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A Digital Debacle

The seemingly insurmountable challenges facing independent labels was made all the more clearer to me this week after a conversation with a techno label owner. The manager, who shall remain nameless at his own request, is a well-known figure in electronic music and, after some deliberation, recently set up a label. The first release was by an upcoming techno producer and was originally released on vinyl only. While the first pressing of 500 copies sold out, the label owner decided to make the release available digitally on all the major platforms. Within a day or two, the problems started. During a cursory net search to make sure that the record had been released digitally on the agreed date (it was), he decided to Google the release using the terms "artist name, release name, download". Let's hand over to the label owner himself to explain what happened next...

"Up sprang over 6,500 results, so I was surprised! But soon after that I got very angry because after searching the first 10 result pages, it was clear that the release was available to download for free, in high quality formats. What pissed me off the most was that nearly all of the places where you could get the release for free were dressed up as fan blogs. Some of them had nice designs, techno-style names, and a few of them even had posted the blurb from places like Boomkat to make it look like they had included some editorial..."

On the other hand, the more garish sites, according to our label man, were looking for donations from users and were full of ads. However, all of the sites, both the credible blogs and the dodgier looking ones, claimed that the music should be downloaded for 'evaluation' purposes only, and, rather ridiculously, given that they were engaged in a wholesale scam, urged users to support the artists by buying a copy of the release. The fact that this request was made right beside a free, illegal download link to a high-quality digital format didn't seem to worry them at all. Indeed, the problem our label owner faced was that countless blogs had linked to downloads provided by third-party upload/download services (I'm not going to mention which ones), meaning that the availability of the release wasn't confined to a few sites, but had widened, within a day of the legal digital release, to hundreds of sites. Of course, the argument could go that the music is of a specialist nature and that as a result of illegal downloading, the label will only miss out on a handful of digital sales. Back to the label owner, who clearly disagrees with this sentiment.

"The release had already been downloaded over 200 times by the time I discovered one of the links and on some of the sites, close to a thousand users had looked at the download. It doesn't mean that they all downloaded the files, but it gave me an idea that the release had been downloaded a lot. I have never been a big downloader myself, so this really shocked me."

Thankfully, our label man acted quickly and decisively; he sent out warning emails to sites that had email addresses or contact forms and within a few hours, half the illegal links had disappeared. While he has now contacted services like Blogger to get rid of the other links - as many of them are still available on blogs -  he was amazed by the lack of realisation among site owners that what they were doing was illegal, morally wrong and financially damaging for a small label...

"The crazy thing was, when I emailed some of the fan sites to take down the links, some of them emailed back to apologise and then one or two said 'hey man, that's a great release by the way'. So I replied with, 'well thanks very much, but if you think it's so good, maybe you could go and buy a copy of the release and support the artist and my label so it doesn't go out of business'. There was no reply after this..."

The net effect of this incident is that the label is now considering only releasing music on vinyl from now on -  apparently a Google search at the time of the vinyl release yielded only links to news, reviews, notifications and online stores -  because it's more complicated to rip MP3s from vinyl to buy a digital copy and disperse it. I hope that this is not the outcome because it's a promising label and it would be great for the most amount of people possible to hear/play it. Of course, the incident also raises questions as to whether the electronic music community, which would include sites like Beatport, Junodownload, Bleep, Boomkat -  who are also losing out from this behaviour - should set up a 'digital police force' to clamp down on digital piracy. Or maybe we'll just see more labels releasing on vinyl only from now on?

September Selection

Autumn is on the way and I've just completed a new mix, featuring some new, newish and one pretty old record. Recorded in the usual way, vinyl only and on a Gemini mixer that has seen better days. Here's the tracklisting

1. Kassem Mosse: 8 (Workshop)
2. Neville Watson: Up Yours (Jack for Daze)
3. Patrice Scott: Excursions (Sistrum)
4. Hydronaut vs Morgan Geist: Re-version (Geist remix) (Aquarhythms)
5.Paul Du Lac: Kira (Clone)
6. Alex Cortex: Discola (Kahlwild)
7. Sascha Rydell: Unhasty (Fachwerk)
8. Pepe Braddock: Path of most Resistance (Avatisme)
9. Chicago Skyway: Heavens (MOS)
10. Quince; For My Mr (Sterac remix) (Delsin)
11. Delano Smith: Synergy (Third Ear)
12. Mutant Beat feat Eric Clark: In A Daze (Disco Copablancas)
13. Saturn V: Come into my Life (Spectral)
14. Fanon Flowers: Kush Drums (Studio Sound)
15. X2: Time Elevation Rhythm (Relief)
16. 2AM/FM: Electronic Justice (Spectral)
17. Arnold Jarvis: Take Some Time Out (Basic Soul Unit remix) (Creme)
18. Seldom Felt: 3 (Seldom Felt)
19. Frozen Border 3 (Frozen Border)
20.Horizontal Ground: 1 (Horizontal Ground)
21. Pendle Coven: Uncivil Engineering (Modern Love)

