Words: John / Relaxed Machinery

A while back someone asked me about my experiences owning (tiny) music labels. I think it was @mrfresh.bsky.social. I owned an ambient / electronic label called Relaxed Machinery from 2010 – 2016. Tagline was

organic .: ambient :. techno

However, we didn’t get much techno out.

But, let me rewind. I got heavily into the ambient scene in the late 90’s after the last of my rock, alt, etc bands broke up. And I decided to finally focus on my own music for once.

I met some great people on the old mp3 .com – some still friends with today. Found ambient forums like Hypnos.

I did some website work – and doing one label, led to another. Mainly work for friends. Helping behind the scenes. In 2008, longtime friend who owned AtmoWorks wanted help and I came on board to help run things while he stepped away for health issues, and the other partner on tour.

As co-owner of AtmoWorks – I worked a ton with various artists helping them release. Did web stuff, and data updates – and accounting – which I didn’t enjoy.

What I did love was creating a community on a platform called Ning. Kinda WordPress with lots of people.

Summer 2009 rolled around and I left AtmoWorks and started plotting Relaxed Machinery. I wanted to keep it simple – kind of a netlabel / artist collective. Created a goofy origin story. Started a new community on Ning.

Launched January 2010.

I decided no accounting – let’s make it non-profit for the label. So everyone paid for their own releases in whatever format they wanted to. If they wanted on iTunes or amazon – they paid the digital distort. Set up their Bandcamp, etc… CD / CDR? sure.

They kept 100% of what they made.

So that eliminated the biggest issue to me – accounting. It also just made it easier to run. However, still ran it as a label – the label art was consistent each year. I did the marketing. Two people from AtmoWorks joined me – graphic designer, and good business person. He had organization.

And we ended up releasing 55 albums and ep’s over 6 years. The Community became really pretty large – and I wanted it inclusive so we had many ambient labels have their community home there. I wanted to share the love of music and give everyone a space.

Unfortunately, Ning became unstable.

And that platform essentially was just too far gone by 2014 – and I tried to find other places – but the magic was gone.

I think another key to our success was the premiere listening parties. First on StillStream and then on SomaFM. The new album would stream and everyone chat during.

Which was really lovely! And I’m grateful to the hosts of the various shows – and to Rusty at SomaFM. We had nearly 2,000 listeners on a couple of the premieres.

So by 2016 I was burned out. I hadn’t recorded anything of my own in years. I was tired. Shut down in spring.

Releases were interesting and it took us a while to find our groove. A lot of the artists were friends or friends of friends. Some cold demos of course.

Finally had to make a rule – we’re not putting on the schedule until you’re actually done. Had to scramble with too many changes.

Needed a solid 3 months lead time from done to release. Still in the days of people buying files or albums instead of streaming – though streaming was coming on fast.

I had a nice mailing list of reviewers, dj’s, mix makers, etc.

Ending for now.

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Words: Cheer Captain

Maker of power pop. Maniac Cop 2 enthusiast. I play the guitar/bass and sing. They/Them

Featured Image: Ed Shoothowdy

Gather around youngsters and listen close and I’ll tell you the tale of the time Metallica sued me. We begin in the year 2000: I had just turned 16 and set out on my then lifelong ambition to work at a record store. The cool store in town wanted 18 and older so my only option was the Circuit City.

While Circuit City technically hired me to work the music department, they 100% didn’t give a shit. There were two departments: commissioned sales and the rest of us. So I basically did general retail work and occasionally got to talk about records which was the entire reason I got the job.

But because of this I got to meet everyone at the store and get pretty close with them so when Napster first popped up the car stereo guys were *on* it. I was an extremely early user. Asked for a CD burner for my birthday. I had it fuckin made at Y2K.

I also loved Queen but mostly Brian May’s guitar work. That’s my little secret about the band, everyone loves Freddie Mercury and of course they’re right to do so but have you heard that goddamn riff from “Tie Your Mother Down”?

All my favorite queen songs are Brian May forward. Except for “‘39” but that’s because I was also a theater kid in high school but it isn’t relevant to the story at hand. Where was I? Oh yes, “Hammer To Fall”, “I Want It All” things of that nature. Good tunes.

So this brings us to “Stone Cold Crazy” an absolute ripper on SHEER HEART ATTACK (the band at their most glam, it’s a dope record) that Metallica covered on GARAGE, INC.

WHICH WAS THE ONLY FUCKING METALLICA SONG I HAD LARS

One day I log onto Napster and I swear to god I remember the splash screen as reading “You’ve Been Sued By Metallica”. Basically in the year 2000, Lars Ulrich had famously printed out 350,000 Napster accounts and brought them to a judge who said (reasonably) that you can’t sue a bunch of Hotmails…

… so Lars went to Napster and said basically “give us your accounts”. Napster’s response was basically that they didn’t want to get involved so they locked all the accounts and told us to reinstate them we had to provide our contact information so that we could be properly served.

Which I obviously wasn’t going to do. I have no idea how many people willingly sent them contact info but I would be willing to bet most of them did what I did: set up a new Hotmail. I’m 16 years old in 2000? Who’s going to email me?

So that’s the story of the time I changed my email address to avoid legal culpability. And I still don’t think it’s right to sue people for a song you covered.

So there’s an embarrassing coda to this story of me being a smooth operator at 16, a cyberhacker surfin’ the net with impunity and making copies of Dreamcast games. It did legitimately freak me out to be sued be the band Metallica.

When I set up my new Napster account I used a pseudonym just to be safe and put the agent’s contact info from that part in the musical RENT where she sings it leaving a voicemail. THE THEATER KID PART WAS RELEVANT AFTER ALL!!

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The discourse around the solar eclipse this year has reached a fever pitch with the celestial event expected to take place this afternoon. Conspiracy theories abound. I was told recently that if you are on the “right side” of Tik Tok or Reddit you will be seeing video after video of people discussing all the ways in which the eclipse is going to bring about disaster and even the end-times.

I hadn’t seen a single conspiracy theory about the event, so I decided to do a little searching online. Apparently, I’ve been living in a little bubble of sanity in my little condo in Cambridge MA because when I did some digging, I came across tons of videos of people in a state of hysteria, ranting about impending global doom.

Since you are reading this article now it very likely means none of those conspiracies actually happened. The Rapture ( a Christian myth that says Jesus will return to take the believers in to heaven leaving everyone else in a state of torture) didn’t take place.

The Illuminati didn’t drop a nuclear weapon that wiped out the world. The Singularity didn’t happen.Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster didn’t come out of hiding to join forces with the bugs from Starship Troopers and enact world domination. So now what?

Now everyone who was convinced it was the end, and who tried to convince others are still here. They still have to wake up tomorrow morning and go about their daily business picking up after their dog, brushing their teeth, filing taxes. The reality may be crushingly disappointing for the folks who are so deeply unhappy with their boring lives that they fantasized about an apocalypse. It’s unlikely they will ever acknowledge they were wrong, however.

Harsh reality never stops conspiracy theorists from spreading their wackadoo ideas. If anything, it usually causes them to dig a little deeper into their delusions. If they follow up at all they will just say they had the wrong date and kick the can down the road until the next celestial event. Every time this happens there is a complete lack of accountability. Remember the 2012 Apocalypse that didn’t happen? No one ever admitted they were wrong about those prophecies. They just moved on to the next theory.

There’s a direct link between these kinds of end time prophecies and death cults like Heaven’s Gate, where 39 people participated in a ritual mass suicide in 1997 in the shadow of the Hale-Bopp comet, believing it to be a vehicle for them to transition to heaven.

When people are believers in these kinds of religious systems, they are dangerous to themselves and others. They begin to feel like they have nothing to lose and that their actions may not have real world consequences. I’ve heard of pensioners tipping out hundreds of dollars to servers over the last couple of days because “the end is coming I won’t need money anymore.” It’s great for the servers, but one has to wonder if these deluded people are going to be left destitute once the sun begins to shine again after the brief moments of daytime darkness.

I have a lot of strong feelings about this type of disaster discourse having grown up in a household where conspiracy theories abounded. I’ll never forget prepping for disaster as Y2K approached and the world was supposed to go dark and feral at the stroke of Midnight on December 31st, 2000. My parents listened to a conspiracy based, right wing radio station in Tennessee 24/7 the way a lot of Conservatives listen to Fox News now.

I remember one theory was that there would be a terrorist attack on Sept 9, 1998 where tractor trailers carrying poisonous gas would drive along the interstate system killing anyone who lived nearby. We had an Interstate that ran directly behind where we were living so my anxiety riddled self was terrified. As a sheltered tween I didn’t have the context to understand that these people were speculating for fun and not from a place of secret knowledge.

They get some sort of kick out of spreading fear and chaos to the gullible. Some sort of twisted gratification. They even sometimes convince themselves that what they are saying must be true. That they are conduits to God almighty and He is sending them a secret message to share with other true believers.

It’s easy to find myself wondering what these people get out of spreading rumors of doom and disaster. They must be getting something from it or else why are they wasting their time and making themselves look unhinged? It could be as simple as just the attention that they receive. They get off on having people look to them for answers. They get power in their religious circles from people who are too ignorant to understand the basic science behind the movement of the sun, Earth, and moon. They receive money from people who have no hope for a future–and of course they get views.

The reality of the situation is that we are experiencing a slow-motion (at this point) apocalypse. We are in the beginning stages of climate collapse and people are already being displaced and affected due to the damage humanity has caused to this planet. But its far sexier to say the Rapture is happening at a particular date (believing oneself to be one of the chosen is a smugness like nothing else) than it is to lament what we have callously done to our world with our disregard for the environment and the rest of humanity.

That feeling of doom people are experiencing deep inside that convinces them these theories must be true is real. It’s just internalized climate grief–not Jesus speaking to their spirit. But who wants to face reality? It’s terrifying and bleak and doesn’t give people a chance to be one of the self-satisfied chosen few.

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Something confounding and downright irritating happened in the last week with the Massachusetts is For Lovers Festival. The festival was scheduled to be held in Mansfield at the Xfinity Center on Sept 17^th. Bands such as Alkaline Trio, Rise Against, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Hawthorne Heights, Emery, Bayside, and Silverstein were scheduled to perform in what was sure to be a killer show. I had my tickets and had every intention of attending, even with Hurricane Lee scheduled to potentially hit New England the day before the festival. Nothing was going to stop me –until it did.

I just happened to be on TicketMaster on the Friday before the concert checking on tickets for another show when I saw that the event had been cancelled with refunds promised to be returned within 30 days. There was no reason given on Ticketmaster for the cancellation. I initially assumed it must be related to the hurricane. Then I started getting ads for the very same festival on Facebook, only they said it was being held at the Palladium in Worcester and the line-up was different. Gone was Alkaline Trio, Rise Against, and Bayside. Anyone who wanted to attend the festival had to purchase new tickets for the Worcester location. People in the comments immediately started pointing out that not only were the most popular bands no longer on the ticket, but for some reason ticket prices had increased. Eventually, I got an email from Ticketmaster directly stating that the festival had been canceled and moved to the new venue with a note from Hawthorne Heights saying “Sometimes things don’t go as planned and you must make difficult decisions based on circumstances outside of your control. Cancelling was never an option to us. We know that thousands of you have airplane tickets, hotels, and plans that you’ve made for the festival.”

On Saturday I got a push notification from the Ticketmaster app urging me to upgrade my original ticket to the festival. When I clicked through to see what would happen, I was eventually informed that the event was canceled. That’s one way to get the word out, I suppose. I think it’s very likely that not everyone who had bought tickets was informed of the change of venue. I can only imagine some people showed up in Mansfield on Sunday and were sorely disappointed. The change in line-up was enough to keep me from purchasing new tickets. Why would I pay more for tickets only to not be able to see the bands I really wanted to see? Katie Murphy said on Facebook, “I’m so disappointed. I bought tickets specifically for the bands that are no longer there.”

Buying the replacement tickets apparently came with its own set of issues. The comment sections on the band’s Facebook page are littered with people proclaiming they were getting prompts for passwords to buy tickets. A password that no one had. Who knows how many people were stymied from getting their replacement tickets by this technical glitch? There was also a 4-ticket minimum to get tickets for the seats in the mezzanine. Not everyone can stand in general admission for an entire festival, so this move may have had a chilling effect on ticket sales. There was mass confusion online with people seeing that the show was canceled but not seeing that it had been rescheduled. Meghan McCabe asked “Where are you guys getting the info that it was moved to the Palladium? Nothing shows up on the Palladium’s website and Live Nation just says it was canceled.” People complained that because it was potentially going to take 30 days for their refunds to process, they wouldn’t be able to afford the more expensive tickets for The Palladium. The entire situation was a bit of a dumpster fire with unhappy would-be concertgoers turning to Facebook comment sections, Instagram, and X (Twitter) to complain about how disappointed they were. Rise Against came out with a statement saying the show had been canceled due to low ticket sales and “some of the other bands will play an abridged version of the fest at an alternate venue nearby.”  The comments on this post are full of salty tears with Sean Dion shouting virtually “ PLAY THE ALTERNATE VENUE! Cancelling seems to be your favorite flavor this last year or so.” It seemed like at the end of the day no one was very happy with how the situation turned out. I know I sure wasn’t.

