Veteran US prog band Glass Hammer have announced their new vocalist and their debut NFT drop.
The band are working on the follow-up to 2020’s well received ‘Dreaming City’ which will follow on from the previous release’s concept. Steve Babb and Fred Schendel have divulged that singer Hannah Pyror, who first featured on last December’s digital release, ‘Matter of Time’, will feature on the new album.
“Production of Glass Hammer’s follow-up to Dreaming City is underway,” bassist and vocalist Steve Babb tells us. “This will be Part II of a trilogy. Songs are still being written and rewritten, tracks are being recorded, demos obsessed over—you get the picture. The album is tentatively titled Skallagrim – At The Gates Of Deception.”
Concurrently the band are teasing the new album by joining the world of NFTs. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique files that live on a digital ledger called a blockchain and are able to verify ownership of a work of digital art (although not full ownership). Buyers can display the digital artwork they represent and may be able to resell later.
Ten Glass Hammer NFT’s will be minted of a pre-release mix of the track Anthem To Andorath, Hannah Pryor featuring as lead vocalist.
“Only ten of these will ever be released,” explains Babb. “The song will show up on the album, of course, but not in this form. The purchasers will find their names listed in the credits of our new album, and there may be other goodies attached as well. We’re really just learning about NFTs, but they’re very interesting as a new way to sell music, not only to crypto-collectors who may have never heard of Glass Hammer but to prog-rock collectors and superfans who’d like to own something truly exclusive,” Babb goes on to add. “I believe that Glass Hammer are the first prog act to use NFTs.”
Glass Hammer is not new to the idea of limited collectibles. Babb adds, “Our very first album (1993’s Journey Of The Dunadan) was first sold as a collectible—a limited edition art print and a gold foil CD on QVC, giving us a massive amount of exposure early on. Though I think it’s too early to say whether or not NFTs will change the music business, it still makes sense for Glass Hammer to make our music available wherever it can be sold.”
You can find the Glass Hammer NFTs at this link:
Glass Hammer Marketplace on OpenSea: Buy, sell, and explore digital assets