Saint Petersburg, Florida Sep 5, 2023 (Issuewire.com) - Bluegrass and old time music have never quite fit into the music industry paradigm of publishing and distribution. A team made up of bluegrass musicians and fans associated with Threshold Network is betting that blockchain tech will be a much better fit.

In the early part of the 20th century, when Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley and Doc Watson came down from the mountains to play their music in American cities, they were primarily motivated by a technological innovation: AM Radio, says Justin Holmes, whose album Vowel Sounds is slated to be the first released on the new platform. Its the same for creators of traditional music today, but the innovation in question now is blockchain tech.

The record will be encrypted using Threshold Access Control (TACo), and then distributed via BitTorrent and IPFS. Then, once Holmes fans have contributed 10 ETH into the Revealer smart contract, the decryption key will be released, making the album available. The record will go immediately into the public domain under a Creative Commons license - and contributors will be rewarded with a Revealer Artifact, a special NFT that can unlock features and content on Threshold Network.

The fact that so many mainstream bluegrass musicians have stepped up to be part of this project is incredible, says Holmes. Among others, the record features IBMA instrumentalists of the year Cory Walker, Jake Stargel, Christian Ward, and Harry Clark. You can hardly do better on planet earth for a studio ensemble today, and this is the first time that any of these folks will have their work represented on-chain.

• This record is the first time that some of the core, kickass pickers of Americana have chosen to be represented on-chain.

• It's not just a haphazard bolting-on of NFTs to existing music, as we sometimes see - instead, this is a record written and recorded by a prominent cryptographic engineer who has managed to make inroads into Nashville bluegrass.

• There's a reason that mainstream bluegrass musicians are choosing now as the time to work on a project like this. And although it's hard to put into words with precision, it's obvious that the orthodox record industry is not representing traditional music in a way that is satisfactory to the people who study and make it.

Vowel Sounds showcases Justin Holmes signature style, blending blockchain lyrics with traditional Bluegrass genre soundscapes. The album includes 10 tracks that explore themes of Bankruns, Surveillance, Cryptography and more cool Cypherpunk styles.

"The concept of 'owning' a song doesn't really fit in the traditions of bluegrass and old-time music, so it makes no sense to say that an NFT represents ownership of a song. Instead, we're inviting our audience to participate in the Reveal, and those who do will get a Revealer Artifact (an ERC-721) that can subsequently be used with our other technologies to gain access to subsequent resources and unlock access to some of our live events." says Justin Holmes. 

Vickie Vaughn says:

Justin Holmes new record, Vowel Sounds, feels like a Trans-Atlantic space journey into its very own aural world. With a virtuosic Bluegrass sound bed, Holmes weaves lyrical subjects of planet respect, ancient vocal pedagogy, and freedom beautifully and still remains playful in all its complexity. [The description of vocal overtone solos explained and then employed is nothing short of fascinating. Holmes has proven hes a master of fitting woodwind instruments onto a traditional Bluegrass canvas with his use of tin whistle, melodica and flute which impressively turns each instrument into an Appalachian adjacent voice.] After listen-through, Vowel Sounds leaves you wanting to hear a follow-up project from this creative and mystical human!

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For more information and updates, visit https://justinholmes.com/ or see one of Justins live performances