by: William Penne
Perimeter Road has a new avenue this semester.
Perimeter Road Sound Recordings, now in its fifth year, is working on a new project this semester. The new Singles Series will be a release of three singles over the course of the semester, each recorded, mixed and released each month from September to December. To get more insight into why the group decided to take this approach, I sat down with some members of the Perimeter Road team and talked about this new project.
Adam Porter, faculty advisor of Perimeter Road, who has been the brainchild of the operation since its infancy, started the idea at the end of last semester. Talking about past projects, in which the label would sign a band in the fall and release a full–length album in the spring, he said that they had seen great success, but found some drawbacks to the approach.
A couple of these drawbacks were the amount of time it takes to see the fruits of the labor that the students had been putting in at the studio and a lack of content to promote throughout the semester, according to Porter.
“What we’re hoping some advantages of this are include having more content to be putting out on a more regular basis and having more things to promote on a regular basis,” says Porter, who also hopes that it will be a valuable lesson for the students involved. He hopes that having more deadlines that require students to be on top of things and constantly working towards those deadlines throughout the semester will give them a more valuable real–world experience.
The group also decided to keep with the current trends of the recording industry, which seems to be focusing more on singles and more frequent content from artists to keep people’s interests high.
Luke Matias, longtime member of Perimeter Road and current social media manager, said he is excited by the increase of members this semester and that the success of this singles series is highly dependent on them.
“We’ve had 10 students come in to join the label this semester and they’ve provided a bevy of different experiences and ideas. They’ve done a very good job getting used to our system and providing their own take on how the recording and mixing process goes. They have been an invaluable asset that we’ve had this semester,” Matias said.
The first single will be released this Friday, Oct. 4, and Porter is impressed with how smoothly the recording and mixing process went for the single.
“As an engineer,” he said, “you always strongly appreciate when an artist comes in prepared and ready to do their job, and that’s been a huge part of the success of our first song.”
“I definitely envision the singles series at least extending into the following semester, spring 2020, and we might even compile all of the singles at the end of spring into a compilation release”
On the future of the singles series, Porter said, “Everything always depends on how things go as far as what we do in the future as a label. We’re always trying to learn from our mistakes and make our next projects better. I definitely envision the singles series at least extending into the following semester, spring 2020, and we might even compile all of the singles at the end of spring into a compilation release.”
Members of Perimeter Road also said they will do more full–length albums and EPs in the future but wanted to focus on the singles series this semester.
To stay up to date on the latest Perimeter Road Sound Recordings news, follow them on Facebook and Instagram, and keep your eyes on the billboards around the college for posters and information regarding news about the singles. The first single, “Fall From Grace” by Sonic Catharsis, comes out this Friday, Oct. 4, with the next artists already hard at work on the next singles in the series.
(NOTE: The writer of this article, William Penne, is the musician behind Sonic Catharsis.)
