Black Plate Co.

Time flies but Ian Curtis will always be remembered for his genuineness,  brilliance , and the contribution to the great band Joy Division.

Joy Division, Unknown Pleasure, 1979 (full album)

Joy Division, Closer, 1980 (full album)

After more than thirty years since his departure from Depeche Mode, Vince Clarke has now started recording with Martin Gore again. Both musical ledgends, the pair are very much considered the fathers of British electronic music; Clark succeeded in his reincarnations with Yazoo and Erasure, while Gore started writing hits for Dave Gahan and managed to lead the band to the top. But this new release, out this week on Mute Records, has nothing to do with the classic sounds of 'Just can´t get enough'. Now, with new 10 track album 'Ssss', they are flirting with the dark side of minimal techno. Composed virtually via hundreds of emails, we talk to the duo about the new release...

BPC VIDEO PICK: David Gibson Explains The Concept of PreVerb

[BEST OF HYPEBOT] Indie artists are making money in all sorts of ways, often by combining a variety of small revenue streams and one-off deals into significant income. Here are 15 revenue streams or opportunities from my Hypebot posts of 2011. Like media appearances, no one will make you rich (or famous), but together they offer a range of options.

Alternative Performance Venues ConcertsInYourHome ~ Slowbizz.com

New Retail Outlets Melodica Marketing ~ Offline Music Distribution Network

Affiliate Programs Amazon Associates ~ iTunes Affiliate

Unique & Interesting Band Merch SoulBlendr ~ Dizzyjam vs. Bitvibe ~ Shirtify

Ecommerce & Direct to Fan ThingLink ~ CD Baby MusicStore ~ FanBridge on Facebook

Find Unique Pairings Turntable Kitchen Pairings Box

Music Licensing Vimeo x Audiosocket ~ Audiosocket MaaS: Storefront

Mixes That Pay Dubset ~ Legitmix

Digital Archives Fugazi & The Rolling Stones ~ Nugs.net

Live Streams backBEAT ~ StageIt ~ StreamJam

Sell Your Knowledge Ebooks ~ MuseSpring

You Have to Give Before You Can Give Back Downtime Facebook App ~ Ramble At The Ryman

Find Your Love Blood, Sweat + Vinyl

Find Your Crowd Crowdfunding ~ Patronism ~ TuneRights

Every label should have a Bandcamp. It’s that simple. A record label is a business, and an important goal of any business is to make money. If an artist can crack the Billboard charts purely with Bandcamp – Zoë Keating, #7 Billboard classical chart, no iTunes, no label – a label with an aggregation of artists can do much more.

Bandcamp helps labels make money in three ways:

  1. Fully functional Recorded music as a basis for purchase boils down to two things: (1) getting people to hear music, and (2) getting people to buy it. Bandcamp offers both these functions with its streaming music player and capability to (a) sell digital downloads directly and (b) link to physical purchases.

2. Lightweight and portable By lightweight, I mean that labels don’t have to host album streams anymore. Now they don’t have to worry about building web pages, putting audio players on them, and paying for bandwidth to stream audio. By portable, I mean that Bandcamp audio players – complete with purchase links – are shareable in every meaningful content distribution network: email, Facebook, blog platforms, and so on. This changes the flow of energy from inwards to outwards. Before, labels tried to direct web traffic into landing pages that contained audio players and store links. Now each Bandcamp widget is a little landing page with audio player and store capability – and infinite numbers of these widgets can propagate throughout the Internet.

3. Label retains control The past year has seen an explosion in streaming audio as events on sites such as this one. Track premieres! Full album streams! Guess what: that’s not necessarily the best way to do things. First, album streams are a pain in the ass for all involved. Multiple uploads and downloads must occur between the music provider and the music streamer. The music provider also must deliver promotional materials (images, video) alongside the actual music. Of course, a creative, full-blown multimedia ad campaign – and that’s what a properly mounted album stream is – can be effective – but it potentially takes a lot of time and resources.

Second, when a website hosts an album stream, the website is the real winner, not the label or artist. The website gets tons of traffic that the label or artist could have gotten, and – assuming that the website is considerate enough to include a purchase link alongside the stream – fans have to go through an additional click to purchase the music. If you are selling music, you want fans to be able to purchase music at the same time and place that they hear it. Every displacement away from that will cause a drop-off in conversions, i.e., purchases.

So with Bandcamp, you’re not beholden to some blog presenting your album stream for you. If I, a blog owner, negotiate an exclusive album stream with you, that just means that I’ve taken your audio off the rest of the market. On the other hand, if you’ve set up a Bandcamp, you can just disseminate that link, let people embed the widgets, and your market is potentially the whole Internet.

. . .

Two caveats:

1. Bandcamp takes a cut

15% until you hit $5000 in sales, then 10% afterwards. (See details here.) Of course, every method of distribution comes with costs (fees, percentage cuts, shipping costs), and Bandcamp is no different. So you may want to use Bandcamp to augment, not replace your web store.

