Hi all (and especially authors)!

We have received stories from 9 of our backer authors so far, and we're looking forward to receiving the remaining stories.

Remember the stories are due this Friday, June 30! I've heard from several of you who are finalizing things as we speak. If you have any extenuating circumstances, please email us to make arrangements, but otherwise, our Editor-in-chief, Jane, has been preparing and is so excited to begin working with you!

If any of you have any questions, please let us know - either by email, Discord, or even comments on this update.

Refractions

We have been making great progress on Refractions, and we have most of the soloists recorded that we are planning on. We just have a few vocals left to get, and we should be done on the recording side. Things are still progressing slower than hoped, in part because of some of the things we mentioned on the last update (working with old files, etc) but also because, as we've been getting into the old songs, we've realized that some of them would be more satisfying if we made some updates to them, such as lengthening the tracks and massaging material surrounding different parts of the songs. As we've been doing this, we feel like they have been shaping up nicely.

On a more creative note, this is going to be a bit of an eclectic album. There will be several tracks of a cinematic/orchestral nature (in a few different genres), a few electronic tracks, a couple of "World" tracks, and, if we can swing it, a song with lyrics. It's really going to be a fun album, and it'll be fun figuring out the best way to present them/in what order. We are getting so excited to share these with you soon!

Here's the current state of the album:
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Rebuilding Working Files: 6 tracks
Updating Composition: 2 tracks
Recording: 2 tracks
Mix Prep:  2 tracks
Mixing (initial mix pass complete): 4 tracks
Finalized: 4 tracks

That's all for now - back to work!

All the best,
Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper