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whisperingvoicerecords

2022 is soon to be history, and a fun year to look back at, for our label.

December 31, 2022 by Whispering Voice Records
happy new year, record, recordlabel

We are now 2 years in the making of a long-held dream of mine come true. Whispering Voice Records AS has become a company that is viable on it’s own, and we will start focusing on the next step of the dream, which is Whispering Voice Studios, and getting that up and running.

The label started 2022 by joining the Ifpi Norway family, which houses 23 members. Internationally Ifpi has 8000 members divided on 70 countries. This gave us some great tools to work with and gave us an even better overview of the result from our campaigns. At the end of the year we also saw the start of Music Nest Norway, which we joined as soon as applications were opened,

We also signed more artists in 2022, resulting in several digital and physical releases.

The first band out this year was the band Snøstorm. The duo residing in Norway and Bulgaria made a killer album called ‘Tales of the end’.

Tales of the end

Tales of the end

Tales od the End was released 29th of april, and consisting of 7 tracks with lyrics in either Norwegian or English, the album was released both digitally and physically as a digipak.

The track ‘Slava Ukraine’ featured several languages, and the lyrics was written in English, Norwegian and Ukrainian, in honor of the Ukrainian people fighting against their oppressors

Mellom bakkar og berg

Snøstorm also released a digital singel, a cover of the anthem ‘Mellom bakkar og berg’ from the Norwegian poem ‘Nordmannen’ (the Norwegian in English). A lyric-video was released on the labels YouTube, which was filmed and produced by Whispering Voice Studios.


Fjord

Fjord

2022 was also the year we signed the Norwegian newcomers ‘Nidhög’, who released their debut-ep ‘Fjord’. These talented guys wanted to put some of the old second wave Norwegian black metal back into play, and with the ep being produced by none other than Tom Kvålsvoll from Kvalsonic lab, the guys did just that. The band is working on their second release, and a lyric-video is also in the works

Vandari

The last release of 2022 was ‘Vandari’ by the polish band Cortege. The 12-track death-metal album was released late November, both digitally and physically. Vandari is the bands third full-length album

Vandari

The band also recently released a musicvideo, featuring the track ‘Filth‘ from the Vandari-album.


Least, but not last, 2022 was also the year we finally got ‘Into the realm of the Occult’ by Arvas back on to the streaming-services. After many years of missing, it is now finally back and available. The album was originally released in 2013, and after striking a deal at the end of 2021, the label finally got ownership of the album, and made sure it got released online.

We’ve also supported the extreme version of the Norwegian metal-festival Northern Deception Metal Festival, which was held in September in Kristiansand. The festival featured band as Mork, Gehenna, Nordjevel and Crest of Darkness, and many other great bands.

So what’s in store for the label in 2023?

We allready have a new signing in place, and there are also more albums to come, from new artists and artists that are allready in our rooster.

Arvas recorded a singel in 2022 that we hopefully will see the result of in 2023, but we will start of the new year with the release of a new artist.

In 2022 we saw what was the beginning of a brand new studio; Whispering Voice Studios. We will have a bigger focus on production in 2023, making the studio more live and buzzing.

We will also see the a brand new wepshop coming up in the early 2023, with loads of merch from all our artists, and also some cool metal-stuff in general.

We will continue to support Northern Deception Metal Festival, and hopefully we will see even more people in front of the stage.

So for now, we wish you all a happy new year, and hope you also follow us in 2023

Nidhög interview

November 25, 2022 by Whispering Voice Records

The Mexican-based webzine Holy Noise just released an interview done with the guys from Nidhög, on their YouTube-channel.

Interview with NIDHÖG #BlackMetal band from #Norway [2022.10.25] @Whispering Voice Records

The band talks about their debut-release, and at the same time also talks about what the future might hold for them. The debut-ep, which came out september 17th, has met a lot of good critisism.

Merch connected to the debut-ep ‘Fjord’ has been launch on the labels webstore, and is available. Feel free to check it out.

Cortege’s seventh release

November 19, 2022 by Whispering Voice Records

Vandari, which is Cortege‘s seventh release, and third full-length album, has finally gone live, and is now available on all streaming-services all over the world. You can find direct links to the major once here.

Vandari is a 12-track album, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered at Maq Records Studio, by Jarek Toifl.

Cover artwork is done by Kamil Szuszkiewicz and album layout is done by Eweline Trojanowska

All music is done by Artur Ambrozy

All lyrics is done by Sebastian Bartek

There are also some cool Vandari-merch available, so please check out our online store. More merch, and also limited merch, will be added soon.

The band has just done shooting the musicvideo for the track ‘Filth’, and will be released in a short while.

