Almost sixteen years ago, Tim Thomson released his first track for Sonar Zone, a high energy, old school techno fixture. His tunes were laid on vinyl and sold to anyone who knew him. In spite of his obvious talent, he never became a house-hold name. On the July 17th, Sonar Zone launched their latest track, Restoration, for sale alongside dance music legends like Paul Oakenfold, DJ Tiesto, Paul van Dyk and even the Beatles at all major outlets, and from all the usual music vendors. So what has changed to catapult Sonar Zone to the realms of stardom?
Sonar Zone, like millions of other aspiring stars has simply taken advantage of the internet, social media and online music forums. The music and fans are pretty much unchanged, but the means of reaching the audience has come bang up-to-date into the 21st century.
Tim Thomson, the frontman of Sonar Zone has continued to make his cutting-edge dance tunes for years but rather than spending hours, not to mention a small fortune, on studio time, Tim writes and records his albums from the comfort of his home in Dunfermline, Scotland. After making the tracks, like so many other computer savvy musicians, he sets about uploading them to every social media site you can think of. His talent was spotted by Carl Parnell and before he knew it he had signed a recording contract with someone he had never even met, from Australia of all places.
Tim says, "with the advent of the internet getting your music spotted by record labels is now really quite simple. I composed and recorded all the music in my house and sent my tracks by an online storage company to Hark Mastering and they forwarded the finalised enhanced tracks to my online site. From there my track was spotted by Carl Parnell the owner of PWMrecords in the Gold Coast - Australia."
Getting signed has traditionally been a fairly arduous process with contracts, lawyers and hefty fees, but the internet has cut all that out and Tim, like millions of others, has been able to focus his energy on getting his tunes to the right crowd.
"I knew the kind of people who would enjoy Sonar Zone so it was just a case of targeting the right forums through Facebook, Blogs, Twitter and other social media sites", says Tim.
The internet has opened up the market and offers any musician with a bit of ambition the chance to get heard. Amazon, iTunes, HMV Digital, MixMag, and more than 40 other mainstream music download sites now offer music not only from mainstream outfits but also from boutique, bedroom musicians who previously would go forever unheard.
This is real progress.
Tim's advice to other aspiring stars couldn't be simpler, "Just make the most of social network sites and music hosting sites and you are sure to get your music heard."