Hello everyone, Robin here.

This is to announce that starting with the album KSDL-0008 and beyond, we are going to change the way we are dealing with projects overall, and how we deal with deadlines and event releases. Up until today, albums have had a classic deadline and set release. But with this convenience, we realized that some people simply could not make a track in time for albums that may have picked their interest due to time restraint or other reasons.

This is why, from now on, we will keep all of our projects ongoing until we say otherwise: Every time we complete an album, the concept and project will still live on, and sequels will keep on happening. We understand that deadlines and planned releases helps to make things a bit smoother and tighter to ensure people focus on the task at hand, but we now estimate that KodamaSounds has enough of a following and participants to warrant all of our album projects to exist continuously, even if they may take a bit more time to be finalized. This will also ensure that all of our albums will be consistent in terms of runtime, even for the most marginalized themes/series. (As an example, Moonstruck Analogy was a relatively small release compared to VANTABLACK. In the new system, the sequels of both of these albums will have a consistent runtime and love poured into each one.)

Both artists and our listeners will be able to check how the album projects are progressing runtime wise on our website on the “Projects” tab, by seeing how many minutes of the album has been “filled” in by artists. The runtime will be calculated based on the sum of all confirmed and completed tracks submitted for the album. Work in project tracks will NOT be calculated to ensure that whoever comes first will still be able to make it on to the next release. Once we reach between 55 minutes and 70 minutes of runtime, we will tick the album as “complete”, and any new submitted tracks will not be able to make it in. Once complete, the finalized album will then be formally announced and made available for the next relevant event (Comic Market and M3 for most albums, and Reitaisai/Comic Market for Touhou related albums). Any new submission will then be added to the next album, which will be a direct sequel to the previous one. And thus, the project begins anew like the previous one. That way, this ensures that our most popular album projects keep on being posted as long as the demand remains.

This new system favors the different amount of projects and the variety of them all, and ensures that people get to produce as much as they want, on whichever album or albums of their choice, at their own pace. This also means that we can announce many new different projects and ideas at once, and to ensure that there’s no stress or pressure since everyone will be able to participate on whatever it is that’s on their mind at any time, and see the birth of perhaps unexpected sequels to albums if they are popular enough. This will also make sure that each album will be CD-Compatible in the future. In the past, we’ve produced albums such as “VANTABLACK”, where the runtime greatly exceeds that of a standard CD. This ensures that we never make this same error again. Each project page on the website will have information on the currently ongoing & confirmed runtime, the current entry number in the series (since most projects will be able to be repeated as long as needed), the guidelines as they already currently exist, as well as their own special rules, such as currently blacklisted tracks, track claiming sheets, etc.

In that fashion, this means that those projects are now open again for sequels, and will follow their respective rules that you can check on their individual project page:

• Moonstruck Analogy -a TYPE-MOON tribute album-
• Fragments of Gratitude -a When They Cry Tribute Album-
• Gensokyo Party VANTABLACK
• Gensokyo Party Moriya Barista

As well as future brand new albums:

• More “a tribute album” typed albums that are series specific
• More ECLECTIC RESONANCE albums fixated on specific genres and styles
• More Themed Gensokyo Party Albums

Those changes do not currently affect our current album projects, “Fragments of Gratitude -a When They Cry Tribute Album-” and “Gensokyo Party Vol. 3 Moriya Barista”.

Note: If you submit a track to one of our albums, you must make sure that you are 100% done with it, as we will use your completed track and send it to our mastering engineer. You likely won’t be able to modify it before the release of said album, so make sure that you’re truly done with it before sending it to us. Artists are able to send a maximum of two tracks per pending album release. If you’ve produced more than two, the third one and beyond will simply be made available in the next volume. The only issue with this is that it will always be relatively unknown when the next sequel may drop, and it may take a short time, or even a long time; so you must be ready to face this fact. If you want at any point to pull out your track if the project is going too slow for your taste and would rather publish it on your own or through other means, you will be free to do so at any time.

Side Note: Despite how unpredictable the numeration on the Gensokyo Party alubms may be in the future, we will keep on naming those as volumes for the sake of consistency and our branding. The subtitles will simply have an additional “2/II” depending on the entry number. This means that if Gensokyo Party Vol. 4 will be a VANTABLACK album, it would be titled “Gensokyo Party Vol. 4 VANTABLACK 2”.

This new project format will be made available soon on our website. For now, please check our currently planned projects for 2022, such as Fragments of Gratitude and Moriya Barista. Please stay tuned for the many many projects planned for 2023 and beyond, as there will be far more than ever before.

As always, thank you very much for the support! Art cannot live without strong artists and communities. Let’s make this the best music-centered space out there on the net, made by people of all horizons, skills and cultures, for all kinds of niches. Art lives on and flows with us!

- Robin