Music blog and podcast building buzz around this producer and DJ, growing audience and driving sales
www.seiji.co.uk
As a founding member of Bugz In The Attic and co-writer of Roisin Murphy's 'Overpowered', Seiji hadn't been much in the limelight independently since being at the centre of the 'broken beat' scene of the early 2000s, so we were approached by Seiji's management to help raise his profile as a DJ and producer in his own right.
The requirement was for a blog-style site that focused on the fact that Seiji is a prolific creator and just wanted to get his tunes out into the public domain. There was no requirement for long missives - the music would speak for itself. We felt it was important to offer a podcast feed for users who just wanted his music delivered straight to their computer for convenience as soon as it was released, as well as making it possible to listen to each tune on the site. We also wanted to explore what kind of community would grow around Seiji's generous contributions of free music to the world, so we implemented simple commenting on a per-track basis.
We decided to go with a straightforward off-the-shelf CMS solution, Textpattern, that would provide the framework for the site and also output RSS and podcast feeds with very little work, meaning we could concentrate on getting the right look and feel for the site - one that was stripped back and highlighted the important aspect of the site - his music.
After a year of giving away tracks free online and seeing the site get hugely popular in the process, with a clear community of DJs coming to the site so they could play out the latest Seiji tunes that night at their clubs, Seiji decided it was a good time to test the waters of selling some tracks. We've been impressed for some time by the work of Bandcamp and adopted it as the most effective way to sell both digital and physical products, theming the Bandcamp pages and integrating it cleanly into the main site which remains the focal point of Seiji's online presence. Initial uptake has exceeded expectations and we look forward to helping it grow.