Check out the new album on your prefered streaming-service.

Fjord – Out now

September 17, 2022 by Whispering Voice Records
Release

Finally the date has arrived, and Nidhögs debut-ep is live. The ep delivers powerfull and melodic black metal. The quartett sets out to bring the second wave of Norwegian black metal back, and is on the path with this debut.

‘Fjord’ er også et prisverdig stykke arbeid til å være første gang Nidhög gir lyd fra seg, og byr på akkurat passe velprodusert, melodisk og kraftfull svartmetall.

Metallurgi.org (In Norwegian)

The ep is produced, mixed and mastered by none other than Tom Kvålsvoll at Kvalsonic Lab, who’s done mastering bands like 1349, Arcturus, Emperor, Borknagar and Darkthrone, to mention a few.

The band is allready working on what is to become their second release, and their first full length album. It’s not hard to see what goals the band sets for themselves

Let’s just say that the next one is more of melodic blackend death metal, should also say that the third disc should be back to atmospheric black metal. We want variety, but no matter what, everything is Nidhög.

Adrian

So lots of exhiting stuff to look out for from these guys in the future.

Anyways, the album is out on all streaming-services and also available in our store.

Nidhög presenting ‘Fjord’-cover and release-date:

September 1, 2022 by Whispering Voice Records

Nidhög is presenting the cover for their debut-ep ‘Fjord’. The artcover is taken from the National museum, and is a picture of the Norwegian Geiranger Fjord, taken in 1888 By William Dobson Valentine.

Cover and back for the ep ‘Fjord’.
(Free license use Creative Commons – Attribution CC-BY)

The release-date for ‘Fjord is set to 17th of September, and the ep will be available on all streaming-services. Presales of the ep will be announced in a short while.

Presales have started on both bandcamp and our own webshop. Limited merch will also be up and running soon.

We’ve also put together a promo-video for you to check out.

Nidhög

The date is now set for the release of ‘Fjord’, the debut-ep from Nidhög. The Norwegian black-metalband Nidhög signed with Whispering Voice Records not too long ago, and is now ready for their release to hit the shelves. ‘Fjord’ will be released on September 17th on all streaming-services.

‘Fjord’ is produced, mixed and mastered by none other than Tom Kvålsvoll at Kvalsonic Lab.

Nidhög online

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Office closed

July 15, 2022 by Whispering Voice Records

We’re closing the office for 10 from 16th of july, and will be back 26th.

.

Perhaps not a big news to post about, but we WILL be back with bigger news when we’re back from this years summer vacation.

We have several releases coming up in the coming fall, and also a big festival that we’re sponsoring.
So we’ll take some time to recharge and hope you all have a great summer. Stay hydrated, use sunscreen and have a good time.

Have a great summer.

A new band joins our rooster

June 17, 2022 by Whispering Voice Records

It’s always exciting to sign a new artist or band to our label. Kind of like a christmas eve, for a headbanger. And once again we are excited to announce that we have signed a new band, this time from the westcoast of Norway

Nidhög is a quartet consisting 4 young guys from Ålesund, a small town not particularly known for black or extreme metal. But that’s something these guys plans on changing. Despite their young age, these guys are very talented at what they do.

The band will release their debut-ep ‘Fjord’ early this fall. The ep is recorded and is now the hands of Tom at Kvalsonic Lab, and we can’t wait to release it.

From left to right: Jens, Lukas, Henrik and Adrian

The quartet signed with the label for the release of their debut-ep ‘Fjord’, but are allready working on material for their next release. What format that will be is yet to be determined.

What lies ahead for these guys, future will tell. We in Whispering Voice Records are excited to be the one to kickstart their career. The road to Ålesund is painted with black intentions.

The band draws inspiration from bands like Bathory, Burzum, Darkthtone, Death, Entombed and early Mayhem, but also from some underground-bands like Crypt Crawler and Taetre. So what this band has in store for their debut-album is really something to look forward too.

We will announce the release-date of ‘Fjord’ as soon as we have it. Until then we welcome Nidhög in to the Whispering Voice Records-family.

Take-downs, a never ending story…

May 30, 2022 by Whispering Voice Records

Every day, every week, every month, music is taken down from people that has shared it illegally. Music that does not belong to them. Shared with just a push of some keyboard-buttons.

YouTube is a really great tool to reach listeners, and our label also publishes all our releases to YouTube. Either on our own channel or uploaded by our aggregator. Last one is known by having the band name with ‘topic’ behind it.
This gives the listeners the option to listen to our music for free. Sometimes one must endure a bit for commersials before or during the video, but this is how the artists and the labels make some of their money. It’s sometimes one of their major source of income.

