@Sebastian Jautschus haha, thanks for the positive pep talk attempt :) But yes, you're definitely onto something there. With the gallery gig, I simply heard about it from a friend, got in touch, and they took me. A rare alignment of the right place, right time, good fit, and available funding from a major government-funded institution. So probably not easily replicatable and scale-uppable if that's what you're thinking :) With the hot springs - yeah, they're just that, hot springs. People come to soak in the pools with friends, and this particular batch chanced upon this concert (which was simply being held there - not as a dedicated "go to the concert" event). But still, it was beautifully organised and special - not merely a background. I'd say anyone with enough musical interest or at least politeness should have been compelled to listen and not talk. Oh well, people :/ Yes, I'm planning to have a bit more social media presence, which hopefully will build some more active engagement, but I don't think I can or want to make "content" and post all the time. I want every post to be special, meaningful, and deliberate (and I don't really have the energy for anything else). Will have to see if such blatant disregard of the algorithm's hunger for consistency is actually compatible with engagement (I'm hoping it is through re-targeting the posts at those who already showed interest).

@Francesco Domenichetti nah, I'm stubborn, I'll make them listen :D

Hey Basti, thanks for sharing this - inspiring! (And huge congrats on amazing results!) Interesting that your releases with Rebecca didn't have much of an impact on your streams! Why do you think is that? I'm wondering: did you submit those tracks to DSPs through your distributor account or Rebecca's? I recall that one of the promotion courses I've watched mentioned that to tap into another artist's Spotify listeners, it's that other artist who needs to submit the collab tracks. If you do it through your account, Spotify won't automatically promote the tracks to the other artists' listeners (e.g. through their Release Radar). I don't know if that's in fact true (sounds strange to me), or if that's still true (the course was a few years old) - just something that came to my mind when you mentioned those results. Also, did you do anything to get those Pandora streams, or are they just organic? Cheers!

@Sebastian Jautschus thanks lots for digging - that makes sense! I've seen a lot of people presenting collabs as the key to growth, but it looks like the picture is pretty complicated (as it always is, haha). So great Pandora just picked up your tracks! I guess that reflects their awesomeness :) As for other questions, I second @Martin Eibisch 's question about your accellerated growth the last last few months :) Thanks Basti, it will probably be a few months till the video comes out - I'm still finishing the track at this stage.

@Martin Eibisch you pretty much described my process too, haha. Except I do sometimes work on a few songs at once. Sometimes a riff comes that doesn't fit the current song I'm working on so I start conceptualising and collecting ideas for another one. And sometimes it makes sense for me to record a few songs in the same session (over a few days) because the mics are all set up and I want the songs to sound the same.

@Sebastian Jautschus i use compression when mixing but I prefer not having any compression while recording or playing live. In production, I feel i can dial it in more precisely at the mixing stage and choose the right compressor for the occasion (I'm a big fan of UAD's models of amazing classic compressors) without committing to one too early. Though I'd say a good pedal/hardware compressor may well be preferable for someone who's not interested in becoming a mixing guru or is overwhelmed by the endless choices. While playing live or practicing, a good compressor can certainly make for a tighter tone. But i think it also creates more room for you to be sloppy with your playing dynamics (because it weakens the feedback between what you play and what you hear in terms of the dynamics). So being a bit of a perfectionist, I challenge myself to control the dynamics in my playing more. Though of course a compressor can be an important part of one's tone - it all depends on what you're after :)

@Martin Eibisch Thanks Martin! If you don't mind sharing, what is your average cost-per-conversion for the discovery campaign? (and for what countries). The best ads from my latest testing sit at around US$0.25-30 for Tier 1 countries and US$0.09 for Tier 3. Would be very interested to see how that compares. And yes, that approach does require so much work - first and foremost in the social media content. Without that, there's nothing to build on. Will see how this works out for me, and happy to share :)

@Rebecca Mardal thanks Rebecca! (And lovely to meet you :) Yes, I think it's crucial to build stories and narratives around instrumental music- that makes it much easier for listeners to relate to it. Which I find a bit annoying because, for me at least, the songs aren't always explicitly inspired by some idea or story - it's just music for it's own sake. Rebecca, if you have a moment, do you mind telling how you grew your pretty impressive Instagram following with a high engagement? I imagine there's more to it than simply a side-effect of your ads?