Scottish pop group Chvrches are technically still a going concern, but lead singer Lauren Mayberry is setting up her first solo album and tour later in the year. To do that, she is choosing to tease her debut single in a most curious way.

“We are all confident that the CHVRCHES story has many more pages yet to be written,” she posted on Instagram in late July to announce the start of her solo career.

The band’s labels are surely hoping they are not done and dusted, given they signed new record deals with EMI (UK) and Island (North America) last year and released the single (with what now seems like a possibly prophetic title) ‘Over’ in February.

Mayberry’s debut single as a solo artist is ‘Are You Awake?’ and it will be released on 1st September. But from 15th August, fans could unlock a 33-second snippet of it if they pre-saved/pre-added it on Spotify or Apple Music.

The UMG-run website for the pre-save/pre-add also had the option to sign up to her mailing list.

The snippet is only available to stream via that UMG pre-save site rather than appearing on DSPs.

We have seen endless pre-save/pre-add mechanics but rarely is so much effort put into the pre-save-pre-add campaign for a single. It might suggest that her solo album is a huge priority for her label – and they are throwing as much effort as possible into building it up as An Event.

The length of the snippet, however, is the most intriguing part of it all. At 33 seconds, it would, were it to be hosted on a DSP, count as a chart-eligible and monetisable play. But it’s not. It is hosted on a UMG-operated website.

Of course, since the early days of iTunes Music Store, 30-second clips became the standard length for online previews of tracks. You get a good sense of what it sounds like but you are not giving the whole thing away – unless you are Napalm Death. But the minimum play length for streaming royalties adds an extra spin to it all.

Could these plays, assuming the snippet is played from start to finish each time, count towards the first-week tally for the single?

Or does the fact it’s on the label’s site preclude that from happening?

Could this be a testing of the water to see if a mechanic like this gathers enough plays to make a significant difference to the first-week tally?

So many questions.