The Double: Charming Disaster album + 2nd edition oracle deck

Album Cover + Track List Reveal!
about 1 year ago – Wed, Mar 05, 2025 at 06:36:43 PM

Beloved backers,

We've spent much of the winter getting The Double across the finish line, and we thank you for your patience and faith in us (not to mention your support)! We completed the vocal tracking in November, spent many hours mixing in January and February, and went through a couple rounds of mastering in the past week. It's been a long process, so we are thrilled to share with you that as of TODAY we have the final audio in hand, mixed and mastered! It sounds so good, and we're so excited for you to hear it. Next step: physical media production.

In the meantime, we wanted to give you a first look at the album cover, along with the track list. BEHOLD:

1. Black Locust
2. New Moon
3. Trick of the Light
4. Time Machine
5. Scavengers
6. Beautiful Night
7. Vitriol
8. Haunted Lighthouse
9. Gang of Two
10. Green Things

We're just finishing up the layout for vinyl and CD production, and expect to get those orders in by the end of the week. Vinyl typically has an 8-week turnaround, which means we're likely looking at early May for shipping out rewards, just a little behind our original estimate of April.

The oracle decks and expansion packs have already arrived, and they look gorgeous. The totes are in house too, and the t-shirts should come in next week. We'll be shipping your items together to save you postage, so once the vinyl arrives, all of your rewards will go out. 

Speaking of postage, in the next week or so, you can expect to be charged for shipping costs over in Backerkit (as you may recall, shipping wasn't charged during the campaign), so keep an eye out for that and let us know if you have any questions. 

The album release promo machinery is about to start up too—you'll be getting more updates soon about music videos, singles, and upcoming shows. 

We can't wait to share The Double with you. 

XO
Ellia & Jeff

P.S. We've already started fulfilling the non-tangible rewards, so if you pledged for a personal video or a livestream sponsorship, stay tuned!

2nd Edition Oracle Decks Are Being Printed Right Now!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Dec 31, 2024 at 01:41:11 PM

Dear Backers: 
As the year comes to a close, we are thrilled to share this project update: The artists have submitted their work, the graphic design and layout are complete, and the 2nd edition of the Charming Disaster Oracle Deck is now off at the printers getting made! Along with the updated decks, guidebooks, and expansion packs, they are also producing the fancy magnetic boxes. Exciting stuff!

The twelve new cards we've added to the deck look great. Here's a sneak preview of three of them...

Now that the deck is in production, our next step is to finish mixing the recordings, get them mastered, and then get the vinyl records and CDs into production. Our anticipated delivery date of April is still looking good, and we can't wait to get everything out to you!

Thank you so much for supporting this project. It's a wonderful feeling to know it will have a home with all of you when it's finished.

Happy New Year to you all! 
Love,
Ellia & Jeff

Updates on the new album and oracle deck
over 1 year ago – Sat, Nov 09, 2024 at 06:05:48 PM

Dear backers: it's been a minute, so we wanted to say hello and update you about our progress. 

New Album recording: The Double

Three of the ten album tracks are done and ready for mastering. The remaining seven songs are still underway—we've been recording in layers, so thus far everything has bass, drums, ukulele, and guitar, and some also have horns, but we still need to add our vocals and a few other odds and ends (piano, organ, some other percussion, etc.). We have one more recording session planned to get all that stuff done, and it's soon: we'll be in the studio from November 19-22, which should give us enough time for everything we need to track and maybe even start to get into mixing, the next step. We're pretty excited, especially since this is the session originally planned for early August (when instead, we got COVID).

Music video update: Over the summer we had the chance to shoot a music video for one of the new album tracks, our Dracula-inspired song "Trick of the Light," with Zalman Zuckerbraun and Finley Stein. The video is still being edited and won't be released until sometime in the spring, but we'll share some sneak preview images with you here soon. Here's a little behind-the-scenes shot of Jeff on location at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn:

We've worked with Zal and Finley before—last year they followed us on tour and made a documentary about us, Wax Zoetic. It's a beautiful film, and while it's not currently available to the public, you can watch it on YouTube via this secret link IF YOU DARE:

2nd edition of the Oracle Deck

We have now received new original artwork from ten talented artists, and each of us also created a card, for a total of twelve new oracle cards. Here's a sneak preview of the "Summer" card by Caitlin Blomstrom, inspired by the song "Black Locust."

We've sent the new batch of images to poet Jacob Rakovan, author of the guidebook, so he can write interpretive text for the new cards. On our end, we'll soon get to work on the graphic design. Once we have those final elements in place, we'll be able to move ahead with printing. 

We think we're still on target for a spring release, which is what we projected when we launched this Kickstarter. We'll continue to keep you all posted. 

XO
Ellia & Jeff

P.S. If you haven't completed your backer survey, please do that! It helps us figure out quantities and means we'll be able to ship your rewards when they are ready. You can find your survey by entering your email address HERE.

Surveys coming soon, what we've been up to lately
over 1 year ago – Wed, Aug 28, 2024 at 09:48:34 AM

Hello backers! We've been quiet over here since the campaign ended a month ago, but we've been working on things, so wanted to check in and let you know what we've been up to. 

Surveys:

Next week, we should be be sending out your campaign surveys, which you will receive as an email in your inbox (subject line will be something like "Response Needed — Get your reward for Charming Disaster: Double Album"). The survey will collect the info we need to fulfill your rewards, and will also give you a way to add additional items if you wish. Shipping won't be charged until later on when we're about to send out the rewards. Heads up we're using the platform BackerKit for our pledge management. You won't need to set up another account there, just enter your email address to access your survey.

New oracle card commissions: 

We have now commissioned art for 12 new oracle cards from an exciting array of artists! We're hoping to have everyone's artwork in by October 1, then the divination guide text can be updated to incorporate the new cards, then we'll prepare graphic design files for the 2nd edition of the deck and the guidebook, plus the magnetic box.

Recording:

We had a recording session scheduled at the end of July and had big plans to track vocals and some other odds and ends for The Double, but instead...we came down with COVID. (Jeff tested positive when we were literally en route to the studio.) But our recording session was not a total loss—we were able to move forward a couple of other smaller projects that had been on the back burner, working remotely from the parking lot of the recording studio. It was a memorable session, to say the least—if you're one of our Patreon patrons, you can read the whole tale here. 

Those tracks will be releasing this fall and we'll tell you more about them soon. 

Tour plans:

And in IRL news, we're preparing for a busy tour season, starting with DragonCon in Atlanta this weekend and two weeks of shows in the second half of September! We've got more in store for October that aren't yet officially announced. Find out more (and come out and see us in the flesh!) at charmingdisaster.com/shows. We'll be playing some songs from The Double.

Thank you for listening and supporting!!
XO
Ellia & Jeff
Charming Disaster

Complete!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 01:57:45 PM

Our campaign has completed! 

You, along with 351 others, helped us raise over $23k and easily brought this project over the finish line. We thank you from the bottom of our dark hearts for helping us put our nefarious plans into action!

When we get back from touring and recording, we will send out backer surveys to collect shipping, sizing information and all that fun stuff.

Know someone who wanted to back this project but didn't get to it in time? There are still some rewards available for purchase even though the campaign has finished. You can send and latecomers here: tiny.cc/charmingkickstarter

Thank you all so much for taking part in this Charming Disaster!

 Love and gratitude,

Jeff & Ellia