Label Love: Let's Talk About Record Labels

[Brett]

While not my only source for discovering new music, I've realized in the last several years that I have found small labels to be a primary resource in the pursuit of sound. Sometimes devoted to certain genre niches, sometimes vanity collections, sometimes the centerpiece of a musical community, for my own listening habits, the label is a vital piece of the puzzle. With that said, this thread is a place to talk about record labels. Do they serve a similar purpose for anyone else? Are they relevant in the current era of the internet? Any personal experiences? All that discussion and more is the aim of this thread.

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To no one's surprise, I'll kick things off with talking about Constellation Records (http://cstrecords.com/), my favorite label. Founded in 1997, still based in Montreal, run by Don Wilkie and Ian Ilavsky with a growing staff of helpers, Constellation put out an average of five to seven releases per year. To my ears, that small amount is representative of a commitment to quality, and makes any given year an easier one to manage in among all of life's other happenings.

I discovered Constellation around 2005, at the time that I was getting into three of their best known artists, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Do Make Say Think, and Thee Silver Mt. Zion. Through mining the catalog (I've heard every release except the B-side of The Dead Science's "Throne of Blood" single), they've become known as the home for many of my now favorite artists. With about 125 releases (there are a couple slots in the catalog that are empty due to cancelled or unfinished albums), their output has a broad span, encompassing experimental rock, contemporary composition, drone, various strains of electronic, idiosyncratic styles of pop and folk singer-songwriters, brushes with jazz, etc. - more than just the post-rock they're typically known for.

In the last couple of years, I feel like their release lineups have been a little weaker than in the past. I'm not sure how much of that is on my changing taste preferences, or more on the label's refinement of exactly what they're interested in representing themselves as. I still enjoy the majority of their music, just maybe a little more cautiously than in the past.

[VinylGuy]

I love Sub Pop of course...Their bands, their image, their humor...i just love them. Of course Dischord is another one i adore...Ipecac too.

[Simple Torture]

Huge fan of Secretly Canadian, who puts a lot of care and attention into their releases. Even though he started on Sub Pop, Damien Jurado has put out some wonderful material with them, and they keep most of it in print. The War on Drugs started with them, and I was very sad to see that they've moved on to a major label (but best of luck to them). And then, of course, there's Jason Molina, who was with them from SC02 right up until the end of his life. Since his death they've done a very respectful job with his catalogue, I think: no quick re-releases to make a buck (instead, they streamed his entire catalogue for free for a few months), and the re-releases they've put out since then have been carefully curated. Always willing to send them my money.

[Brett]

I'm on Secretly Canadian's mailing list, as I've bought a few things from them in the past. Their parent company/distributor, Secretly Distribution, is also Constellation's North American distributor, as well as another label I casually follow, Temporary Residence.

[tragabigzanda]

[Brett]

I don't know much about them, just some basics. Secretly's resources page where they have promo material for upcoming releases from their labels is a great little tool, and occasionally one can get the scoop on upcoming stuff before the labels themselves announce it.

[verb_to_trust]

Saddle Creek seems like one of the good guys.

[Simple Torture]

Dead Oceans is another good label that Secretly distributes. There's some good material in the new Jason Molina biography about the founding of SC, if anyone's interested.

[BurtReynolds]

I listen to Candyrat from time to time when I want to get my fancy instrumental guitar groove on.

and https://newretrowave.com/ for all my retrowave needs.

[tragabigzanda]

Top 10 maybe?
Hello Morning
Close Captioned
The Kill
Place/Position
Do You Like Me?
Latest Disgrace
Recap Modotti
Nightshop
Break
Life & Limb

I'd maybe bump Life & Limb for Epic Problem

[Jammer XCI]

Nuclear Blast

[VinylGuy]

Good call about Interscope...they are cool...And SST. Can you tell a little bit more about Drag City´s owner?

[Simple Torture]

I order from Drag City a lot and never have any serious issues--and when I have had some weird things happen, their customer service has been excellent. I ordered an OOP Bill Callahan LP that showed up on their site one day, and got an e-mail a few hours later saying it was an error. Then, a few hours after that, same guy e-mailed me back and said he dug around in the warehouse and found a copy for me.

The only two things that slightly irk me: they never include tracking information on their orders, which is weird since that's free now. The other is that there's no Drag City music on any streaming services, and they've made very clear that that has to do with their beliefs in artist compensation (which I understand better than the whole tracking number thing).

[tragabigzanda]

[E.H. Ruddock]

Waveform Records

[VinylGuy]

I see.

Its a really cool concept though....the whole, "yeah i have it here and ill send it"....well Third Man Record needs to be mentioned here of course. Their vinyl are pretty cool.

And Trag, yeah Loosegroove was cool. Weapon Of Choice was great, and the first QOTSA is a classic.

[surfndestroy]

I'm going to add Nyhla Records to the list. A small Vancouver, BC based label that had the foresight to sign my kid's band. They give artists a really good cut of the money and are almost as interested in bands long term (which is not with them) as they are in their own short term. Having a label that is willing to work with artists that haven't even played a single show has been a boon for most of the people on their roster.

[Brett]

That's a nice extensive list you've got there, Trag. I'm familiar with many of the names, but less so on the details of their rosters and ethos. And then there's several I've never heard of. Lots of places to dip a toe in, here and there.

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Next of my favorites: Thanks to Constellation, I'm a fan of Eric Chenaux, who has put out five albums on the label, each an increasingly exploratory take on the singer-songwriter role with roots in folk and jazz. Thus, it was only a matter of time before I discovered the label that he ran with composer Martin Arnold from 2002-2012, Rat-Drifting (http://rat-drifting.com/). As with Constellation, I've listened to everything the label has released, though with only 22 albums in the catalog, it's a fair bit less of an undertaking if one were to pursue it. Moreso than Constellation, there's also a loose 'familial' structure to the roster, with a sort of core group of artists who make up the majority of the ensembles and appear repeatedly throughout the catalog - Chenaux, Arnold, Ryan Driver, Doug Tielli, Rob Clutton, Nick Fraser, etc.

To give a vague, and probably insufficient, summation of what they're all about: finding ways to make music that bends, breaks, and/or casually discards traditional form and idioms, all while still paying respect to those same. So, for example, there is The Silt, perhaps the most typically 'listenable' artist on the lineup, making '60s and '70s style folk-rock and country songs that get distended by an equal interest in psychedelic music and lounge jazz. And on the extreme is Josh Thorpe's Flocklight which takes the tunes to a Shaggs song and a Tom Waits song and then radically mutates them into an hour of entirely new music through a variety of re-scoring methods.

[tragabigzanda]

[bodysnatcher]

My big ones as of late are Temporary Residence, Silent Season, Hardly Art, Fat Possum. I've also been really big into archival labels lately, like Light In The Attic and Numero Group

I've always found that browsing label rosters has been one of the bigger music discovery vehicles for me in the past. I love latching onto a label and just weaving my way through their lineups.