Whatever happened to Shulman?
By yiannis, April 8, 2016 in Discussions
Shulman
Shulman was one of the first psybient acts I listened to. Due to their relative similarity with Shpongle I was able to connect to their music instantly - it was In Search of... btw, an album I still enjoy immensely. They've released some amazing tunes in the past but it's been a very long while without any info about releasing anything. Their last studio album was in 2007. Do they even do festivals anymore? Have they called it quits? And have they taken Aleph Zero along with them? Their FB page doesn't have any definitive announcements.
andorra reacted to this
Damn, was listening to "In Search Of A Meaningful Moment" yesterday and thinking the same thing lol i feel like their work went downhill a bit, i mean the first two albums are classics, but the last two are not on the same level, in my opinion...the last album they released was back in 2012 called "Alive"...and i honestly don't know what happened to them after that...
i miss Shulman sound.... will try to get this info for you guys !
yiannis and mannybakshi reacted to this
Yaniv has gone to Australia and is not making music for health reasons and has mostly left shahar to run aleph zero on his own, but it has unfortunately ground to a halt right now. I know this because I was signed to release with Aleph Zero during this time. But due to their sheer inactivity I built up loads of material and just had to so something with it in the end, hence my dual album release of 2015. I think lots of artists were in the same boat and had to look elsewhere for their releases. bluetech / hibernation etc
It's a great pity because they are lovely guys and they did release very special music. It's a pity for me too because a release on Aleph would have been a very decent profile raiser.
I really hope they don't mind me telling me people their situation but I think there are quite a few people in the chill out community who have wondered about this, borne out of love for the label.
Shpongle, tuculuxu and YuriNondual reacted to this
Unfortunately or fortunately, however one looks at things, there is a life-death cycle in all things. Doesn't mean we shouldn't forget or not send support.
mannybakshi reacted to this
Well thanks for the info, i bet most people had no idea about what happened
I do believe that yaniv is ok though, which is good to know.
I really like Shulman too. Very fine music.
I liked the last live album with live drums etc. Gave it a festie / rock vibe.
I'm really hoping Shulman and Aleph Zero aren't done yet, I was looking forward to hearing these upcoming releases (found in this isratrance thread):
Bluetech - Illuminated Gates & Remixes EP
Ooze - Random Wondrous Things
Spatialize - Elusive Symmetry (I assume this became the Radial & On The Edge of Forever albums?)
VA - Natural Born Chillers 3
Transmissions In Bloom - Upcoming Album
and Beats & Pieces for that matter (weren't they a spinoff label of Aleph Zero?):
Kundara - The Mushissen Analogy
Agalactia - Upcoming EP
yeah that's right timeisart. I changed the name. Elusive Symmetry actually pretty much became Radial.........and On the Edge of Forever was mostly the album for Beats and Pieces who, yes, were a spinoff (for psychill as aleph were moving towards electronica)
I still have half an album worth of stuff from that period.
I hope aleph comes back in some way someday. Although it didn;t work out, they are great guys.
I do like selling on Bandcamp though and it's nice to be in control of your own music, somehow it does feel nice. However a release with those guys would have put my name on the european festival chill listings much better than I can do myself, which is not very well at all.
Mønsterhed 41
LocationIn all of the patterns
I saw Yaniv DJ at S.U.N. Festival in 2013, so at least he still does that. Or used to, anyway. Not sure if he does it anymore.
Shulman is also one of my favourite artists. Really hope he/they make a comeback at some point. And also Aleph Zero, naturally. They did some really sweet music and sounded different than most other labels out there.
YuriNondual reacted to this
the reason they sounded different to other labels out there Mikkel was that they had rigorously high quality levels and knew what they wanted.
those high standards coupled with being signed next to artists such as bluetech/Shulman/hibernation (who are all wonderful artists) encouraged me to work harder and to take things up a notch. that sort of scrutiny really helped me develop actually and it marked a shift from making music for fun to seeing if I could take it one step further.
plus labels are dying really. Time was you could print 500 cd's and sell out easily.
Now it's hard to sell up to 500 cd's for niche labels, and 500 is the minimum order size that begins to produce any economies of scale. For a while downloads have been holding out the last vestiges but with streaming washing over us I doubt we will see very many labels like aleph zero again, unless they are run purely for pleasure and the owners have plenty of time.
the only problem left for the modern musician is how to gain exposure in a world where everyman and his donkey is writing a tune on a computer and putting it online and people are listening to mixcloud, you tube etc. Getting people to tune in and listen is a bit like raising up your hand out the water in the middle of the pacific. At least labels formed some sort of island where certain artists could become visible, like an island in the pacific.
I have suggested co-operatives labels before where artists can gain exposure through belonging to a certain grouping of artists, like affiliated artists....though each artists remains in control of their output and money...but just shares a label name. But I have always been told that it won't work.
Bakshish records was something along those lines (I did a couple of things with them) but I'm not sure what happened there. I have a hunch that shanti planti is also something along those lines but I don't know much about them.
Xpander and tuculuxu reacted to this
True that.
You should do this yourself.
Its all a labor of love these days. Do it for the musics sake.
YuriNondual 41
LocationPortugal
Shulman is soo good, his mix of using analogue and digital instruments is spot on, and production skills are high. I love his las Alive albuim in a car on repeat. Really hoped he would come to Tree of Life 2013 but he didn't Aleph zero and their natural born chillers was one of my go to tripping music for a long time Hopefully Yaniv will come back to producing some more music
all you really need is a website with bandcamp links and ask that the artists contribute a little towards the running of the site. also a facebook page and give admin rights to all the involved artists to post on the facebook page.
you could have a bandcamp page but then you run into the admin task of splitting revenues up between artists.
of course you need a logo and a name. that's it really.
sorry i'm derailing this thread.
Spinnet (One Arc Degree) 89
I used to enjoy his first two albums during my MSc years and had nothing but high praise for Aleph Zero. I eved had a t-shirt with the label's logo, printed by myself. Good times.
I say go for it.
Xpander 22
Shulman are one of my all time favourite psybient artists and still remain a cut above most. They were the sort of act that created masterpieces, with so much expression, creativity and as said above mastered the analogue and digital combination. Pretty much every album is a triumph and its a real shame that they are no longer blessing the globe with their music.
andorra 114
LocationHelsinki, Finland
Good information. It's been awhile since I've heard Shulman last time. Seems like a good moment to listen to it again