Hi everyone!

Refractions is here!

[Edit: you can check out a few samples here: https://play.reelcrafter.com/northernsky/totbp-refractions]

Have you ever felt lost, broken, or rejected? Our latest album reaches back into the past to find old, forgotten, and "broken" songs to polish them up and make them "beautiful". The work spans over a decade of effort.

After more than a year of polishing and updating, this "small" project has grown into something massive, with efforts from more than 80 people (it may be closer to 100) world-wide, and it includes the incomparable talents of such performers as:

Judy Kang (resident cellist for Celine Dion)
Stroma FilmWorks (New Zealand orchestra comprised of performers from prestigious groups such as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra)
Olivia Foa'i (singer on Disney's Moana)
... and many others

Because this album is meant to show you our rough edges, we have included a special look-behind-the-curtain. As an additional download for Refractions backers only, we are sending you Refractions Origins, a collection of the "original" tracks from which Refractions was born - the broken tracks (as many of them as we are able to share.) Some of these are snippets; many are unmixed reference tracks sent to creative directors during the process.

For those who haven't pledged for a copy of Refractions, but would like to, we've re-opened the "pre-order" store. Simply head to the campaign page (https://talesoftheblackpiper.com), click "Pre-Order Now!", find Refractions in the list, add to cart, and place your order.

We don't have a date yet for a wider release of Refractions. We are currently targeting May 2024, but we have a few things to work out first before fully committing to a date.

We also don't yet have any details on which, if any, platforms we will release it on. We will have it available for sale (at a higher price) on our website - at which point the "pre-order store" will be closed again. but beyond that stay tuned for updates.

Refractions has been broken up into several zip files. If you have ordered Refractions, you should get an email that directs you how to access your content and how to open the multipart zip files provided. (There are 5 zip files for the Refractions WAV format and 3 zip files for Refractions Origins.)

If you cannot find the instructions or have any trouble with the downloads - let us know!


As always, let us know if you have any comments or questions or just want to share some love!

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

Hi everyone!

Exciting news regarding ....

Refractions Mastering is complete, and we are putting some finishing touches on a (digital) companion booklet we'll be sending out to Refractions backers along with the music.

I know that this "little" project has taken more than a year to complete, but I didn't realize just how big it was until I saw the credits sheet. I mean, by big-budget Hollywood standards, it's not quite blockbuster size, but it's still pretty big! We've counted over 80 people who've been involved!

Also, take a look at all these featured performers 😍!

Some great folks on there! Like:

We are waiting on a few assets to come in to plug them into the companion booklet before finalizing it, so it may end up being Wednesday before we send things out, but if everything comes in today as promised and we can get everything proofed, you should have it tomorrow, Tuesday, 26 March!

Yay!

As always, let us know if you have any comments or questions.


All the best,

Michael & The Team @ The Black Piper

Hi everyone,

Guess what??? FINALLY after more than a year of preparation, Refractions is now off to the mastering engineer! Oh my, we are SO STOKED!

The attentive reader will notice that there are some blank checkmarks above. That's because the mastering engineer will also be mixing those tracks.

You'll also notice that there are 25 total tracks. Yeah, we kind of snuck a few in there we didn't originally plan on. Sorry about that....

The mastering engineer will be looking things over today and giving me an estimate on timeline, but it really isn't that much farther to go!! I might guess 2 weeks, but he does work fast. We'll let you know, though.

Whew - I just have to say - this album has taken so much more effort than we thought it would. A lot of sleep sacrificed, but, you know, I think it's so worth it in the end for the art. (We hope you'll agree once we get this thing into your hands!)

Now, just have to settle on a cover...

One note about streaming: once the music and cover are done, we'll send the tracks out to all those who paid for Refractions (which you'll recall was an add-on to the campaign.) We are looking to put the album up on streaming platforms and put it up for sale, but that might not happen for a few months. So, those who helped fund this album will get to enjoy it for a few months before the public release.

We hope you'll all be ready to help us hype it when it drops!!

#excited!

With all of that completed, we can now focus our attentions on our next project, Tales of The Black Piper, while we await the mastering engineer. Tales, for those who haven't been following that news, is essentially complete, with regards to the stories. We'll be heading into writing music for it full-steam!


Well, that's it for now. We'll keep you updated with more soon!

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

Hi everyone,

Just dropping in to let you know that we've posted a new update, re: Refractions here. I realized that the last update only allowed comments from backers of the Tales project, so I've rectified that in this update, in case you are interested in commenting.

In short, we had some slowdowns due to sicknesses in December, but we've made significant progress and are nearing the end!


Thank you all for your patience as we wrap up what we feel is a meaningful project.


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

Hello everyone,

I just realized that we've updated the Tales of the Black Piper campaign with news regarding the Refractions album, but we haven't posted anything to this campaign. I sincerely apologize! Let me rectify that.

Rather than reiterating everything here, since I know there are folks who are subscribed to both campaigns, I'll just post a link for everyone else or who may not have seen it yet:

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/the-black-piper/tales-of-the-black-piper/updates/2746

Let us know if you have any comments or questions!

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