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Along with Christmas/New Year’s Eve we now seem to have another widely celebrated holiday tradition – Spotify Unwrapped. Yes, the streaming giant welcomes artists (and everyone else) to share the annual streaming numbers and the overwhelming joy of spending a year on the platform. While typically a celebratory event, this year’s SU came loaded with an unusually high amount of criticism of its creator. Let us try to analyze why / throw 5 more cents into this debate.

As per Wiki, Spotify started out in 2006 – flash forward to 2021 and Forbes puts its co-founder’s Daniel Ek net wealth at astounding 4 billion (!!!) dollars. Ek also made it into 2012 “30 under 30” by Forbes, among many other accomplishments.

Hidden beneath all those impressive numbers / achievements is a burning question:

How much of Spotify’s earnings goes to musicians, especially independent ones? 

Its a tricky question and the answer almost always depends on who you ask. Daniel Ek himself recently provided an answer on Twitter, albeit the one I found a tad lazy/generic:

I guess that depends on the definition… ~70c/$1 or $23bn total payouts as of 2020 to the music industry. That’s about 1/5th of the entire recorded music industry. https://t.co/ZVuiChSAyH

— Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) November 20, 2021

Equating music industry with artists makes no sense as it leaves out a wide swath of unsigned artists / those existing outside of traditional music business system. Even pre-streaming there’s a well documented history of artists getting in spats with major labels over mistreatment – from superstars like George Michael to Prince to casualties of grunge signing bonanza like Melvins. “Laughing with Lucifer at Satan’s Sideshow” off of 1997 Honky LP is a collage of Atlantic Records (aka the label that dropped Melvins year prior) executives talking down to the band

Furthermore, according to Consequence of Sound major labels (namely Sony, Vivendi and WMG) make million dollars an hour from streaming. Undoubtedly these are the same 3 labels that back in early two thousands were up in arms against Napster, Limewire and then-growing army of p2p platforms (with bands like Metallica joining the chorus/birthing a meme)

That same chorus was mostly low in volume in recent years (with Thom Yorke and Nicky Minaj proving to be exceptions). In a surprising turn of events the more recent criticism of Spotify came from Rashida Tlaib, a politician who also voiced her support for Union of Musicians and Allied Workers

In all the #SpotifyWrapped commotion, let’s not forget that while streaming services like @Spotify rake in billions, music artists are struggling to make ends meet. Watch my #JusticeAtSpotify roundtable with four @UMAW_ members fighting for change here: https://t.co/Is9pRk2nCL. pic.twitter.com/yYWz5gsULo

— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) December 3, 2021

And on the other side we got this off-the-wall take from UK band Sleaford Mods (who have a long history of similar/divisive takes/being roasted for the said takes). Prepare for a bit of a coarse language ahead….

Oh shut up about Spotify, ffs. Edgy wankers. It’s here. You can’t do anything about it. It’s grim, but what fuckin isn’t. We all use it. It’s handy. I don’t care about plays really. Artists that do are mostly diluted tossers with no tunes. Who gives a fuck.

— Sleaford Mods (@sleafordmods) December 2, 2021

I’d say this tweet is a little bit more than what it seems on the surface. I was initially as angered by it as most of the people replying, but here’s where I would side with SM – artists shouldn’t blamed for using it in the first place.