How would you feel?

How would you feel if you made something and sold 1000 pcs of it, then went over to someone else just to see they’ve sold 5000 pcs of that product? How would you feel knowing they made more money out of your product, without spending a single dime making it? A product you spent a lot of time, money and effort to produce, and now someone else is cashing in on it, without having spent on dime on it. Without asking you if it’s ok. Without giving you any of the profit. Would you be ok with that?

This is called infingement of copyrights. It is selling something that you do not have the rights to sell. It is theft of someone elses property.

This is all too comon, done in broad daylight, and it’s done in large quantities. And least, but not last: it is done under the assumption that they are promoting the artist and the music, by leaving a link to the artist in the field or comments, recommending you to check them out. Or something like that. But in reality, they are not. They are making money of the artists hard worked product. They are making money of the labels promotion. Promotion labels like us use a lot of money to do.

How are they making money, you ask?

Well, we’ll have to go into YouTubes and google search’s algorithms to find that out. When we promote one of our albums, wether it’s released or upcoming, the receiver of that promotion often starts to google the band or album. And YouTube will pop up early on the search, based on subscibers and views. And with a large quantity of illegally uploaded albums in their channel, comes a large quantity of views and often subscribers.

A label like ours won’t stand a chance against a YouTube-channel that ‘promotes’ 50-500 albums. We are not yet that big, so we would be way down on that list of google search-results, ‘thus promoting our music, but on someone elses YouTube-channel, giving them the results, views and finally… the reward.

But why does YouTube allow this?

The system, time and money it would take to check all this work before it’s uploaded, with thousands of videos being uploaded to YouTube every day, YouTube wouldn’t have been what they are if they did this. It wouldn’t have been a great way for listeners to listen to the music for free, or for the artists and labels to reach out to listeners without listeners having to pay for a subscription each month. Not everyone can afford that. But YouTube have a good way of trying to fix this when the rightfull owner discovers the deed of someone illegally sharing their property.
And it’s really not that hard to discover. Not hard at all.

Monitoring

There are monitoring-systems that can be used to catch everything that is published on the internet. Some are free, like google alerts, and some costs a little. They all have the same effect; sending you a warning or message that someone’s mentioned you on the world wide web. And also provides you with a link to where you are mentioned, based on the words you would like it to monitor for you. Like YouTube for example. so, easy-peasy.

Once we get a notice like this, we of course checks it out. If it is a review, or something like that, we love to share it. But when it is our property being illagelly shared or sold by others, we react. We send a take-down request, along with legal documents that states that this is our property that someone else is selling, and that they do not have the rights to do so.

This also goes for YouTube. They have a form we fill out, to take it down. Once the form is filled out, there’s a box we can check, that asks YouTube to keep an open eye for similar uploads in the future. To monitor if someone else is trying to upload it. How well this works, we don’t know, but we do think it works rather ok, because we see less and less take-downs of music that we’ve allready taken down.

“So why has someone else uploaded your music, and why can’t I do it?”

Well, that question requires us to look at three things;
1. Has the music been published by another label or are we the first to publish it?
2. Is that channel owned by the band or one of it’s artists? Or even previous label?
3. Did they perhaps ask and get permission from us?

We do not only publish new music, but sometimes re-publish music that has been released before. And if a YouTube-‘promotuer’ has published the music before the artists signed with us, we must assume they have ask and gotten the rights to do so. Either from the previous label, or the artists themselves. Then we do not go thru the hassle of trying to take it down. Not even sure YouTube would allow us to do it, because the music was published before the agreement between our label and the artist was signed.

There DO exists some honest people, that sends us a request if it is ok for them to upload our music, before they do it. And those people are much appriciated. We try do meet them as best as we can. But when it comes to people that just uploads our music, without asking… They do not get the same treatment.

We usually give them the standard time to take the illegally shared property down. 7 days on YouTube, 21 days elsewhere. But there has been times that some channels have learned the hard way that uploading illegally gets your channel shut down immediatly. We do not of course wish to do this, so we always use 7 days on YouTube.

Don’t be a thief!

It is, like we said, very easy to find, download and share other artists music on YouTube. But it is not legal, unless you have gotten permission from the one holding the rights. That is usually the artist or the label. Sharing music you don’t have the rights for, IS stealing. No mather if you’re making money of it or not. Sharing, but not profiting also means that the artists are not profiting from their own work.

So think about that the next time you wish to “promote” others music. Or do it the right way: Create a playlist based on the allready uploaded music from the artists or labels own channel. You might still get the subscribes, but at least the owners of the music will get what is rightfully theirs.

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