August 2025 News Post: Better Than The Book "Something Riffy" demo (+ download for Patrons) + Side Character In My Own Life (Instrumentals) bonus album release (and all up on Newgrounds), Bandcamp Friday, more BTTB press features, studio and project updates and more!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great summer so far! Lots to share this time so let's get straight onto the news for this month!

In case you hadn't heard yet, last week, Better Than The Book released the "Side Character In My Own Life (Instrumentals)" bonus album to celebrate a great first month of Side Character In My Own Life! I've already said a lot about it, so feel free to read more and grab the rewards etc... over here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/132967034/

It's also now all up on Newgrounds too! Check out the playlist below:

Both albums are available on Bandcamp and it's actually Bandcamp Friday today (the first one since both albums were released) which means that Bandcamp waives its usual fees and passes all the revenue to the artists! If you've been meaning to pick up a copy then today's the best time. Explore Better Than The Book's bandcamp page below:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/

(The regular version of Side Character In My Own Life is also available on CD and Vinyl too here: https://elasticstage.com/betterthanthebookuk )

And thanks for supporting my music however you can!

Speaking of which, there's a few more press features from the new album(s) to share too! Better Than The Book was interviewed on Breathing The Core (along with having the Side Character In My Own Life album featured on the site), The Punk Site featured the Side Character In My Own Life (Instrumentals) album over on their site, and "2020 Was A Write-off, But What Comes Next? (Instrumental)" got a front page feature award here on Newgrounds too! Thanks so much for the love everyone and check out the features below:

July 24, 2025 - Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life (Instrumentals) album featured on ThePunkSite.com

July 24, 2025 - Better Than The Book's 2020 Was A Write-off, But What Comes Next? (Instrumental) receives Front Page award on Newgrounds.com

​July 24, 2025 - Better Than The Book's Side Character In My Own Life album featured on Breathing The Core

July 24, 2025 - Better Than The Book interview on Breathing The Core

With the Side Character In My Own Life (and Instrumentals) albums finally out now, I thought it be cool to share with you one of the unused demos from the project writing sessions of 2020 as well! It's very rough and ready as it never got to the "studio recording" stage, just some instrumental roughing out, but I'm pleased with the composition (I just never got around to getting some lyrics in which I was happy with). Perhaps I'll revisit it for the next project? We'll see, but hope you enjoy the behind the scenes look/listen at "Something Riffy"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQuQnCPO5II

And the paid Patreon supporters have a download link for this exclusive demo track here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/134779001

Next for the news post, some studio and project updates! First of all: the studio, after months of planning and sorting stuff I'm super excited to announce that I've finally set up a mixer and patch bay for the studio which effectively integrates much of equipment into a convenient hub! A special thanks to Martin for gifting me his old patch bay and mixer to set this up and I'm looking forward to putting it to good use! I'm aiming to make a video about it at some point, but the gist of it is that now there's lots of cabling neatly behind everything connecting the studio together instead of in a spaghetti mess across the floor like it has been whenever I needed to set things up in the past. Horray!

Onto project updates, there's been a lot going on this past month and set for the future. The first big one is a special animation music commission project which I can't say anything about at the moment. Due to the project lead times though, despite the work being finished on my end it may be up to a year until it finally sees a public release... No matter though as I have plenty to get on with in the mean time, (but I really can't wait to share it with you when the time comes)! Speaking of project delays and commissions though, after around 7 years of inactivity on the project, I have finally been given permission to release the original soundtrack I composed for the Apotheosis Video Game by Meneer Guus! The master WAVs have been cut and I'm just waiting for some final stuff to do with the art and admin, but it should be out before the end of the year. I'm really pleased with this project so it's great to finally have permission to release my work! Check out the older demos here and play the game demo too, it's great fun!

https://soundcloud.com/jabun/sets/apotheosis-soundtrack-demos

Meanwhile Better Than The Book has been back to practicing to prepare for gigs again! Aiming to meet up again in September after some concentrated solo practice, if all goes to plan we're hoping to finally put a live show on early next year, even if its a one night only deal! I'll keep you posted with details when I have them. It's very exciting!

Finally, with lots of big album projects finally released or approaching release, I'll be heading back to the studio to do a big sort out and clear out of lots of my older Jabun demos and projects which have been still on my hard drive since 2019+. There's over an hour of IMHO decent (or at least fun to share) tunes there, some of which are basically finished, and others which only need a little work. Rather than waiting to release them as an album, I'll likely be starting a "Jabun - Lost Tracks" unofficial album playlist shortly which I'll be adding individual tracks to as I finish them, with some of the tracks I'm sure making there way to more official cataloged releases eventually. I just really want to get this music out there, and there's plenty of less formed ideas I'd like to pursue too. It's going to be a hopefully less stressful way to release music for a while so I can just have some fun with it! More Jabun coming very soon!

That about wraps things up for this month and post! No new videos for July, but there's lots of stuff still to come on the horizon, and I'll also be aiming to update the Patreon Reward Archives in the coming month too so keep an eye out for that! I hope you enjoy the new music and music to come and thanks as always for supporting my music however you can! Take care and all the best!