Periphery’s Misha Mansoor to Release TEN Albums of Solo Material
Back before Periphery, band founder Misha Mansoor used to post demos in various stages of completion to a music-based social community site called Soundclick. Dozens of them, some fully fleshed out song ideas, some just a few seconds of a riff idea. I remember hearing them during that era and thinking how cool and innovative they sounded — “djent” was not yet a thing — and some of them ended up turning into full-fledged Periphery songs on the band’s debut album. It’s crazy to think those years now officially qualify as “a long time ago” given I still think of Periphery as a kinda new band, but there you have it: that was in, like, 2007-2008.
Now Mansoor is going to be giving those demos an official release — TEN albums worth of them — under the Bulb moniker, the handle he used on Soundclick at the time and which still occasionally shows up when he posts on various internet locales. What’s more, he’s working on a new solo album he plans to eventually release under the Bulb name as well.
Misha explains that he’s been wanting to revisit the Bulb material for some time already:
“Diving back into the Bulb archives is something that I’ve wanted to do for years. As I began working on what will be a new Bulb album I was reminded of this vast library of unreleased music, music that has only been previously available by seeking out bits and pieces on various forums and media channels. Presenting it in a context that both echoes my original intent with the songs grouped from the time period they were recorded in as well as making it easier for fans to find and enjoy was the driving motivation behind completing this massive undertaking.”
The first album in the 110-song, digitally released collection is titled Archives: Volume 8 and arrives on June 12 via 3DOT Recordings, the label Periphery owns and runs themselves. The albums are being released bi-weekly in a descending order with the most recent of the Bulb archival material arriving first and subsequent releases leading back to the origin of the project with the ultimate destination of Archives: Volume 1. The release schedule for the Bulb archival recordings is:
Archives: Volume 8 June 12
Archives: Volume 7 June 26
Archives: Volume 6 July 10
Archives: Volume 5 July 24
Orchestral August 7
Archives: Volume 4 August 21
Archives: Volume 3 September 4
Archives: Volume 2 September 18
Archives: Volume 1 October 2
Electronic October 16
If you’ve ever been interested in hearing the origins of Periphery — the entire djent scene, really — this is your chance. And after all that, it sounds like we’ll be getting a brand new solo album from Misha, too. A silver lining of the pandemic, I suppose.
Here’s some old Bulb material I found on YouTube if you wanna get a vibe for what’s to come, although I’m not clear exactly where this stuff places in the planned release order (all over, I think):
