The times they are a'changing: Robotic Empire is trying out Kickstarter!

It's not without good reason: we 1.) want to release the badass debut album by TILTS, but 2.) can't afford it at the present time. Instead of racking up more debt at an already financially-skinny time, we're testing the waters with ye olde Kickstarter.

WATCH:
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TILTS is comprised of our old comrade Andrew Elstner (formerly of RIDDLE OF STEEL and now also currently of TORCHE) on guitar and vocals, plus three of his close friends also from St. Louis, Missouri: Shawn Hart on bass, Ken McCray on drums and Andy White on guitar.

These dudes self-recorded 12 tracks over three sessions at their home studio, then ponied up to have Richmond engineer Ian Whalen (RAH BRAHS, TOMBS, LAMB OF GOD, etc) re-mix the whole shebang.

She's a killer album that way more people need to hear, so we're attempting to both raise awareness of the band as well as drum up the two grand needed to have it all properly mastered and pressed on vinyl + digital download.

Hopefully that's where you come in, as we've set up six different "pledge" options for this thing ranging from $5 to $666. Pretty much every one involves getting the album, and we've trying to keep it interesting as this is basically set up as an elaborate "pre-order". Long story short, we've tried to use the better parts of Kickstarter's setup to make this exciting for anyone who decides to check it out.

So yeah, please check it out:

* TILTS - debut album at Kickstarter

We've got it set up to run for two months since the holidays could throw things off a bit, but ideally we can raise 2grand for this thing and get this badass album released pronto. If this works out, we've got some other cool ideas for future projects to run through Kickstarter.

This TILTS album is catchy as hell but generally unheard, so we're excited to spread the word about one of our in-house favorite bands. We've seriously jammed this thing in repeat for the better part of a year and are glad to finally get this crazytrain in motion!

For a lot more information and to preview additional tracks in full (the video above is just a medley) please check out the Kickstarter page.

Also, thanks for reading/humoring this... bring it!!

* TILTS - debut album at Kickstarter

* TILTS on Facebook

p.s. if you like this on any level, please spread the word! We need as many people as possible to check out TILTS!!

Here's essentially the same update I just posted to the Kickstarter page:

First off: THANK YOU to everyone who has pledged, spread the word, sent praises, talked trash and/or had anything to do with this TILTS Kickstarter being a topic on any level. Seriously, we are kind of blown away at the (mostly) positive response this has received, and to reach the $2000 goal we set in just about two weeks of solid activity... it's incredible!

That being the case, we are thrilled to push this thing into production ASAP. The audio master has been ordered and as soon as we've got it approved by the band (for both vinyl, and for digital download) we'll be in touch with the pledgers about getting you an advance of the audio for this thing. We're hoping before the holidays? Soon!

All that being said, we actually shot kind of low on the amount needed to FULLY fund the manufacturing costs of this thing. We figured if we could raise the 2k, that'd be enough to prove the interest was there and thus, we should be able to sell more copies to cover the remaining costs.

However, the true cost of manufacturing this beast on vinyl (and all the associated t-shirts, beer coozies, hooded sweatshirts, stickers, etc etc) is actually a lot closer to $3000 - $3500 or so (depending). SOO.... as pleased as we are with the results thus far, we still want to try to keep raising more bucks for this thing to try to cover it in full.

If we can get more than the amount needed to simply manufacture this awesome album, we'll also be able to give TILTS money directly (in addition to the physical copies of the album the band will also get) to help them cover some of their own personal costs they ponied up to make this thing (recording money, re-mixing money, studio stuff, gear, etc etc etc etc).

So yeah, I guess we're mostly saying THANK YOU SO MUCH and also kinda saying, please keep spreading the word if you can... it's clearly made a big difference and been a major help. We are so happy with how this has gone, and hope to be able to use the Kickstarter platform to release other awesome records that we wouldn't be able to necessarily afford otherwise.

THANK YOU TO TILTS for going along with this crazyness, we're on track boys!!!!!!

Thanks again (and again, and again). Peace!!

- Andy Low / Robotic Empire

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"TILTS, two shows coming up shortly! Friday 1/13 in STL at the Firebird and Saturday 1/14 in K.C. at the Riot Room. Also, we're still revving the Kickstarter engine on our FB page. Treat yourself, it's Krimbus Times!"

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