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Workbench Recordings: Progressive Online Label for Folk & Jazz

  Tobias

With Workbench aiming at featuring both music and texts, it is bound to turn into something more than just a netlabel. Effectively, this is a first step towards an outfit that makes full use of the multimedial potential of the web. Only last week, I talked to Curt Smith of Tears for Fears, who published his new album under a Creative Commons License and he mentioned the idea of releasing each track „as soon as it was finished“ in the future. This is not all that different from what Beaudreau is heading towards. Effectively, this will mean that the select crowd of his fans and friends (which includes The Wire, AllAboutJazz and yours truly among others) will now be able to tap into his composition process more personally and on a much more frequent basis. It will also allow Beaudreau to try out different forms and formats after specialising in densely atmospheric and minutely orchestrated full-length albums until now.

With the label site now online and already offering touching miniature „At the Foothills“ as a first download, it feels as though a heavy burdon has fallen off his shoulders: „The album was finished before I had any ideas about the Workbench Recordings website. It was going to be a small-run CDR, with a card sleeve, like my previous two albums. But when it came time to design the packaging and put the mastering and manufacturing in motion, I found myself feeling lukewarm at the idea of another small run release, with its limited reach and brief circuit under the spotlight.“

For those who can't wait for the next track to arrive, meanwhile, Philip Lynch's „Four Songs“ EP is still available for free download as well from Beaudreau's personal site.

Homepage: Workbench Records
Homepage: James Beaudreau