarine Broadcasting Company. The reasons are manifold, but the main two are that I’m just not getting time to work on any Beltism material and that Simply Will Not Do! Also, I’m finding it difficult to find time to properly promote a release before the next one is upon me, so something has got to give.
To give you an idea of when things might happen, we have four releases on the slate for January and February: these include a stunning new album from Wilfried Hanrath and a new retrospective from Manipulant, plus other stuff that’s still top secret. But after February, the intention is to slow it right down, with perhaps only another six releases until 2020. Who knows, maybe by April I will be bored out of my mind and be desperate to release more material? But that’s the current plan.
A note to our existing and prospective artists: don’t be afraid to get in touch about anything you would like to release through SBC, but note that we will be making some changes to the way we work. Probably the most material of these changes is that we will be imposing a lead time, so we will need lots of notice prior to release, but there will be some other changes which we’ll discuss at the time.
Submarine Broadcasting Company 