At long last, Empty Ensemble has some official releases lined up!
Gakusei and 「弦楽四重奏曲其の一」 were posted on this site in demo form, and now those recordings have been refined to the point for an actual release. (You can still listen to them on the Releases page.) Gakusei starts things off with a digital and physical release on May 27, 2016. 「弦楽四重奏曲其の一」 follows on October 28, 2016, also in digital and physical forms.
Gakusei means “student” in Japanese, and the works featured on the 21-minute EP are all student works. 「弦楽四重奏曲其の一」 translates to “String Quartet Songs, Vol. 1”. This nine-part work originally appeared as an album of piano pieces, which have now been arranged for string quartet. The album is rounded out by an orchestral work, Soliloquy of a Vampire, the first of its kind for Empty Ensemble.
CDs will be available exclusively at the Empty Ensemble Shop on Bandcamp. The digital release includes all the usual suspects — iTunes, Spotify, Amazon MP3 Store and Google Play Music.
So as not to confuse matters, some previously posted demo projects have been removed from the Releases page. They’ll be back as they too get refined for an eventual release.