Welcome to 2024! (recap, news, and more)

This blog post will recap the previous year, mention various events that has happened recently, and talk about what to expect from the upcoming year.

This year was amazing, and I'd like to thank you all for being a part of Sonic4 Test Records.

I am making this post because there are a lot of things I feel that should be mentioned.

This post is gonna be a casual one, so sit back and relax.

Now, let's do a recap first before getting to the good stuff. 

The story of Sonic4 Test Records' rebirth started in late January, when Keremblox taught me how to make a website. This got me interested in making music again, and I made the first part of TRCM in February 14th. At that day, Yuri came back, and the things that happened between us gave me inspiration for Love-Struck, which became a classic. I was going through some questionable things at the time, which is how the DFTLC series became a thing. Keremblox stopped being my friend around April, which is when The Death Of Blox became a thing. We quickly got over it with AuditoryStaleDoner, which was a great celebration of the classic era of Sonic4 Test Records.

With Love Beyond Our Reality, I made a great comeback and told the story of what went down behind the game's barrier. But the comeback didn't last for long, with a downfall that was told in The Master Of Arguments. After the whole ordeal, things were slowly building up. The website was getting overhauled, Local Radar made his first release as Bad Citizen, STALE02 was in production, and we were having a party with Natsuki after the DFTLC series were over. 

Things took an unexpected turn around August, with the obvious downfall releases back to back. Yuri called it quits after Izumi took me away, and I was going through an emotionally troubled time. Things became awesome with the release of STALE02, which was delayed for months. That's a common misconception with Bim Bam Bom, the release date "August 6, 2023" is the date when STALE02 was completed, not published. It actually was published in September, and it cured our sorrow. I wanted to close the season with Voice Of The Girls #3, which brought back the story back to where it began, completing it as a full circle.

The label became silent after that. I focused more on The Protagonist, finished the TRCM series, released many albums back to back. We were approaching the end slowly, and in the middle of it we took a trip back to the ruins of Yeşilköy Okulları. Seeing the place in ruins was sad, not gonna lie. After this, I was planning for a big comeback but it kept getting delayed.

The CHAPTER 2 of Sonic4 Test Records began with Off The Charts, which was a brand new "retrograde" beginning for the label. It was a compilation album that was quite weird for the low-quality gimmick, while dropping references to the classic days of Sonic4 Test records.

STALE04: It's Your Record! deserves its own paragraph, it was the first public project that I hosted. Usually with projects, people have certain rules and criteria for the submissions, and the word doesn't reach that far. I wanted to try something new, and that was to try to invite everyone into contributing something of themselves to this project. It was a fun idea that worked, I met many wonderful people and we all made a wonderful album with various jokes and all. It was a success, because more people were aware of Sonic4 Test Records and it even inspired someone to start their own project similiar to ours.

This is a shoutout to MONASTERY RECORDS, which is a project by kel. They make plunderphonics music similer to ours, and I suggest you all to check it out. "Crawling around, alone, in a box made for two" is their first actual release, and it's kind of the opposite of Sick-Love. I love it, and I wish them a great discography and a good following. Share the meat, it's for all to take.

Now, back to Sonic4 Test Records. I'm currently working on a new section of the website, dubbed "blog." It's not actually going to be a blog, but a second website with more various information and activities that don't fit the main site. It's sort of going to be an archive where I talk about what went into the making of each release, their own stories, my opinion on them, and things like that. Those are what the "archives" are gonna be for, but I haven't got to make them yet. It's a lot of work. I'm also planning to help others by linking the plugins I use to make the albums, and there will also be a section where I link various sites of the people associated with Sonic4 Test Records. Again, I haven't got to working on it yet. I'm busy for now. There is a finished section of the website, which is the Cast Of Characters. We basically wrote down a story of every single side character that has appeared on Sonic4 Test Records. These are fictional artists that we've made up, and now they are complete with their own random little ridiculous stories. 

Anyways. I've released The Sonic4 Christmas Cupcake, which is a Christmas compilation album that I made up all by myself. It took me like what, two days to make it and it's a perfect demonstration of what I'm capable of doing as of now. Besides that, it's a great Christmas album. I like it.

And the final thing of the year is the completion of The Protagonist with Recollections from the tormented town. It was a random concept that I came up with all the way back in 2021, way before Sonic4 Test Records even began. The mix contains unreleased music and various other things from The Protagonist's discography, the things that hasn't been put onto spotlight before. It's kind of somber, but in the end he got the rest he deserved. I wrote down a document about the complete story of The Protagonist, which you can read here.

That's all for this year. Now, let's get to the good stuff.

Although disclosed in the public eye, I want to briefly mention "stillhere" for doing the unbelievable.

I'm going to announce that I'm finally friends with Keremblox again, and everything is thriving thanks to her. I want to share her website, although it's incomplete I think it's cool nonetheless. STILLHERE Incorporated

From now on, we're friends. I'm also going to share Kerem's "Doruk Wislon" site, the project that him and his friends are working on. It's an analog horror series about the tragic story of two animators with a dream. Again, the site is unfinished. DW Studios

I guess it's fine to move on to the news.

As of now, the only project we're actively working on is STALE04 at the end of time.

It started out as a joke project, but it's turning out to be a masterpiece. We just moved on to the post awareness stages, and I'm planning to release this on Sonic4 Test Records once it's completed.

It's too good for VaultKid. 

And uh... What else again? Oh yeah, I don't have that much things to share as of news. Keremblox might drop a new release, but that's just a maybe. Local Radar is still missing, so no news from him too. There might be music videos for the sonic4test channel sometime soon, I'm working on a few.

Kel has (and still is) working on archiving the releases of Sonic4 Test Records on a music database website called MusicBrainz. Check it out: Sonic4 Test Records - MusicBrainz

James The Woz has done something like it too, but it's far from being complete. Sonic4 - Rate Your Music

Yeah. That's all I have to share. Things might happen in the future, who knows. See you soon.