YEAR'S END DATA CROP (Patreon)

A while ago we needed to set up a form to collect the names for the credits list that will be added to the forthcoming V1 Archive. Since the form allowed for it, we threw in a few extra questions to get a feel for how you all thought the project was going, and where it might be interesting to take it. Some of the data is pretty dull (do you care that 60.7% of you follow the project via your email inbox rather than logging into patreon.com or using an app?). But we thought bits of it are interesting enough to share. So let’s go.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE WRECKAGE SYSTEM?

The largest response to this fell into the category of 'can't choose/I simply refuse to choose’. So excluding that, the joint winners are, unsurprisingly, Available Data and Paralt (Piano). For anyone not fully up to date on the project, you can hear the canonical version of Available Data on Wreckage Release #3, which went by the same name. Paralt Piano currently exists only as a system, but your love for it has been duly noted. Curiously, 'Big fuck off hammer' also got one vote. There are too many systems for which this would be an appropriate name to guess what it is actually referring to.

DREAD LEVELS, AYOW & PLATFORM CAPITALISM

Our collective Dread Level, where 1 = 'Mostly Dread' and 10 = 'Radical Dread Eternal', came out at around 8, which actually makes us a cheerier bunch than the 65LABS Existential Uncertainty Wing had projected. Utopia beckons!

Also, it turns out that the vast majority of you previously signed up for A Year of Wreckage. So once again, thanks for sticking with us while we continue to explore these hinterlands of weird noise. In this murky dawn of the pandemocene era, you are making an hugely important difference in keeping the 65daysofstatic project ticking over. Cheers.

A Year of Wreckage was run via Bandcamp, and it seems like the majority of you prefer that platform to Patreon. We broadly agree, but are also aware that it would be a huge upheaval to switch Wreckage Systems over to that right now. Plus as unhelpful as Patreon is in some ways, it does offer us a few features that Bandcamp doesn't. So we'll be sticking with this for the moment, but let's see how it goes.

EXHAUST YRSELF!!

This was a bit of a foolhardy question, despite its cautious wording. '65LABS is operating pretty much at its maximum capacity right now, but if there was anything we could add to our output that you would enjoy, what would it be?' We tried to categorise the answers a little, and they look like this:

• Great but incredibly niche ideas = 20.83%
• Hey band: relax! = 18.33%
• Studio Gear/Music Production/Technical Deepdives = 10%
• Podcast = 10%
• More Merch = 6.66%
• More Noise = 6.66%
• Great Jokes = 5%
• Do stuff in the real world = 5%
• Live Streaming = 4.16%
• More interaction from band = 3.33%
• Dig out stuff from the archives = 2.5%
• More Music = 1.66%
• Make a Phone App = 1.66%
• Remixes = 1.66%
• More Videos = 1.66%
• More Marx = 0.83%

As you can see, the top category is a catch all for various unique ideas that didn't really fit into any of the other categories. Things like 'Narrate devblog tracks with Wreckage Systems as backdrops', 'Rework other old tracks like you did to 2412', 'GIFs of Dread' etc. etc. Loads of great stuff there, and with infinite time and brain capacity it would be cool to explore all of it, even the one that simply said 'soup'.

The second most popular response was to politely suggest to us in one way or another that we relax, stay hydrated, take a break from time to time, don't kill ourselves with this project, and so on. Which is very good to know because, as Season One draws to a close, part of the restructuring we'll need to do is making sure we don't burn out here. We know we're very far from alone in this, but 2021 has been... a lot, hasn't it.

The rest of the categories are hopefully pretty self-explanatory. Plenty of you wanna see the return of the podcast (good luck with that...), more music gear/production/technical deep dives (the Wreckage System Technical Overview series will return and conclude!), more merch (hope we sated that a little bit with the latest batch), and so on. A disappointing showing for 'More Marx', it has to be said. This is presumably because you're all already waaaay more utopian communist than us. So: respect comrades, we'll try harder going forward.

FUTURE MUSICAL OUTPUT

So this question and your responses to it have been pretty useful. The full question read: 'Where would your preferences fall in terms of future musical output from 65LABS (specific to the Wreckage Systems subscription - not including 65daysofstatic's albums and other activities)'.

The Wreckage Systems project, as you all know, has the stream at its heart. We did this purposefully, not only because we primarily wanted to explore new ways to make and present music, and not only because we didn't want to promise the rate of releases we did with A Year of Wreckage. Another important consideration was that even if we could keep up that rate of releases, making too much music is a real concern for us. Nobody really wants a new 65daysofstatic release every few weeks. They need to be made for a reason, not just because we can and not just because you’re paying us every month. And the ones that do come to exist need space to breathe and be experienced properly. To live with you over a stretch of time. That's what is so great and valuable about the album form. AYOW worked because it was always finite, it was solely about the music, and we knew (hoped) that the 12 releases would work together as a cohesive archive. Here, with the emphasis on the stream, the releases are somewhat ancillary. That creates a tension, because we don't want 'proper' 65days releases to ever be seen as ancillary - they need to be vital!

It seems like you all know this, and would accept a slower rate of releases. Pieces of work that we really feel have a strong personality, intention and reason to exist. It has been difficult to maintain this alongside the stream, but as V2 approaches release and Season One ends, it is something we are thinking carefully about.

MISC OTHER DATA

On the question of what content we were putting out DIDN’T interest you, A fair few of you said that you don’t like the music production blog posts and technical diagrams. But then elsewhere, a lot of you asked for more of that. So... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Only a tiny sliver of you didn’t want us to unlock older Patreon posts from time to time. More than half of you (!) went fully communist with the whole ‘property is theft’ option, saying that we should unlock everything, and the rest of you were happy for things to be shared but thought it would be nice for some stuff to be held back. (This is the path we’ll be taking).

Now that V2 exists, it seems like most of you have forgotten that V1 exists. Fair enough. And speaking of V2, here’s how often you all check it:

• A few times a week: 39.3%
• Whenever I remember: 36.5%
• Maybe once a week: 13.5%
• Daily: 6%
• Never: 2.8%
• Multiple times a day: 2%

And when you do check it, here’s how long you tend to spend listening to it:

• 10-30mins: 35%
• 30-60mins: 32.9%
• 60+mins: 23.5%
• 5-10mins: 8.6%

That’s it! That’s the stats. JPEGS attached in case Patreon compression ruins them. Share them with your friends, make your own spreadsheets, perhaps go for a long walk and just think about them for a bit.

Oh yeah, one last stat for you: