Intermediate / "Workshopping" Releases

[k.p.g]

In one of my previous PLAYLIST posts regarding Hand & Knee's Oppressive Heat tape, one thing that stuck out to me was that it truly felt like a "workshopping" type of release, rather than a fully realized record.  The looseness of sound exploration was exciting enough to carry my attention, thinking "I know he would get this idea better when he really zeroes in for a bigger release." 
In another instance, Shutters and Anchors by  Robert Fuchs is a release that feels tied to the Usagi disc he recorded around the same time, but is not weighed down by the burden of being a more "realized" piece.  Instead, this tape takes sounds & motifs that C.O.T.H. touched on and take them to the absolute limit that the album structure cannot.

Both these instances made me think more about the idea of these intermediate releases between an artist's discography, and how that seems to be a bit of a dying trend nowadays.  I want to know why that may be.  Does the push to "elevate" noise make artists shy away from putting out looser / rougher material?  Is it a bad look to have the same sound be studied across multiple releases, or is it just the chase to get the right pairing of sounds together that make people not wanna waste any of their "best moments" on smaller releases?

[Balor/SS1535]

A few disorganized thoughts:

Merzbow has a great many of these, which is probably an affordance of his stature as a noise musician and artistic figure.  But for others who are not as important as him, where and how would they release something like this?  There are so many people "doing noise" now that there feels to be some real competition to get released, or at very least a certain threshold of quality that must be met.

Perhaps the advent of streaming is pushing this away.  I can imagine that there is less of a push to publish material that is not up to one's full potential if it is possible to simply upload it somewhere for free.

I have done "workshopping" releases myself, primarily to send to friends or to give away for free at shows.  They were in runs of about 10 or so CDrs for each of them.  I can't imagine they have spread far or wide (most probably have not been even listened to...).  Either way, people might do this sort of thing, but there are a whole array of reasons why they do not get shared more widely.

There is so much noise to listen to now, so why would the hypothetical listener want to listen to a "workshop" piece when there are several other "complete" albums only a click away?

[k.p.g]

There is so much noise to listen to now, so why would the hypothetical listener want to listen to a "workshop" piece when there are several other "complete" albums only a click away?

This is the question I am attempting to find an answer for myself... As far as I am concerned, some of these releases can offer an expansive study on certain sound palettes that are not explored deeply on a "complete" record.  Artist may think that what is on the proper full length may be the best offering of sounds, but it is not always such a case!

[BTR]

I think that we've talked about this before, but often times the "workshop" pieces can be more compelling than the "final product." While some benefit from editing, there are times when really compelling ideas end up on the cutting room floor for whatever reason, and in general I think the workshop releases see artists taking more risks.

Part of why we don't see it as much is pure economics: the cost of tapes, shipping, etc. keep people from doing this as much these days. Which is fair. I also think there has been a trend towards more curation, better production (whatever that may mean), and less releases that act as a social component.

[Balor/SS1535]

There is so much noise to listen to now, so why would the hypothetical listener want to listen to a "workshop" piece when there are several other "complete" albums only a click away?

This is the question I am attempting to find an answer for myself... As far as I am concerned, some of these releases can offer an expansive study on certain sound palettes that are not explored deeply on a "complete" record.  Artist may think that what is on the proper full length may be the best offering of sounds, but it is not always such a case!

Beyond the qualities of the sounds themselves, the other reason that I think of for this is the semi-"historical" quality that some of these releases have.  I personally find it very interesting to see how a given artist evolves over time, so transitional/workshop releases often contain the biggest surprises.

Actually, it's this aspect of the Merzbox that is most interesting to me.