Folks... it's been some time. I hope everyone is doing ok out there.
The snooze button was hit, almost a couple of years ago now, to try and figure out if it was logistically and financially possible to continue this endeavour that's been cooking for pretty much 20 years at this point. The wild and dangerous and often bewildering combination of Brexit, the covid pandemic and general world affairs has made life quite tricky for many businesses and individuals, this much is obvious. Rather than plough on into the abyss and risk the label falling away into a pit of financial hardship I though it better to step back and take stock.
So... some words on the future...
One major change to the way the label will operate going forward is that we'll be working (pretty much) strictly on a direct-to-customer model. Over the years we've been fortunate enough to work with many outstanding distributors and shops across the world and we are extremely thankful for that. However, shipping costs and general logistics alongside finding pricing that works for everyone has become really problematic.
From now on our releases will only be available via our website and bandcamp page (possibly with the exception of the US, but we're not sure just yet on that front). This means we can keep our prices low and affordable and we don't have to run releases way in advance. We're also not dealing with returns and damaged stock and we can keep our pressing quantities small and manageable, rather than having piles of stock sat on various shelves across the world.
We'll also be working on more CD releases. We can do low runs in cool packaging with minimal shipping costs and turn releases around in a much quicker time frame. That's not to say we won't release vinyl going forward but we will be much more selective over those releases. The wait at the pressing plant for vinyl is still pretty vast which means planning releases either a year or more in advance or releasing the vinyl at a later date. Neither of these things are much fun in all honesty.
Lastly, shipping. It's no secret that shipping costs are prohibitively high right now and are climbing all the time. We introduced international economy shipping a while back which seemed to go down very well indeed and has certainly encouraged more overseas orders, especially vinyl. The beauty of CD releases is that the shipping costs are super low. We ship in fully recyclable packaging that qualifies as a 'large letter' and mark all customs paperwork as 'gift' with a low value. The package will also fit right through your letterbox.
Direct-to-customer means we pack and ship everything ourselves and we can throw in hand written thank you notes, flyers, download codes and other cool things we think you might like. It's more personal and that's the way we like it.
Thank you for caring about our label and staying interested over the years.
2023!!
It's time we released some new music don't you think?
Here goes.
Much love...
Richard xo
