Innerpartysystem has been seen all over the electronic dance scene lately, since after touring with Warped Tour last year when they had almost fallen off the map entirely. After announcing their “American Trash Bundle” for $25, including a limited edition gold 7” LP and limited edition T-shirt, they announced this press release via their email list.
“Phew, glad to get that all out of the way. We wanted to mention something on a more personal note. Outside of the 140 character variety if you’ll stick with us. If you happen to live in Northeast ‘Merica, you know that the weather has gone from spring-jackets to swamp-ass in no time. Which is symbolic of one thing to us: Times, they are a’ changin’… FAST.
In the vein of change, we’ve been getting a lot of inquiries from fans as to exactly what are release plans are. We’ve got a policy of crystal clear honesty with fans, so we wanted to let you know exactly what we’re thinking:
We’ve taken a lot of time to explore our future label/release options in the past few months feel pretty strongly that rushing out a full album right now doesn’t make sense. Our solution was to start putting out singles ourselves. We want to give each song the attention we feel they deserve. For the time being we plan on releasing 2 more bundles in the coming weeks/ months, and each one better and more developed then the last.
This is not the easiest route because we’re not millionaires with tons of scratch to sink into marketing and promo. We lead pretty modest existences by any standards, and over the past few months we’ve been keeping it “incredibly real” as anyone in Mohnton, PA will attest. So income from ‘American Trash’, will directly fund the release of the second single ‘Money Makes the World Go Round’, and each single’s sales dictate what we can spend on future singles, albums, DVD’s, etc.
To us, that was a big flaw in contemporary label system logic. You’re taking a huge gamble on something that ‘might’ happen, and if it doesn’t right away everyone gets a wicked case of the Mondays. With our single sales method, it’s not as much gambling as fighting to prove your worth. A ‘working band’s’ model. If people believe in this band enough to buy singles, t-shirts, etc. all the profits come back to us, and allow us to invest back into marketing future singles, the live show production, touring in more areas, etc. It’s not a revolution, it’s simple logic, and looking at the most productive use of resources.
It gets tricky because (again, crystal clear honesty) our music takes a pretty extensive process to make. There’s a lot of ‘No this isn’t good enough.’ And each track gets written, and rewritten until it we feel it’s up to release standards. It’s much more time consuming then a band who walks in with a producer, cuts vocals, and awaits the final mix. Infact, this is the first time since the Download EP (besides remixes of course) that you’re hearing new IPS music untouched. No extra producers or mixers like we were blessed with on the self titled album. This music is recorded by us, and handed directly to your hard drive.
And that means a lot to us. We know that if you want music today, you’re going to get it. Just ask a friend for a link. Once one person has it, everyone has it. Anyone thinking they can contain that is straight trippin.
But we’re not 100% sure how to pay our mortgage if all music is free and clear. In fact these past few months we’ve been really caught up doing extra remixes and auxiliary production work so we can bring you this release. We’ve been fortunate enough to find some exciting commercial scoring work for promos and film to help connect the dots, more details on that to come in the near future.
Weather you buy a bundle, or you just make the extra effort to pick up the album on itunes, amazon, etc. that means something to us. If you happen to think our music’s worth more then we’re asking and have cash to blow, we’re not going to discourage you, you can name your own price at our Bandcamp site (insert link here) If you like what we’re doing, and take the time to twitter, facebook, blog, etc. that you like it to other people you know, that REALLY means something to us. And if you’ve actually got the motivation to call or email a radio station, sirius / xm show, etc. and let them know how much you like what we’re doing… well, shit, you get the idea. This has always been a band that has existed on the back of people’s natural enthusiasm for what we’re making.
We don’t know what the future will hold for music, and we don’t know exactly what it will hold for us. We may not be the band to reinvent the system, but the beauty of being a musician right now is that you have direct communication with any fan that cares enough to listen. You are important to us. We promise to make the best music we possibly can, we just want to figure out what the best way is for you to hear it.
Thanks for being a part of this.
-IIIII”
The bundle was released on May 25th, and I have to say, the single and remix of American Trash is beyond amazing. The lyrics, beat, and structure are clearly of the IPS variety with some seriously sick beats and full of the brilliant ingenuity that have been a signature of IPS since The Download EP. Both the single itself and the Starkey remix are included on the LP and the T-shirt designs are pretty rad all on their own. The bundle is definitely worth the price you pay and the LP is fully functional (just make sure you play it on a decent turntable- if not you’ll scratch up the nice sparkly finish). With over half of these packs sold, there are only 250 or so left. Jump at this chance and help support Innerpartysystem now and for the next two LP releases and maybe, just maybe, we will see them on tour sooner rather than later.