It is way too easy to get sucked into an argument that artists sealed their fate by giving music away and blamed Spotify when they saw no returns on investments. The issue is a little bit more complex than that and saying “get off the Spotify” / “switch to Bandcamp” can only accomplish so much

Yep. Seems that the problem of “fair payment for musicians” is far too complex to solve than continually saying “spend more money on Bandcamp” or “get off Spotify” https://t.co/YkUfaTL77F

— Andrew Tasselmyer (@atasselmyer) December 7, 2021

As a culture we need to relearn how to listen – and I’m not just talking about music/records. Its the voices of independent artists that often sound the loudest when it comes to criticism of Spotify/streaming services, be it Damon Krukowski with his excellent Dada Drummer Almanach newsletter or The Anchoress – pay attention to those rather than statements by Warner Bros. or Daniel Ek.

Start a blog, start a zine, start a radio show and give a voice to those that deserve it. Keep the pressure up.

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Maybe to Twitter/social media, but when it comes to people who are barely familiar with that environment…it gets a bit more complicated. I’d like to bring up one particular incident that happened on the flight back home from Big Ears Festival as a proof.

On the said flight I sat next to a gentleman whose name I didn’t catch and our conversation, slow and quiet at first, eventually gained steam and went in all sorts of strange directions. Lets say that some of the topics included inability to sit through events without drinking and…Billy Joel’s performance at Fenway Park. There was also my invite to visit IHN, accompanied by the approximate numbers of followers we got (not the best sales pitch, admittedly).

It was, perhaps, the latter, combined with a demonstration of a t-shirt bearing IHN’s logo, that led to my companion noting that no one will recognize us in the said shirt. This was followed by awkward silence, followed by my assertion that we were, indeed, recognized as a blog at another fest, followed by even more awkward silence. The conversation ended the way it began with much of the fire keeping it alive petering out just as the plane began to land.

Loopy as this whole conversation seemed, it also prompted some soul-searching. What do strangers that barely visit Twitter (or are absent from social media altogether) make of those of us that see the network/social media as being of some importance to our daily lives?

Inevitably, the capital N letter emerges – we want to be big stars. We want to be recognized. We badly want our 15 minutes of fame and we sometimes get them.

This isn’t completely without merit, but also clashes deeply with the idea that interaction is at the core of what we do on social media. Not only that, but also we, as a blog, are deeply invested into spreading the wealth, so to speak, to others – musicians/record labels/visual artists and on and on.

In a similar fashion I find that aforementioned Twitter threads both show how easy it is to misinterpret the social media metrics – this time we’re not talking strangers on the planes, but record labels, venues/clubs and book publishers (i.e. anyone that actually pulls the levers and makes decisions). The consequences of decisions made through blind faith in social media can often be disastrous. 

Its not that social media metrics such as likes and followers are utterly useless (they did helped us to run the label, after all), but they’re also poor predictors of book sales or show/concert attendance since its also the engagement that counts. Sure, there’s Needle Drop who have a massive and devoted online following which, over the years,  converted into an offline one. More often that not, however, the online following will remain solely online and that is perfectly fine too.

Call me naïve, but I think there’s something incredibly pure about things we cherish in this (relatively) small circle of ours. Whether they reach millions is irrelevant as long as they reach someone and it makes a change in their lives. Its even more exciting to team up with another blog or a Youtube channel and spread that message further.

Sure, there will always be doubters and haters, but that goes for nearly anyone that ever tried their hand any kind of creative work. The question we should ask ourselves when it comes to music/books/writing is not “how many copies sold” (which streaming mostly rendered irrelevant anyway), but “do I personally like it?” and asking the latter is a way to ensure that we’re on a better path to understanding just what social media and accompanying metrics should be about instead of what they’re often (and often erroneously) perceived to be.

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I don’t understand how anyone is signed, how anyone gets coverage, or how anyone succeeds.

TikTok dominates label marketing conversations, but some digitally savvy acts are having more success seeding their music through Instagram memes – Rolling Stone

The most likely way to get signed/get coverage/succeed nowadays is to memetize your creation (better yet have someone else memetize it). Music business (just like any other business) largely moved away from actual people (aka A&R) being involved in the process and letting the algorithms decide (cough cough Spotify). Yes, there is a handful of great indie labels where people still make decisions, but we’re definitely not talking anyone the critical size/weight of 4AD here – think someone like Washington’s Verses Records or LA’s Doom Trip instead.

I more just want to express, and re-express ad infinity, my genuine and earnest lack of comprehension why some bands get signed by mega-indie labels and covered by all the same sites, while other acts like Slum of Legs or Nuha Ruby Ra or Chronophage or Ganser or Desperate Journalist or Big Joanie or any number of bands that, to my ears, work the same territory just as well, get barely any coverage or signings (at least in comparison)?

