every once in a while i second guess myself on the way i'm doing this, with so many overlapping tracks, and i always come back to the same point. i'm just concerned that i'm giving out the impression that i'm ripping people off by burying an obscure track here or there, forcing people to buy things repeatedly.

first of all, i wouldn't expect *anybody* to buy every single release i have up on my page. it's not a collect them all kind of thing. it's a very diverse discography. if you like my ambient works, you might not like my noise pieces; if you like my orchestrated stuff, you might find the punk a little boring. etc. i get that. i'm that kind of artist. i mean, there will be the odd person that likes all of it but it's not going to be the norm...

second, i'm actually operating more on the idea of cataloguing my work than i am in offering a product for sale. so, yes, there's a lot of overlap in the eps, but each one of them is a conceptual fragment that represents an idea that i think ought to be catalogued.

the point i keep coming back to is that i'm providing options.

if i removed all the eps, and there was a specific song you really liked, you'd have to buy two or three records to get all the different versions. now, maybe you might want to do that anyways. but, maybe you don't. then, the ep would be a good idea because you'd get all the different versions of that one song in one place.

for example, with the ep i just released, you could break down the tracks as follows:

1) upcoming 6th record
2) rabit is wolf demo
3) imaginary tour ep
4) probably unique to this ep (a different version will be on the imaginary tour ep)
5) unique to this ep
6) not a song

you could look at it as though i'm burying two obscure tracks on the ep, but the way i'm looking at it is that i'm constructing a thematic listening experience, and there's no rule that says you have to buy the ep if you don't want to. that's what the records are for, if that's what you want. see, i grew up listening to remix records; i like to hear a handful of different versions of a song i like flow together, and in that sense i'm providing what i would want as a consumer.

but you could also look at it as though i'm stopping you from having to buy three albums to get all the versions of the track - and tossing in some bonus material on top of it.

another thing i'll do is split off ten or twenty conceptually linked minutes of a record and put it up as an ep. you could argue it's redundant, but what if somebody only wants that concept rather than the whole record? even that's not the point of why i'm doing this, though. i'm doing this to catalogue that idea as separate from the record, for thematic or chronological reasons. one example is the classical guitar ep. it's on the fifth disc. but, what if you just want the guitar pieces?

the current standard industry solution to this problem is to allow per track downloads but i really find this distasteful. i don't allow this for the specific reason that i don't like it. and, in the end buying multiple scattered mixes of a track is going to cost more than buying an ep, anyways, so i'm actually undercharging rather than overcharging if you directly contrast these options.

i know i'm doing this the way i want, and i know i'm doing it for the right reasons. but that perception bothers me. not that anybody has brought it up. but don't think it...it's not the right way to look at what i'm compiling, or interpret why i'm doing it this way...

i'm otherwise done for the night. the next thing up is the time remix, and this is going to be a little different because i don't have a clear plan to construct it. i have some rough ideas of things i wanted to play with, but it's not at all formed.

i think i'm going to reconstruct the track as it was, first, and then splice it up from there.