Redshaping Up

I had written off the album as a format a while back, but it's showing remarkable resilience this year. Indeed, 2009 has been a pretty good year for albums, with impressive works coming from Demdike Stare and Pendle Coven (Miles has been a busy man!), Legion of Two, Boxcutter,Black Dog, Bodycode, Arne Weinberg, Lawrence, Black Devil Disco Club, Planetary Assault Systems, Ben Klock, Tokyo Black Star, Hell and the 'Minimal Nation' reissue. Redshape also releases his debut album, 'The Dance Paradox' on Delsin this month and it lives up to expectations. While Redshape has rather wisely decided to vary his sound and not just drop dance floor jams -  check the white noise ambience and falling down the stairs drums of 'Rohrschach's Game' and the gradually unfolding, tripped out closer 'Dark & Sticky' - there can be no doubt about who produced 'Paradox'. Right from the get go, when the hissing static on opener 'Seduce Me' gives way to those austere drums and eerie riffs underpinned by a warm, squelchy bass a la 'Misc Usage', it's obviosuly Redshape. Still, there are concessions to other approaches; the sirens and cacophony of noise that accompanies the scuffled beats on 'Sounds of the Street' almost mask (no pun intended) the track's warm, jazzy timbre, while 'Dead Space', my favourite track, sees Redshape go back further in time than usual, merging the prowling basslines of Pennington/May with the steely Sheffield techno of Nexus 21, resulting in a sleek yet eerie track. Those who love Redshape tracks like 'Blood into Dust' won't be disappointed either, as 'Bound' uses the kind of dramatic, nightmarish synth  that old Space DJz records used to be full of - in this instance, it's deployed at a slower tempo, backed by a buzzing, muddy bass -  while the producer's deeper side is also effortlessly represented with the gloriously melodic 'Man out of Time' and 'Globe'. The only complaint I have is that at eight tracks, 'Paradox' is a bit too short, but despite this, it's probably my favourite album this year. Watch out for debut long players from Juju & Jordash and Cio D'or over the coming weeks too...

A Fair Deal

Yo yo, just a quick heads up for anyone who is in Dublin over the weekend -  I'll have a stall at records at Bodytonic's record fair at the Bernard Shaw -  details are here I didn't get a chance to type a list, mainly because I have about 500-600 records up for grabs, but the bulk of them are of the house music variety, including releases on 20/20 Vision, Paper, Innervisions etc etc. There are a few rarities, some old school Chicago stuff, plus a decent smattering of newer electro and techno, double copies of releases etc. I'm sure there's something there for evertone. Anyway, doors are at 2pm and it's free in...

Fascinating Rhythms

I didn't think that he would be able to better 'Blood of our Kings', but Silent Servant's latest release on Sandwell District, 'Negative Fascinations' is, to paraphrase a release on the label, a superior animal (although I have yet to check Mendez' Tropic of Cancer project on Downwards). There's an eerie undercurrent at play on this record, a characteristic that may not have been as prevalent on previous Mendez releases, but whatever the explanation, both 'Discipline' and  'Demonstration' are, as the title suggests, fascinating. 'Discipline' is based on heavy, almost claustrophobic drums, which Mendez uses to introduce a succession of cold robot bleeps a la Sahko/Sleeparchive and an eerie soundscape that seems to float in the ether. 'Discipline' is more straightforward, with thunderous claps powering an upfront, dense rhythm from the get-go and a doomy chord tapestry, not entirely dissimilar from the one used on 'Kings', gradually joining the arrangement and providing the lingering finale after the beats have faded. There has been some criticism that Sandwell's releases are merely updating the sound pioneered by Sahko, but one listen to 'Negative Fascinations' should be enough to dispel these claims. The label has finally embraced the online world, but in a typically bloody-minded way; avoiding the dubious delights of MySpace, it settled for a visual/video-type blog, Where Next

Infinite Then

Planet E was a very different label when Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald released 'Infinition' back in 1993 as Quadrant. Instead of hosting the kind of epic neo-Detroit jams that it does nowadays, at the time Carl Craig's label was concerned more with his 69 project, which swung from off the wall electronics to slamming techno, in nurturing the hypno house of his fledgling Paperclip People guise or releasing the steely rhythms of Clark's 'Lofthouse'. Quadrant saw the German duo lend a restrained, aloof touch to proceedings. 'Hyperprism' is a beautiful deep piece of music, floaty spacey chords changing gently, accompanied by a warbling, vaguely acidic bass and crisp steely drums. Although the drums build, hissing hats are added and the bass gets meaner along the way, the overall feeling is dreamy, deep and spaced out. This approach continues  on 'Synthetic Chord Battle', where, more bizarrely, they seem intent on emulating 70s German electronic acts like Tangerine Dream. However, the title track has no such airs and graces. Powered by an insistent, pulsing bass and a hail of snare drums, the track features a gloriously austere yet tranced out chord sequence, that arcs and dips, unmistakably evocative and warm, but with a sinister undercurrent. In short, 'Infinition' is unparalled moody techno. The original pressing goes for up to 75 dollars on Discogs - I was surprised that sellers were asking up to 40 dollars for the 1996 blue vinyl repress I own -  but hopefully Carl Craig will do the decent thing, repress 'Infinition' and sell it at a reasonable price.

A Match Made in Vienna

Here's a short note about one of the most interesting collaborative releases this year (or any other); the good folk at Pomelo have managed to hook up DJ Stingray with Alex Cortex for a joint remix project. Available on vinyl this week, 'Null Physics/Soliton' sees Sherard Ingram rework Cortex's peak time  'Null Physics' into a moody Detroit affair while Cortex adds an amen break and high-octane techno beats to Stingray's 'Soliton'. Apparenty they have been fans of each other's work for a while - which begs the question; will we see more remix swap projects and if so, what artists would complement one another?

Crisis, what crisis?

We all know about the effect the global recession is having on wider economies, but what's it doing to music? Listening to news about plummeting shares and dodgy banks hardly sounds as bad if you have been involved with music for the past decade, a time that has seen the industry in continuous freefall. In fact, it wouldn't be unreasonable to posit that music has had far more time to prepare for a wider slump than other industries. Sure, sales are low, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it isn't getting any worse, and while record stores continue to close, the consolidated, established shops -  both physical and digital - look robust, unlikely to disappear anytime soon. So while people are still buying music, albeit in a more considered manner, making sure that each purchase is something they really want as opposed to an item their credit card allows them to own - a shift in behaviour that can only be welcomed - are they still going out? Judging on the ongoing success of specialist festivals and events, it would seem so. Bloc, Sonar and Mutek were very busy if not full -  in Bloc's case it was sold out - while new events also did well. Unlike the wider festival scene, where there have been event cancellations and poor attendances, niche electronic events continue to perform well, possibly due to the allure of foreign travel coupled with specialist line-ups. Hopefully the recession will also be positive for music production; some of those who are unfortunate enough not to have the finances to go out may find themselves finally returning to their studio to make the masterpiece that has been put on the long finger, while local governments may see sense and hand over the vacant office spaces in many city centres for artistic use at knockdown rents. Come to think of it, the recession could be the best thing that happened to techno in the past decade...

Buzz Off!

Is it just me or is anyone else getting a few emails a day from Buzzin' Fly to take part in competitions, participate in marketing campaigns or to buy banner ad space on their website? I thought that Buzzin' Fly was a London house music label - since when has it morphed into an (annoying) marketing and promotion agency? I realise that times are hard, especially for independent labels, and that they are being constantly and rightly advised to diversify to survive, but surely they're taking this strategy a bit too far. Yes, start a DJ booking agency, sell T-shirts or take a leaf out of Innervisions' book and set up a music club for subscribers, but loads of unsolicited emails a day about marketing is a bit much. Now please, Buzz Off!

Deafening Noises

Is it just me or is the line-up for this year's DEAF festival in Dublin excellent? In previous years, the organisers have focused a lot of their efforts on cultivating a strong visual/installation/exhibition identity for the festival while also coming up with some inspired headlining acts, eg Model 500 last year and Undeground Resistance performing live a few years back. This year, the event, which is spread over two weekends between October 21st and 31st, has secured a ridiculous amount of house and techno acts. While it would be unfair to say that it's a case of "fuck art, let's dance", the line-up is really impressive  - take your pick from Planetary Assault Systems; Ancient Methods; Aux 88; Cristian Vogel; Surgeon; Hardfloor; Like a Tim; Mark Broom; Chris Clark; Tim Exile; Modeselektor; Jus' Ed; Tony Lionni and many more. Check the DEAF website for more details..