CRAFTED SOUNDS: "HAVE A NICE DAY. A PITTSBURGH COLLECTION"

Crafted Sounds has just released a 15 track compilation showcasing a variety of alternative genres from post-punk to experimental to emo music featured exclusively from Pittsburgh artists. When asked about the music scene in the area, Connor Murray, founder of Crafted Sounds responds, “Theres a lot of really, really cool stuff going on.”

Crafted Sounds originally evolved from a high school breakup. Connor turned to music, as many of us do during challenging times, and attempted to teach himself guitar. “[I] tried it out for a couple months— it was terrible. It was just so bad,” Connor recalls as he attempted his own take on Cyberbully Mom Club and other "sad boy type music." Instead, Connor began making tapes.

"I started listening to tapes end of my sophomore year in high school and the idea was to make tapes for my friends, so they could play them in their cars or whatever-- just as a gift to them. Like I appreciate them.” Connor acknowledges that the entire reason he even sought after a tape player in the first place was because of Friend Records (Baltimore), a label that Connor is both inspired by and loves to death.

"Fast forward to the breakup, tried making music-- I suck, dammit. I started making the label and toyed around with names for a couple months,” Connor begins, “It was one of those things where I just kinda locked myself in my room turned off all the lights and thought and wrote names on papers.”

Thus, Crafted Sounds was born and the simple iconic house logo soon accompanied it. Connor began the Crafted Sounds out of his house, so it was only natural to pay homage to the genesis of it by incorporating that element.

Soon after more and more people began recognizing and resonating with Crafted Sounds' signature “have a nice day :)” slogan.

“It’s amazing how you can fix someone’s day just by saying have a nice day. People are so invested in themselves that they don’t realize that there’s other people around them... Thats a big effort both in and outside a label for me personally.” Connor has embodied this in his everyday life and even went on to say, “A smiley face does a lot for a person."

The goal of the Have a nice day. A Pittsburgh Collection is simple, poignant, and serves two important purposes. One goal is to highlight just what the city and various neighboring towns have to offer.

“I just wanted to wave the flag and be like this is whats up and to encourage people to maybe bring some Pittsburgh acts out along the east coast and help them out,” Connor elaborates, "That was the idea behind this compilation.”

The other purpose of the compilation is to benefit a great cause. All digital proceeds and 50% of the physical proceeds will be go to Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania . There are 40 cassette tapes now available for order.

The Have a nice day. A Pittsburgh Collection features the following tracks:

1. Sleep Movies - The Ride

2. Rue - It Could Be You

3. Honey - Blue Narcissus (Demo)

4. Surf Bored - Disorder (Cover)

5. pinstripe sunny - red colored elegy

6. Christ Shrift - Werewolf Whistlin'

7. mt. marcy - i miss you

8. wwoman - Eating ass

9. String Machine - Garden

10. Brianna Snider - special place

11. Capsule Corp - Water Aerobics (Demo)

12. AllegrA - wool or fleece

13. Spacefish - Waxed

14. IT IT - Everyone Can Win

15. Jack Stauber - Birds in the Window (Live)

As far as Crafted Sounds' future aspirations go, they hope to work with more female artists and work on bridging the gap between Philly and Pittsburgh by initiating some more collaborations between the two cities. Crafted Sounds also aims to continue their inspirational and positive Twitter presence especially for when people are feeling down.