Keyword seem to be randomness – yes, a lot more of it these days and, again, I’m looking at the influence of algorithms/memes here. Counterpoint – “its not longer the 90s and you can have a career in music by working hard”.

Why, yes – no one is denying the importance of hard work, but hard work by itself can only get you so far. While its true that music business was always super competitive (as evident from Decline of Western Civilization, Part 2), by now the competitiveness also seem to go hand in hand with increased randomness as to who goes into the next round/gets a glowing Pitchfork/Needle Drop review and who remains underground for eternity (lauded as they might be). There’s only so much space at the top and the said space seem to be shrinking constantly thanks to increasing automation of modern business/world at large.

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Some thoughts on the situation surrounding an institution that is Great Scott Allston – courtesy of our friend/associate Radiomancy Museum.

Live videos by The Mystery / Ka Baird / Body/Head and Violet Nox. 

I have thoughts and opinions on the latest goings-on re: Great Scott in Allston. Some are positive and some are negative. Please bear with me on this. 

The first thing we need to establish is that the Allston many of us know and love is dead. It died a long time ago. Somewhere around when OB’s stopped letting you smoke in the back alley. You can’t buy loosies at the Superette anymore, Rugg Rd is demolished, you can’t argue with Yolanda at Diskovery about how the millionth-press Rubber Soul album she has on the wall ISN’T worth $100. Mr. Butch is dead. That era is gone.

The neighborhood has completely changed, which is fine this is what cities do! Great Scott was one of the last vestiges of the Allston of yore. Now, I’m not sure what is sadder, the fact that the landlord pushed them out the door, or the fact that people thought it could be saved. Look at that building and where it sits.

I knew a guy, who was a musician, that lived in an apartment in that building and said it was basically as loud as being in the Great Scott bathroom in his apartment. Every night. Who wants to live like that? People paying reduced rent that’s who. No doubt the landlord wants to capitalize on the location and get max rent for the aparts and keep a business on the first floor also paying top rent.

So I can’t say I was surprised by the landlord‘s moves to basically present them with an unsignable lease right when the pandemic started. Anyone who thinks these leeches care about keeping the space occupied or the fabric of the neighborhood plz see what happened to Marty’s …right across the street in 2008. The landlord tripled the rent during an economic collapse on the one place guaranteed to stay in business and paying their rent, then let the building sit unoccupied for YEARS (plural). They. Don’t. Care.

Thinking that the mayor or anyone else is going to exert influence over a landlord to keep a cultural gathering place open is also folly. Politicians only care about money and power. Marty Walsh could give a hateful jizz about a rock club in the college ghetto.

So, enough with the bad vibes here come the good ones. As an old nihilist crank I am BEYOND impressed with the fact that the community raised 200 FUCKIN THOUSAND DOLLARS to save the place. Clubs and restaurants are closing all over the country. Has anyone else done this?

The wretched hive of scum and villainy that milled about smoking cigs on Harvard & Comm emptied their pockets and turned in their Marlboro miles for $200k to save our favorite hangout. That should be the highlight of all this. It’s unreal IMO.

So now what? The landlords aren’t going to let GS carry on it seems. Well, to me THATS FINE. It could be reborn stronger and better. The staff and bookers there are amazing. The sound / sound people are great. All that can move.

With this pandemic gearing ip for round 2, when are places like that going to open again anyways? A year from now? 2 years? We’ve not yet begun to see the economic fallout from this yet. Every day I wake up and another restaurant or bar has closed for good.

Once rare Boston liquor licences are going to be littering the sidewalk soon. As more people make perma-shifts to working from home, Commercial real estate will become more available, maybe an outside chance of becoming more affordable too. Who knows?! Nothing is certain.

All I know is, the passionate crew trying to keep Great Scott alive need to keep going, pick your moment, and strike when the iron is hot! There will be an opportunity to secure a location just as good if not better to create the kind of space Great Scott was!

I believe they will push ahead and do just that. This situation just illustrates what can be done if folks ORGANIZE behind something they believe in, even a beer soaked concert hall. Having $200k available to seize the opportunity is an enviable position to be in!

