IPECAC RECORDINGS

http://www,ipecac.com

Just what the world needs... another damn label! In this era of mind-numbing musical mediocrity, sagging sales, major label mega-mergers and indie label burn-out, why the hell would anyone do something crazy like start a label?! Like the medicine it's named after, Ipecac Recordings is here to purge you of the drek that's been rotting in your tummies.

Ipecac Recordings is the brainchild of Greg Werckman (former label manager for the legendary punk label, Alternative Tentacles, employee for Mercury Records for a record 15 minutes, currently operating Pick-A-Winner Management) and Mike Patton (former frontman for Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, currently of Fantômas, Tomahawk, Peeping Tom).

Werckman and Patton had been scheming for years (in between video games) about starting their very own label, waiting for just the right moment to unleash their master plan. Ipecac Recordings is not about to make music biz history and execute a revolution (although one is surely needed) or bore you by waxing poetic about their original musical philosophies. But if we have to adhere to a "mission statement," how about the notion of being an honest, artist friendly label run on a shoe string with no outrageous promotional or production costs. This label is a home to Mike Patton's eclectic musical collaborations as well as a place where bands we admire have the freedom to release music they might not be able to, or want to, release on other labels.

COOKING VINYL

http://www,cookingvinyl.com

Established in 1986 by Martin Goldschmidt and Pete Lawrence, the Cooking Vinyl Group has developed a reputation as an internationally successful, artist-focused independent music company.

Home to an eclectic mix of acclaimed artists, the company’s record division roster currently includes: The Psychedelic Furs, Nina Nesbitt, Billy Bragg, Will Young, Passenger, Swim Deep, Lissie, Fantastic Negrito, The Waterboys, Amanda Palmer, Suzanne Vega, Lewis Watson, Alison Moyet, Deap Vally and The Fratellis, amongst many others.

Cooking Vinyl has consistently been at the forefront of the digital revolution and evolution. It was the first European label to do a deal with the MP3 download site eMusic and the first to enter negotiations with the peer-to-peer file-sharing company Kazaa. Later on, Cooking Vinyl set up its own online distribution company, Uploader, which was then sold to the Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA).

Cooking Vinyl then set up the independent distribution company Essential Music which was bought by Sony Red in 2016 and soon after became The Orchard UK.

The Cooking Vinyl Group includes Cooking Vinyl Publishing, Motus Music, Fat Cat Records, and The Music Royalty Co. Cooking Vinyl currently has offices in London, Paris, Berlin, New York and Melbourne and an international network of partner companies that offer a global route to market for artists.

KSCOPE

http://www,kscopemusic.com

The Kscope label was founded as a means of providing a platform for a growing number of artists that had started to reclaim and reinvent aspects of the Progressive genre. In order to produce something that resonated in the 21st Century, these artists had stripped the music of its perceived excess and clichés, and subtly re-established the movement’s original impulses, experimenting with eclectic musical sources and contemporary sonic possibilities.

Spearheaded by the ambitious likes of Porcupine Tree, Radiohead and Elbow on one side, and Muse, Opeth and Mars Volta on the other (the lynchpins of the hugely popular Prog-Metal movement), this new wave of Progressive expression also incorporated the atmospheric offerings of Air, Talk Talk and Royskopp, and the cinematic Post-Rock vistas of Sigur Ros, Godspeed You Black Emperor and Tortoise. All represented strands of traditional Progressive ideas influencing vital and exciting modern music.

If Post-Rock was a means of creating a music that contained the thrill and transcendent power of Rock music without resorting to its age-old reliance on riffs and Blues-based solos, Post-Progressive was a means of taking Rock music forward without regurgitating the baroque nature and occasionally stifling virtuosity of some of the original Progressive icons. Alongside inspiration from more recognised 1960s/1970s pioneers, Post-Progressive contained aspects of the technological innovations and primal energy of other forward-thinking genres such as Krautrock, Trip-Hop, Electronica and Post-Punk.

The first dedicated Post-Progressive label, Kscope launched in May 2008 (with new albums from its first signings The Pineapple Thief and No-Man, and reissues from genre leaders, Porcupine Tree). An artistically focussed and sympathetic home for an evolving, flexible and adventurous style of music without boundaries, (as with its spiritual forebears 4AD, Factory, Vertigo and Harvest) Kscope is as concerned with packaging and artwork as it is with music and has established a distinctive visual, as well as musical, identity.

By continuing to utilise a combination of both new and established talent, Kscope offers a creative nurturing point for like-minded artists. The label has given a springboard for previous unknowns such as The Anchoress, Iamthemorning, Nosound and Lunatic Soul, greater exposure for the likes of The Pineapple Thief, TesseracT, Gazpacho, Jon Gomm and No-Man, and achieved significant chart success for Steven Wilson, Paul Draper, Anathema & Tangerine Dream.