We are very excited to announce to our most ambitious project to date entitled, æther. A dream come true for us.
Four elements terra, aqua, ær, and ignis respectively each get their own album. FOUR separate full albums, FOUR separate elements housed in a 5th element. æther.
We started out with 10 song sketches which turned into 20 and then 30 and now rests at just over 40 songs. As we were building the songs we saw they fell into 4 distinct categories of the 4 classic elements. Instead of trying to put them out over a year or 2, we decided NOW IS THE TIME to show the world something we’ve both separately and together been dreaming of doing since before we even met in 1996. AN ALBUM FOR EACH ELEMENT. The idea of releasing them all at once under the name of the 5th element was born in January of 2k15. Which marked the 13th Anniversary of our working together in music. YAWP!
Between playing concerts and festivals, moving our house/studio several times, programming and booking we’ve been working away at song creation, collecting samples, defining parameters and breaking them, revamping our website (which is hosting our æther nexus), streamlining our online presence(s) on social media platforms and generally doing a bunch of admin-y stuff which we consider amending the soil and placing the seeds for the ultimate organic crop with the highest output possible. It is WHAT WE DO. We do what we love.
We have been able to continue as artists directly working with our supporters since HUMANWINE was a maple key called “Veil”. It has always been about YOU and US and WE THANK YOU for sharing in our story since 2k2. You helped us convert our school bus to run on WVO to tour with in 2k8 (when we held an online donation campaign through paypal and our website) before kickstarter was born. Things are much easier now. Hooray for spreadsheets! You helped us put out The Folks Below‘s debut album in 2k11 through indiegogo and you’ve reminded us that it’s been FAR TOO LONG since our last release as HUMANWINE. You’re right. BAM! Here it is. This should more than make up for lost time. If you are just joining the Nervous Relatives family, WELCOME! Kick off your shoes and stay a while the kitchen is always open late.
We’ve been thinking a lot about plastic. The past few releases we’ve been putting out using recycled plastic CDs, recycled cardboard covers and recycled paper for the booklets but we wanted to take it a step further to cut the plastic by 90% if not 100%.
We thought perhaps we could host a MIND MELD where people come up and PRESS THEIR HEADS AGAINST OURS to receive this release of songs and imagery but the tech just isn’t there yet.
We knew we wanted USB & THAT WAS…
Back this project at $50 and receive a 4GB bottle of æther which includes all 4 NEW albums terra, aqua, ær, ignis along with their beautifully crafted Cover art and lyric pages (PDF) The other 1/2 of our complete vision is codex.
Back this project at $100 and receive the æther codex along with a 4GB bottle of æther which includes all 4 albums terra, aqua, ær, ignis along with their beautifully crafted Cover art and lyric pages in (PDF)
We present the æther nexus by Nervous Relatives Designs
We have the tools we need. We’ve built a portable studio over the years. We are building the songs. We have our bodies with which we create the music and the imagery. We are a self contained and well greased ArtMachine.
What we need from you: By sharing and backing this Campaign at ANY LEVEL you are buying us the time to create this with the attention it clearly needs to be the most accurate representation of our vision.
If you find yourself with the means to support solution oriented art that makes the world a better place. Find a backing level that works for you.
Spit n’ Spirit,
holly & mAt
p.s. YOU our FAMILY are our promotion team. SPREAD THE WORD. Join our Mail List, Street Team, Tell a stranger about HUMANWINE. Burn them a disc. We are our own label we give you permission. SHARE SHARE SHARE.
As soon as you back this TELL EVERYONE YOU’VE SUPPORTED the making of æther. SHARE THE LINK on twitter, facebook, ello, Diaspora, Tumblr, Pinterest, make a vine, share a screenshot on your instagram. #æther #humanwine #notboxedwine
*Contact Holly directly with questions or wishes through kickstarter and also at kickstarter@humanwine.org*
Photography Credits:All artwork on this page was created by Holly Brewer & mAt McNiss
Video Credits:
Written, directed, shot and edited by Holly Brewer & mAt McNiss
Digital Animation by mAt McNiss @pencil2px
Stop Animation by Holly Brewer
Narrated by Holly Brewer @hollyearrow
Music by HUMANWINE
Produced by Nervous Relatives [us too:]
This is kickstarter. It is all or nothing. We set the goal kind of low for a project of this scope because we DO NOT need to pay other people for studio time, a producer or a graphic design person or team because we do it ourselves. You know you are truly getting a 100% hands on original creation from us.
We’ve already invested $8k to get to this point. We have the glass & cork USB bottles. All media is backed up on not 1, not 2 but 3 separate hard drives that are synced daily. The books will be made to order with a turn around time of 5 days.
We foresee no obstacles in the way of production or product completion by October 2k15 if the $20k goal is reach or exceeded as we are not reliant on an outside force aside from mastering. The Cost to master 40-46 songs is $2,500-$3,000 and has been included in our goal.
If we do not meet our goal we march on as the ArtNinjas we are but it will take a LOT LONGER to complete this project.