Cloudkicker_-_2015_717-463

Cloudkicker streams new album, 'Woum'

Cloudkicker, the ever-excellent, instrumental solo project of ex-Nuns With Guns bassist Ben Sharp, has released a brand new album, titled Woum, which he is streaming now. Serving as one of Sharp's more mellow releases, you can listen through the full seven-track effort below. You can also read a lengthy statement Sharp released recently about Woum and his choice to no longer release his albums in physical formats like vinyl.

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“Here’s the scoop with 'Woum.' I’ll make it available for download on Wednesday, because that’s the day that I arbitrarily picked for it to be available on all the streaming services and iTunes and everything. It’s 7 tracks, roughly 25 minutes which puts it in the 'The Map is Not the Territory' and 'Let Yourself Be Huge' ballpark (in terms of length).

This will no doubt be a bummer for some but 'Woum' and conceivably any future releases will go back to being digital only like everything was pre-'Beacons.' Sorry, I know how much people dig the physical releases. But I feel like I have a pretty good reason: Making vinyl is a tremendous pain in the ass. For lots of reasons, not the least of which is the 3-4 month lead time on production that always feels like an incredible drag on momentum.

I will for sure be losing out on money by doing this, and oh well. The time I’ll have back by not dealing with the production and distribution of these things will more than make up for it to me. I’ve been feeling a little squeezed by the entire merch process recently, and by simplifying things in this way I’ll have more time to actually make music, which I’m excited about. Life has gotten busier in the past year and it doesn’t look like it will slow down any time soon, so this is a way for me to keep things balanced.

'Woum' is a nice culmination of the past 10 years of making music on my own, and I feel like it reconnected me to the thing that got me into this in the first place: That making music is really fun because you can do whatever you want.

Anyway, a very sincere thanks to everyone that has helped me get to this point and I hope we can keep it going for a while. Have a nice day and feel free to ask questions in the comments.”

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