The brief

Serein is my own record label that started out as a small, internet only endeavour in 2015. In 2019 I started producing CDs and soon after that, vinyl. I've released material by bands and artists from all over the world with a strong focus on ambient music. I had long wanted a site that allowed old fans as well as newcomers to really get a feel for the label without having to go elsewhere to listen, for example to Spotify or Bandcamp.

I wanted people be able to listen to the music in full whilst also having the opportunity to read about the ideas and concepts behind the work and learn about the artists themselves.

Progressive Web App

What I have built is in essence a web app that is also installable on mobile devices as a Chrome PWA (Progressive Web App). In other words, if you browse to the site on your mobile device, you will be prompted to install it. To all intents and purposes the site then behaves like a native app on your phone. Whether users choose to do this or not, the entire Serein catalogue is available to stream in full via CloudFront's edge network, meaning super quick load times and buffer free streaming.

Craft Powered

The CMS behind all this is Craft working in headless mode. That means I get to keep all the benefits of working with Craft for content plus the advantages a static build offers in terms of speed. Craft is perfect for this kind of setup and has had full GraphQL support in core for a while now.

Using the Edge

The site is deployed to Netlify which again comes with edge networking for super fast speeds. This coupled with Nuxt's code splitting and small bundles leads to really quick load times and great scores with tools like Page Speed Insights and GTMetrix.

Press play

Give Serein a visit and hit play on something - there's lots to discover!