The potentially one-and-only Cloudkicker tour is just about halfway through its course, and people are reporting back that the Intronaut-backed live act is totally on-point. This tour is obviously a must-see, but the reality is that the tour dates aren’t all that extensive, leaving many fans missing out. Fortunately, band leader Mr. Ben Sharp is well aware of this, and he’s doing everything he can to make sure the tour is well documented, including plans for a potential live album.

While in Orlando, Rise Above The Anchor caught up with Sharp and asked if there were any plans to record any of the shows for a live release. He responded:

Sacha has a guy in Austin, TX who told us we need to stop by his studio before the show in Austin that night and record a live album. We’re pretty set on that idea, about 75% on it, we’ll record it in the studio, but it will still be a “live” album.

The Austin date was actually on the 6th, so if they decided to go through with it, the recording has already happened. Hopefully we’ll get a live Cloudkicker album in the coming months. In case you weren’t aware, here’s what the tracklist would look like:

‘The warmth of the daytime…’ from Subsume

‘A weather front…‘ from Subsume

‘Here, wait a minute! Damn it!’ from Beacons

‘We’re goin’ in, We’re going down.’ from Beacons

‘Seriosity‘ from The Map Is Not The Territory

‘Dysphoria‘ from The Discovery

‘You could laugh forever…’ from Subsume

‘Push it way up!’ from Beacons

In other news, those Blood Music “mystery releases” were confirmed by Blood Music to be Cloudkicker releases! The black/clear splatter 2xLP was an EP collection including The Map Is Not The Territory, Portmanteau, and ]]][[[, and the blue haze LP was The Discovery.

As it turns out, Blood Music may very well be the first commercial label to fulfill an open source music release in history without obtaining permission from the original artist. It’s a bit shady ethically, but legally Blood Music are 100% within their right, as all of Cloudkicker’s music has been released under a Creative Commons license; you can do whatever you want, so long as you attribute appropriate credit. No worries though, as Blood Music will be donating an undisclosed portion of the profit to Cloudkicker via Bandcamp, and they plan to send Sharp free copies of the pressing for his own use and collection.

Bad news, though. Both releases are sold out on Blood Music’s US store. Very few copies remain via the EU store, but with overseas shipping, you’re looking at spending a bit of money. Fortunately, you can save a few dollars and pick them up while supplies last from eBay user asperahiems, which appears to be an account run by Blood Music in the first place. The Discovery cost me just under $50 with shipping, so if you’re a die hard fan, get them while supplies last.

No word yet on what Ben Sharp thinks of this, but if he ever mentions it, we’ll let you know.

UPDATE: This morning, Blood Music issued the following update:

Regarding the Mystery releases: we contacted the artist after sending some royalty money their way, asking them not to kill us.

They responded cordially but seemingly confused. We wound up explaining the situation, and they thanked us for the information, and that was all.

We still have no idea how they feel about this. Clearly, they set the rights up for this to happen but perhaps didn’t actually expect it to occur (or occur so suddenly). It is the first time in history this has happened! We know of one other well-known artist who tried the same thing, and their experiment failed – they wound up pressing the records themselves.

The artist still has yet to see the final items. So, until they make a statement, we are just as in-the-dark as you. They did not seem angry, though! And that is all we can say.

We are proud of what we’ve done and lots of people have expressed huge excitement over the artist and the subject matter. So, we only hope they will see the items and appreciate them as *almost* everyone else has.

We have no more information until they decide to make a statement.

– JR