DIGITAL DOWNLOADS £4 FROM BANDCAMP

(Supercool limited edition physical CDs £6)

You can also download via iTunes, Amazon, emusic and other major online music stores, but for the best deal, head to Bandcamp.

Geek Pop will donate a third of the profits from this release to a fund for commissioning new science-inspired music. Yippee!

Artwork by Tom Humberstone.

Oh and and here's the story behind it all (as if anyone's interested)...

About January time this year, Helen Arney contacted us with some ideas about her Geek Pop 2011 performance. We'd been in cahoots about a potential Geek Pop single release previously, but many things - including Christmas, and a complete lack of organisation - got in the way. So, offering up a brand spanking and sparkly new song that she'd performed at the Funny Women Awards in September...

...Helen wanted to give it another bash. Only this time, we suggested releasing not just a single, but a WHOLE EP full of bonus tracks from Geek Pop artists. Well, one thing led to another and soon six artists (including two collaborating for a duet) were on board. Last to join the (top secret) project was Jonny Berliner. His Genetics Calypso, first recorded for the Geek Pop sessions on Green Man FM, came out of production - hand-clapping and all - just in time.

By this point, we'd gotten carried away and roped in an illustrator, Tom Humberstone, to create the artwork, and even ordered some vinyl-effect CDs to make physical copies. Quick as a flash, Tom created three awesome design ideas for fifties-style cover art and we chose the one that Tom felt "captured the inner geek in us all".

Meanwhile, Martin Austwick, who was also preparing for his own album release and our London launch gig, was advising us on matters of Bandcamp and digital distribution. And we'd roped in our Twitter followers to choose a name for a "hypothetical" record. It wasn't long before we found ourselves uploading Geek Like Me (which had by then morphed into a mini-album) to be distributed by every major music download site on the internet. That was scary.

Finally, one Saturday near the end of February, we found ourselves at Geek Pop HQ with a box full of CDs, a pile of Tom's lovely artwork and a guillotine. And a couple of weeks later, we're unleashing Geek Like Me on the WORLD!

For months now, we've been working on a secret project and now it's time to let you all in on it: Geek Pop is releasing an album! No, seriously, we are! It may only be a mini-album, but it's possibly the greatest and geekiest mini-album you'll ever hear. It features tracks from some of this year's Geek Pop festival artists. And we'll be donating a third of the profits from this release to a fund for new science-inspired music. So buy it to support future geekdom, but also because it's GREAT!

Geek Like Me

A six-track mini-album containing bonus songs from the 2011 Geek Pop festival. Artists: Helen Arney with Mr Simmonds featuring Professor Elemental, Spirit of Play, The Sound of The Ladies, Karmadillo, Jonny Berliner, MJ Hibbett & Vom Vorton. Handmade by geeks, for geeks. Preview right there ->

With original artwork by Tom Humberstone.

RELEASED ON 11 MARCH*

Digital downloads £4 from Bandcamp

Limited edition (100) physical CD £6

(yeah, check out those beauties, and they're lovingly hand-crafted!)

*Can I pre-order then? Sorry, no, but if you come to our launch party, a limited number of copies will available, without the P&P. If you ask nicely, you might even be able to get them signed by some of the artists.

Available in our shop now (yes, now!) at the frankly ridiculous price of £12.40! In all the colours of the rainbow (almost).

You lucky, lucky people.

And P.S. between 1-14 December, our merchandise partner Spreadshirt is offering free standard shipping on orders of £30 or more. Enter the code GIFTS2010UK when you check out.

Christmas shipping deadlines

Listen up! We're putting your song writing skills to the test. Your task is to write and record your very own geek summer hit single. You can cover any geek-related topic you like - think particle accelerators, Dr Who, trigonometry - but it must be all your own work. (You don't have to be a musical genius, but we will award bonus points if you make us laugh.)

You're encouraged to enlist the help of your entire office, science class or lab. Once you've penned your masterpiece, record it and send it to us in the form of a digital music file, You Tube video or plain old physical CD.

WHAT DO I WIN? Thanks to the donations of some awesome folks at The Economist, Deafness Research UK, Naked Scientists and Graphic Science, the top prize is nothing less than immense.

Not only will we play the winner's song, in full, on the Geek Pop podcast, we'll send you: £75 of Gadget Shop vouchers, a coveted Geek Pop Square t-shirt, 7Digital music vouchers for ten free downloads, Geek Pop pin badges for you and up to ten co-writers and an assortment of popular science books, including Poseidon's Steed by Helen Scales, a signed copy of Big Bang by Simon Singh, Crisp Packet Fireworks by Chris Smith and Dave Ansell, and the "Introducing" series books for Stephen Hawking, Time and Darwin. Oh and of course, you get a big ol' slice of glory pie. Mmm-mmmm.

PLUS! Extra prizes! The Graphic Science Most Contrived Rhyme Prize winner will receive £25 of Gadget Shop vouchers. And we at Geek Pop will award a Geek Pop pin badge to the songwriter of each valid entry.

HOW DO I ENTER? Send your MP3 file or You Tube link to crew@geekpop.co.uk or ask us for a postal address to send a CD. The deadline is 17:00 BST on 31 August 2010.

If you know anyone else who might be up to the challenge, why not share this with them using the button at the bottom of this post?

Hey, and make sure you do your homework: check out the songs we've featured previously on the podcast for inspiration, and who you need to impress to win.

Some rules:

1. Songs must not have been released, or otherwise made widely available, before the competition deadline.

2. Instruments are not essential - the prize is for song writing. So feel free to record a capella, or even get someone with superior vocal talents to sing it for you.

3. Explicit lyrics are okay, but please provide a clean or "bleeped" version too.

4. No "borrowing" from other artists.

5. The judges' decision is final. MWAH HA HA HA.

6. Bribes may be accepted, but only if they are really, really good.

Following our live gigs, we've got a few red and black Square t-shirts left at Geek Pop HQ. And because we want them to go to good homes, we'll send you one for a tenner (20% discount on normal shop price) and just £1.50 post and packaging anywhere in the world, before the end of May. How's that for a deal?

HERE'S THE OFFER PAGE - CLICK ME!

But ONLY until the end of May. You have five days... GO!

Check it out: the first Geek Pop pin to reach alien shores (okay, Australia). Anyway, don't ask us - ask @AstroMeg, who is doing astronomy type stuff down under. AstroMeg won our first Friday pin badge competition a couple of weeks ago. (Follow @geekpop on Twitter to play.)

Everyone loves a bargain, right? Especially when it's nearly Christmas. So, to buy gifts for your geek friends and relatives, use the voucher code "NOVEMBERSALE" for any Geek Chic purchase before 29 November and you'll get 15% off. Hooray!

And by the way, we've added whole bunch of new geek products, including a notebook sleeve and some awesome Geek Pop hoodies. Check them out at the shop.

You can now choose any colour of Geek Pop Square t-shirt your heart desires. Yay!

Geek Pop: be there *and* be square.

Get your own here.

Clearly visible in the image below - the Geek Pop pin badge!

Image courtesy of Conor Cahill - thanks Conor.

Become as stylish as Rob and get your own.