We get so many submissions for review at Avant Music News, that I’ve never bothered to count. Much of this music is truly excellent, but we cannot review every release. There are only so many hours in the day and the demand of the requests outstrips the supply of our ability to review them by about thirty-fold.
Nonetheless, if you are a musician, label representative, PR professional, or anyone else seeking reviews, there are a few simple things you can do that will increase your chances that we will schedule your release for a review.
- Email a submission to mike@avantmusicnews.com. Contacting me through social media and other means is slower and more likely to be missed.
- Make sure that your music fits the bill. While we cover a pretty broad swath of sounds, we are not all-encompassing. Keep in mind that we focus on the avant-garde, including creative / free improv, heavily composed music, ambient, noise, and so on. Having said that, each reviewer has his or her own quirks and tastes. Nonetheless, we generally do not cover pop, straight-forward rock, country, R&B, rap, soul, or dance, though we certainly make exceptions from time to time.
- Don’t ask us if we want to hear your music. Just send us the music or a way of obtaining it.
- If there is an embargo on discussing an upcoming release, be crystal clear about the date that the embargo is lifted. Otherwise, we will assume that the review can be published immediately.
- Send us a link to a digital download. Physical CDs are nice, but they tend to sit on the desk for a while before they get a listen. On the other hand, some of our reviewers strongly prefer CDs, so feel free to check.
- Provide MP3 files. Don’t send WAV, M4A, or FLAC files unless we request such. Receiving material in these formats requires extra work on our part to do the conversion, and usually results in the recording sitting around for a while before we listen.
- Include a link to at least one track that we can stream. The ability to listen to a sample immediately can pique our interest.
- Include a short, polite note with a brief (1-2 paragraph) description of the musicians and/or music. Longer press-release type submissions are ok, but we get so many of those that our eyes get tired going through them.
- Please don’t threaten us with a parade of horrible things that will happen if we illicitly distribute your recording. We are professional and do not share submissions with the public unless you’ve explicitly allowed us to do so. In some cases, we will make one or two copies for various reviewers to propose a review of the recording. If you feel like you cannot trust us, then don’t submit material.
- We rarely respond to emails (sorry), so don’t be upset if you don’t hear back from us. We like you guys just fine, but we are constantly overwhelmed with submissions. Feel free to send us reminders once or twice.
- Timing of a review can be anywhere from a few hours (very rare!) to a few months. Don’t despair if there is a long radio silence.
- We often put submissions that aren’t reviewed (in addition to those that are) in our Picks of the Week articles. While we understand that this is not the same thing as a review, our readers to seem to pay attention to our Picks.
- For bonus points, take a look at these recommendations.
- Avant Music News is a labor of love. Nobody is making money on this site. Proceeds from ads go to pay for the domain name and hosting rights. Any extra money is donated to worthy artists who request such through crowd-sourced projects. We all have jobs and write for this site in our spare time. We would like to write more reviews, but we have to work within the limits that our lives set forth.
Thanks for your understanding and continued support.
Avant Music News 