In closing I am extremely proud of everyone that’s been pushing and organizing and donating and writing letters for this cause. I  this city and the scenes within it. This one isn’t going to die because it lost a building. Lets keep pushing! See you hep cats on the other side!

The post Hear Ye, Hear Ye! // Radiomancy Museum on Great Scott appeared first on I Heart Noise.

This September marks an important milestone – a year age Pitchfork published its exposé of tape labels that get their graphic design right. Here’s a sorely needed update of that article with our own picks of 5 more labels that got their design/art right.

Eggs in Aspic

In last year’s interview with Echoes and Dust Andrew Fenwick, head honcho of this young UK label, explained how his approach to design is radically different from others

There are some great labels out their that have a definite design aesthetic running through their catalog (Astral Spirits, A Giant Fern, Never Anything etc.) and I’m a big fan of that, but I actually tend to treat each release as a unique entity so the concept for the artwork is essentially a separate creative process for each. The artwork for Grotto was created by Belgium’s mighty Robin Van Oyen and we’re working with some other great graphic designers on the upcoming releases. The plan is to build a collective of like-minded contributors.

Its been nearly a year since the interview and the label clearly kept its word – it now boasts more than 10 releases from bands spanning the globe and the artwork is as unique as the music contained within. Some of the recent contributors/artists include Rhys Bloodjoy associate Rogue Bear and Graeme “Grassy” Hopper, musician and visual artist who worked with Field Music and Mogwai/Rock Action Records.

Many of the labels releases come with special inserts inside including pin badges, printouts of lyrics and candy of different flavors (licorice, Bubs Swedish raspberry, pink and white mice).

Dinzu Artefacts 

Joe McKay is one busy man – not only he’s a sound artist (recording under the nom de plume Monte Burrows), but also a visual one (his artwork graced releases by Arts & Crafts / Geweih Ritual Documents). Joe started Spring Break Tapes in 2011 and DA was born as an offshoot of that label in 2016.

Dinzu Artefacts motto is “Sound as an art form” and on his website Joe describes the process of tape artwork creation as “always a fun and challenging process trying to find the right imagery to fit the artist’s music”.
Art on DA releases is mostly done by Joe, although the label also employed help of contributing artists including Paulina Okninska (who also worked with Wounded Knife, Jasien and Bolt labels) Simon Christoph Krenn and Eirik Steinsrud.

Cabin Floor Esoterica

Established in 2009, this small Ohio label run by Jordan Spencer is still running strong as of 2017. CFE is known as much for its devotion to strange sounds, obscure artists and (occasionally extremely) limited edition tape runs as it is for its visual identity.
To wit – Melted Morton tape from 2011 features no case, while countless other tapes come with all inserts ranging from dry fern to feather tassels to rusted screws. There’s also a heavy emphasis on photography and abstract collages – a subtle reminder of Painted Door Press, Joe’s other venture dedicated to poetry and written stories.

Never Anything

As NA founder Jeff Lane (who also records under the name Tereshkova) explains in his interview with Tabs Out, the label and its visual aesthetic are inseparable:

“Clay Mahn did the artwork and decided on the template for the first batch. He’s the engineer of our aesthetic. We talked a lot about the look of the tapes, and from the beginning, we knew we wanted a strong, fairly minimal design that continued from batch to batch and also allowed for variation while still remaining within our established visual context.”

Where other labels employ photography or collage NA’s visual focus is pure minimalism and abstract patterns/shapes with design direction being influenced by a German label Wergo Records.

Already Dead Tapes and Records

With a whopping 264 releases since their inception in 2009, AD have honed a unique design standard simply by, in the words of label founder Josh Tabbia, “avoiding routine. I do this as much for the design aspect as the community and music, and I love coming up with new ways to house cassettes and interpret the format. If I design several ‘non-traditional’ packages in a row I get just as board with that as if I were doing j-cards all the time. Design wise, I want the label to embody diversity and variety from release to release.”
Some of the more interesting design choices have included stamped brown paper bags (for Anybody But The Cops’ “The Shape of Punk To-Go”) to a totally see-through tape and O-card printing (for Matthew Dotson’s Revolution/Circumvention”). The ‘standard’ AD design is also of note, with a unique spine indicator a la library cataloging, and non-uniform tape color and labeling work.

Honorable Mentions

The post The Art of Cassettes: 5 More Tape Labels That Get It Right appeared first on I Heart Noise.