A few days ago I temporarily took my music offline from Google Play that has so far been the only streaming service / music store to have Toscasound music available. This has been the case due to the fact that at least the other biggest streaming services and stores have not allowed independent artists to put their music available themselves and have instead required a “music aggregator” to be used for that. For now, there hasn’t really been a financially viable option among them for an independent amateur artist because many have either fixed fees for everything you want to release or rather high annual fees as well as taking a share for everything you might earn. While I would not mind distributor taking a small share (given the amount of earnings will be very small anyway), the fixed fees for everything you want to release or high annual fees are a real deal breaker for someone who isn’t making any real money of the music and is just doing stuff for fun.

After a rather long time looking for good option I recently discovered Distrokid. They offer just what I was looking for: a large collection of services / stores to get my music into, with no extra fees for releases and very reasonable annual fee. They also do not take any share of the earnings although as said that really doesn’t matter for me that much. They also have a very clean and simple interface to upload your music without unnecessarily complicated steps: you fill in the basic information, upload the music files and choose the services / stores you want your music to be put available.

So, what does this mean then? Well, simply put it means that all Toscasound music will from now on (or once the music has reached all the services) be available in huge amount of different streaming services and stores: Spotify, Google Play, Apple Music (and iTunes), Tidal, Deezer, Rdio, Amazon and so on. Spotify, Google Play, iTunes and Amazon are already there, and the others will follow once the stores get updated. I will update on Facebook / Twitter when new services become available and put some links here at the website to different services once all the services are available.

One more more note about this before I end this rather long story: as well as streaming services like Spotify, the music will also become available in several stores like iTunes or Amazon selling the music as separate tracks or albums. Whether it is due to the reasonable pricing of Distrokid or their very simplistic user interface, I don’t seem to have any control on the prices the tracks or albums have in these stores. This means that for example “Home / Less is More EP” is now priced as “full album” even though it only has two tracks and there are other stupid things in the pricing as well. I’m looking into that and at least quite possibly I will only be releasing separate tracks and full albums unless there is more clever system available where I can control the prices.

Well, that’s it for now! Please go and listen to the tracks already available in your favorite service and stay tuned for more stores to be added very soon as well as new releases coming your way rather soon as well…

Some new things again happening with Toscasound and to prepare for that I have temporarily taken my music offline from Google Play. This will only be for a few days and things will change for the better afterwards… (promise!) Stay tuned for some fresh information about this in few days time!

The other free distribution channels will of course still be available, so all music is still available through SoundCloud for example (and will remain so after the changes discussed above as well).

The first piece of music under the new artist name Toscasound, “Home / Less Is More EP” has now been officially released and is available in SoundCloud and Google Play Music (both in store and in streaming service). The free-to-listen-and-download SoundCloud release has also been linked to the Music page as usual.

The release contains two tracks, “Home” and “Less Is More (Original Breakbeat Mix)” and it represents the transformation to the new, more underground-vibed music style that will also be the theme on the forthcoming album to be released later this year. It means more analog-type sounds, more breakbeats, more classic electronica feeling and less traditional trance sounds and elements.

“Home” is a bit more dancefloor-friendly of the two tracks containing rolling analog basslines & breakbeat parts, coupled with an ethereal synth section and trademark 303 acid sounds to spice things up. Although it probably still has things in common with the previously released material under “Tosca”, it is a sign of changes to come with somewhat different approach in many aspects of the sound.

“Less Is More” is an even bigger leap away from the trance-flavored material presenting a “personal musical adventure” between the styles and genres. It involves elements of techno and old-skool progressive / acid house with heavy bassline combined to a slow and peaceful synth part that evolves into the breakbeat-backed electronica. At a bit over 10 minutes this is one of the longest tracks I’ve ever written and most likely the longest in the forthcoming album as well.