From what I can gather, the first wave of netlabels were created primarily by the producers of electronic music. This association is changing, however, as the Great Lakes area is on its way to offering up a diverse range of netlabel content. Still into that crazy tracker scene? Don't worry, that's out there too. Increasingly though, netlabels aren't sticking to just one genre, while others take up a regional focus. I'm hoping this catches on.
Let's back up a moment, for those who are unaware, just as I was until about a month ago. This is when I read a bulletin post from a friend, Jake Hildreth, of
Surrent, promoting his newest release on the Northwest Ohio netabel
Modicum of Silence.
Artwork for Surrent release Harmonic A A little research led to an a-ha moment. "So that's what's going on over at Cornslaw Industries. They're a netlabel too!" Actually, they're a net.label, currently in Toledo, whose website is undergoing a bit of construction (they like the little period). Cornslaw is uploading some lo-fi, experimental, and a bunch of other stuff that wasn't on the internet before.
Apparent band photo for Cornslaw recording artists 10000000 AD, taken from their myspace page
Netlabels are online record labels who offer their content digitally, for free download, accompanied by the copyright considerations that go along with a Creative Commons license. This is commonly designated by a rendition of the logo below (depending on use):
Cornslaw Industries describes it well:
"The “songs,” the written stuff–the art, the creation, the “property”–remains in the ownership and control of the original creator (interpret that as the recording artist, the songwriter, the covered artist, god, whatever), but the 1s & 0s are yours to do with what you want."
Why offer up your heart and soul, your baby, your "property," for free?
Modicum of Silence puts it simply:
"While each of the label’s releases are free, users are encouraged to support its artists by donating to them individually, going to their shows, purchasing merchandise, or spreading the word."
Nic Ross at Modicum of Silence had the following to say:
"We have a strong belief in free and open-source software and services; we feel as if intellectual property should be freely distributable. The same goes for music, naturally."
Artwork for hip-hop/mashup artist RADIODOOM release RADIODOOM II, taken from MoS page
Consumers of music are now users of music. Users of netlabels can journey as far away as their tastes allow, a lot more easily than before, from the music offered by more traditional sources.
While it might not sound as glamorous or profitable as signing creative freedom away to one of the Big Four, getting on board with a netlabel can only help a musician. Netlabels require no allegiance. Musicians can take back their content whenever they want, and distribute it via any other avenue they choose, including other netlabels.
"The entire model has its downsides though," Nic explained, "as some musicians do indeed make their living from their music. For that fact alone, a lot of trust is placed upon our viewers to support the artists they truly enjoy... Overall, the idea of netlabels appeals to the internet audience."
Most netlabels offer up files for download directly from their website by way of mp3s, open source formats like Ogg Vorbis, or torrents.
Where are they getting all of this storage space? Archive.org is a popular source.
For the collectors out there, a lot of netlabels do press and/or distribute tangible albums from time to time, something they would probably do more often, with more support.
Hundreds of netlabels are springing up nationally to participate in a movement that currently seems to have the largest presence in Northern and Western Europe, or so it seemed when I visited netlabel-board.org.
Yes, I know, I amaze you with my ability to make sweeping generalizations based on a single web search. However, it is nearly impossible to determine how many netlabels are out there right now, and the number changes daily.
I also enjoyed reading, and here is me citing my source for a lot of the info in this post, an article written by Bram Trimmers at the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands, called Netlabels and Open Content: Making the Next Step Towards Extended Cultural Production, found here.
Some area netlabels of note include:
Modicum of Silence (Whitehouse/Toledo
Cornslaw Industries (Philly, Toledo, ?)
Wise Owl Records (Cleveland area)
Random Access Recordings (Detroit)
From The Gut (Detroit)
Mode of Proof (Detroit)
A couple of sources for discovering the netlabels you desire are:
netlabels.org
netlabelreview.com
I think a regional focus is a good idea for a netlabel, as the format is best suited to garnering other means of support for the artists, like attendance at local shows, and accompanying merch sales.
What follows are the remaining parts of my email interview with Nic Ross from Modicum of Silence:
Cristy: What is the story/history of your netlabel?
Nic: Essentially we created our label, being somewhat nerdy and all, to self-release our own material. Kevin and I are both somewhat out-there musically, as we have a variety of tastes and talents, so we signed up for a Wordpress blog on a whim and started posting material like any other MP3 blog. From there we searched MySpace for other local bands who were into the whole free music spiel, got their releases, threw a few shows, and set up a real website.
Cristy: What sorts of music are you uploading/dealing with - genres, locales, etc? Any restrictions?
Nic: We are based in Whitehouse, Ohio, which is about seven miles southwest from Toledo, so we primarily deal with local artists. A lot of emphasis is placed on this, in fact, because we would love to throw local label shows. We're essentially a tiny community; we've all become good friends. We are particularly passive when it comes to selecting our material. Though we primarily showcase experimental artists, if a band has a release, we'll take it pretty much on the spot. Aside from vast quantities of experimental music, we have some hardcore, rock, and even hip-hop.
Cristy: Has this resulted in added success for the bands at your site in terms of booking shows, etc?
Nic: While I can't say we have directly contributed to any of our friends' successes, I can say that several of our artists have seen vast amounts of downloads these past several months. Tree No Leaves, an experimental duo (now trio) from Lakewood, are extremely popular on our blog.
Also, my solo project's debut EP, Is (under the Our Subatomic Earth moniker), has seen over 200 downloads over the past few weeks from our blog alone.So far we haven't had much success with booking shows in the Toledo area, as it is pretty intimidating to contact all the venues and be persistent about it. Persistence is a good word to know if you're in a band or label.
Maybe you know someone who knows someone? Ha ha ha!
Cristy: Looking for new contributions?
Nic: We're always looking for more releases from local artists. As long as a band is located somewhere close, we're willing to promote them in any way we can.
Cristy: Any other area netlabels you know of/enjoy?
Nic: We are good friends with a few netlabels, including Wise Owl Records, which is actually based around Cleveland. We're planning on releasing a compilation album one of these days with them. They specialize in experimental music much like we do.
Another netlabel we enjoy is BURNthenation, who we gave some friendly advice when they started up. They've gotten their act together extremely fast--a lot aster than we did, that's for sure!
Cristy: What are your plans for the future?
Nic: Future? We live in the moment. Not to lose confidence from our viewers, but we really have no idea what we are doing. In the near future, we plan on throwing a few Spring and Summer shows, getting the bands together to have some fun, and release a few torrents.
We recently added a torrent tracker to our server and we'd love to make better use of it.
Modicum of Silence also has a myspace page. Follow them on Twitter @ modicumsilence.
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Related links:
creativecommons.org
ccmixter.org
archive.org
flickr.com/creativecommons
Be sure to visit the Ghostly International site to read more about the Ann Arbor record label created ten years ago by a then 19-year old, Sam Valenti IV:
Ghostly International has since come to house two labels, Ghostly and Spectral Sound.
The video for SVIIB song "Half Asleep," directed by Toby Halbrooks:
