Kelani Larethian, a 21-year old keyboardist deep in rural North Carolina, collaborated with musicians from across the world to produce Firesprung. It may not rock the music charts, but it is, he claims, the "first album ever to be planned, written, recorded, and marketed completely over the Internet."
Larethian has never seen any of Firesprung's other musicians in person, but met them on AOL or IRC channels devoted to MIDI. "There's not anybody around here interested in keyboard and MIDI music. A lot of bluegrass, but that's not what I wanted," says Larethian.
"I'm planning a tour of the US to meet some of the people I played with, but I can't make it to Sweden or Germany just yet." Although he has no immediate plans for live performances, Larethian doesn't rule it out, saying it would be interesting to see how the musicians would work playing together live.
To save time, the musicians decided on email exchange of files, rather than sending them on discs. "I can email a file to a guy in Sweden and he can work on it and send it back in 10 minutes," Larenthian says. As well as being available as a CD, Larethian's music is available online at Larethian's Web site in a number of formats, including RealAudio and MIDI.
