Temporary Hiatus (Raising Baby)

Hello fans - since July of last year I’ve been spending most of my days taking care of my newborn son. This has been the most important job of my life so far, and while I still am an industrial musician at heart, the music project is not as important to me as paying attention to and raising my son. If it seems like I totally fell off the face of the planet, that’s why. It’s a full time job taking care of a baby, and I am not able to juggle the music stuff with a full time commitment like that. Perhaps if I had more resources, I could pay an assistant to help with band stuff, but the streaming/merch income isn’t enough for something like that.

Anyway, there are plenty of music projects planned; enough for 3 more album at least, but they will have to wait until my son is old enough that I can spend time working on them. I’m probably 3-6 years away from that.

Anyway, the new album is out, there’s lots of stuff to digest, etc. If I have time, perhaps I can set up a way of automating merch so people can still buy t-shirts, but that’s not high on my priority list.

It’s been great, I’ve shared my music with tens of thousands of people so far, which is not bad for someone who’s been fighting an uphill battle his whole life.

Till next time,

BD

The Album's Finally Done

It’s ready. Stay tuned.

-BD

3 Cryptos Launched

Black Diamond spontaneously, randomly launches 2 meme coins and 1 IP coin

I decided to jump into XRP’s First Ledger ecosystem recently. As you may know I’ve been an XRP hodlr for many years and my next album SVRS is funded in part by profits I made from holding XRP. Growth in 2025 will also be funded in large part by profits from XRP and even my artist name, Black Diamond, was somewhat inspired by the Diamond Hands meme that floated around the XRP army all these years, because we are insane people who held onto this token for 7 years during a lawsuit and all kinds of price craziness.

In the past few weeks I launched CRYNJ, BASTE, and ELITEFITREA, 3 tokens on the XRPL. For more information, check out our backpage here.

Thanks,
BD

Update on our Next Album

I keep our Facebook group relatively updated on our album progress but I haven’t really written anything recently for the website.

A few posts ago I shared news of our upcoming album while also announcing an Indiegogo campaign. The campaign didn't reach its goal and in hindsight I realize this could lend itself to the appearance that the album isn't happening. Although the Indiegogo campaign didn't reach its full goal, I had already independently raised funds for the album which has been underway since May.

For those that contributed to the fundraiser, perks will be fulfilled after the album is released. Originally I thought the album might be wrapped up by August but there are still a few steps to go. Keeping it sequential makes things easier for me.

While funding the album isn’t an issue, I think it could have been a better album with twice the funds at my disposal. Some of the things that I wanted to try that will not be able to happen are:

• Replacing poly-synths with pedal-steel guitar.

  • I wanted to experiment with a signal chain that included lots of reverb, overdrive, compression, a retro-color pedal of some kind, as well as ducking in time with the music. I still think this has massive potential for exploration but it will have to be done on a different project.

• Playing bass guitar through feedback distortion similar to Model-D output/input trick.

  • I wanted to create a really out there bass tone that would have required a small bundle of expensive eurorack gear.

• Hiring a dobro player to play some of the metal licks on a lap-steel slide guitar.

• Recruiting additional producers to lend more expertise to the mixing and sound design for that high-polish sound.

  • Lethe was good but it wasn't Doom Eternal good

Although these experimental aspects will go unfulfilled, ultimately this will still be an insane album and the work we’ve put into it already makes for an intense listening experience.

Can’t wait till it’s done!