2. Sometimes an album stream is the way to go.

If your choice is between having NPR deliver an exclusive stream, and simply giving NPR the same Bandcamp link that you give the rest of the Internet, you’d probably want to go with NPR’s stream just to lock in, at least initially, a big number of eyeballs (and ears) that will be exposed to the music. If after your deal with NPR expires, you want to spread a Bandcamp link around, you still have that option.

Most labels, though, aren’t in a position to get one of the few NPR streams each year. That’s fine; my point is that Bandcamp offers them tools that previously only were available to labels with much higher budgets.

. . .

Here are some labels doing good things with Bandcamp.

Grindcore Karaoke

Every single fuckin’ release is downloadable for free, complete with liner notes. Is this even a label, or is it really just J. Randall’s download blog? We interviewed him here; you can decide for yourself. If you really, really, really like grindcore – 56 releases currently up; can J. Randall even tell them apart? – this is your jam. We’ve reviewed two out of the 56 releases so far, Romero and Gripe.

Heavy Artillery

If you’re a metalhead stuck in the ’80s, Heavy Artillery may be for you. We’ve written about Spellcaster and Evil Survives, Vektor, and Volture. The latest At War record is underrated, too.

NoVisible Scars

Very cool cassette label making a foray into digital. The specialties are underground hessian metal and noise. Somehow that makes complete sense. Check out Nightbitch and Vestal Claret, both downloadable for free.

Relapse

Relapse is the biggest label I know with a Bandcamp, and, boy, are they doing it right. This is your chance to stream a lot of their current catalogue for free before Spotify establishes its US presence. Currently 55 releases are up, though not-yet-released ones have little to no audio. (Right now I’m streaming “Natasha”, the 37-minute doom/noise behemoth that’s my favorite music by Pig Destroyer. Fuggit, I’ll embed it right here. See how easy Bandcamp is?) You can also preview and pre-order upcoming releases.

BPC VIDEO PICK: Musical Spectral Analysis by Jon-Kyle  

A circular musical spectrum analysis generated by Jon-Kyle Mohr who tells; “A musical tone consists of multiple overlapping sine-waves oscillating at varying rates. This motion graphic represents the isolated frequencies and rhythmic patterns of Ryan York’s “If I Am This Forest”. Of particular interest is the swell beginning at 0:45, and multiple simultaneous frequencies which form the single melodic vocal line at 2:05.

Andrew Ohlmann expanded on this by writing a Quartz Composer sketch which dynamically generates a similar form. To explore the spectrums of familiar compositions I suggest downloading ReFreq

Ronnie Herel looks at the last three decades of UK club culture and selects six club nights that had a genuine impact on the world. The final part of this series opens with Sidewinder promoters on the roof of a Northampton venue. We find out why this was the only place London's East End grime MCs could play, hearing from Ms Dynamite, Heartless Crew and club regulars to find out how vital this club was to the scene. We find out how how Dizzee and Wiley blew up at the club and how Sidewinder tape packs spread the sound worldwide.

Sheffield is the next stop, to find out how Niche developed the bassline sound in the mid 2000s. We hear from DJs and regulars including Toddla T, DJ Q and T2, discovering how the sound developed, the big tunes that were created there and how the controversial club battled the problems that eventually saw it closed down. We hear the sounds of the club, and find out what Niche and bassline gave the North. Finally we end up at FWD, the club that provided a breeding ground for the music that became dubstep. Skream and Benga tell us about their early days at the club, we find out about the Croydon massive coming up to the club in limos and we hear how a 200-capacity venue in London's Old St developed a sound that has become the UK's biggest musical export since drum 'n' bass. Through hearing about these six nights we get an understanding of what classic clubs have given British music - and the world. Listen in to 'Episode 1' BBC Radio Player

Episode 1

Available since Sunday with 6 days left.

Why More Than 200 Indie Record Labels Just Bailed on Spotify for Cannibalizing Their Money.

Music distributor STHoldings just pulled its collection of more than 200 record labels off of subscription music services. Like, all of them. Quoting one label, "Let's keep the music special, fuck Spotify." What do those fighting words mean for us?

UK-based STHoldings says it is removing 238 labels off Spotify, Rdio, Napster, and Smify by request. All but four of its distributed labels specifically requested off of Spotify. STH accuses streaming services of "cannibalizing" their digital revenue, and cited a study commissioned by the music business association NARM, which revealed the not-so-startling news that people who use subscription services are less likely to buy physical or digital music. STH says their undisclosed internal numbers confirm NARM's findings.

That streaming hurts sales might sound obvious, but it's a bigger deal than you think. First of all, from what we've seen, the study doesn't say enough to justify STH's actions. It essentially reports survey responses about people's discovery habits and how likely they are to buy music. The report's findings indicate that people who stream don't buy as much, but doesn't disclose any actual sales or revenue data. Perhaps more importantly, Spotify reps told MusicAlly that the study was conducted before Spotify really took off. The market could be completely different now. (Update below)

But forget the study for a second—it's a smoke screen—let's cut through the spin and invective to some important realities about music, the people who love it, and the business that needs to thrive to support it.

STH's revocation of its catalog from Spotify sucks for the fans who use the subscription service, but it's not that surprising considering STH represents homegrown independent labels. The company mostly distrubutes music in niche electronic music genres, but it could just as easily be a tiny label that produces indie rock in Seattle, backpack rap in New York, or blues in Memphis. These labels and their artists earn their keep—or sometimes merely their subsistence—by selling physical and digital music to devoted fans all over the world. These labels need to sell records to survive, and unfortunately Spotify only pays a pitance per stream. If a label doesn't have the reach of a major it's not going to make anything using the service.

Remember, this is coveted music for a good reason. It's the good stuff.

But even if STH lives in a niche, its apprehension is indicative of the big questions that remain about Spotify, and the future of digital music. Music costs time and money to make, and its creators—artists, labels, and their employees—need to make money or the present system will collapse. It's not just a problem for label executives but also also for the aspiring singer/song writer touring in a station wagon, and your favorite local band.

Regardless its millions of users, Spotify is a still gamble that offers labels an alternative at a price—sacrificing immediate revenue on the off-chance that the service will get sufficiently large to pay off in stream fees and global exposure. Major labels, like indies, have always been skeptical of this pitch and only really signed off because the business of selling physical music is irrevocably broken.

Obscure music nuts and Top 40 fans alike love Spotify because, $10 a month grants them access to an immense catalog—virtually every track one could ever want. It's an unbelievably good deal. Spotify has gotten a lot of attention because it is a great deal for users and has "actually convinced people to pay for music." Benefits to users aside, this last bit is spin, and there really isn't evidence yet that what artists and labels are making from streaming even comes close. Wired reports that Spotify responded by saying such claims are misinformed:

Revenue per stream totally misses the point when considering the value generated by Spotify. The relevant metrics are: 1) how many people are being monetized by Spotify; 2) who these people are (usually young people previously on pirate services which generate nothing for artists and rightsholders); and 3) how much revenue per user Spotify generates for rightsholders.

But like every other entity in the equation, Spotify doesn't provide us with real data we can use to make a judgement for ourselves.

Remember that just because you found a legal way to get all music you want, doesn't mean the artists and labels that make it are getting paid. If they can't get paid, they've got to get day jobs like the rest of us. A few hit makers will always be alright, but this question jeopardizes the amazing breadth of good music for too many people who care too much. STH might be the first to take a hard stand against streaming, but you can bet the battle's just begun. [STHoldings, NARM, Wire, Digital Music News, MusicAlly, and Wired]

Update: November 19, 2:20pm We heard back from the NARM about its music industry study, and it turns out that we were right that the initial report we heard sounded a little fishy. Apparently Digital Music News misrepresented the results of the study. Even though STHoldings cited the faulty Digital Music News report, it doesn't change anything about why the distributor and its labels want off Spotify. The statement from NARM fwiw:

Paul Resnikoff's citing of Spotify in this story is incorrect; no specific access services were named in the NARM/NPD report, and in fact Spotify had only just launched in the U.S. when this survey was conducted. There are many different types of music access models, and licensed services such as Spotify, which do pay royalties for the music on their services, are an increasingly important part of the mix of digital retail options for consumers.

In January, when Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded, it was unclear whether she would fully recuperate or regain her ability to talk. Giffords was injured on the left side of her brain near the section called Broca’s area that controls language.

However, recovery specialists have started using a unique, unexpected therapy to help patients recover their language ability: music.  Even though we understand and create language on the left side of our brain, we understand music primarily on the right side. The way the brain relates to music is very unique. When we have a song stuck in our head or listen to a song by imagining it, our brain is very active as if we were really listening to that song. Neuroscience research has shown that music has an incredible impact across the entire brain. For example, earlier this year scientists in Montreal found that music actually creates a surge of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that communicates pleasure, scientifically proving why music makes you feel good. To read more about this study, see Jonah Lehrer’s article in Wired.

Because music relies on pitch and rhythm in addition to speech, it is interpreted in different parts of the brain, not solely the music or language areas. When rehabilitating injured patients like Giffords, rather than trying to redevelop the language area directly, this new therapy retrains the connections in the brain and creates a new language area in the music region of the brain. Giffords’s music therapist, Meghan Morrow compared to this approach to a highway detour in an interview with ABC News.

Learn more about language and the brain here.

In Music Industry News, it looks like it’s a wrap for EMI Music Group, the former 4th-largest Record Company in the world.  Citigroup Inc., the current owners, finally agreed to sell EMI’s Music & Publishing businesses in 2 separate transactions, raking in almost $4.1 billion.

Universal's purchase of half of British music company EMI comes with a sweetener: A promise to preserve the famed studios at Abbey Road. Universal, the world's largest music group, announced on Saturday it will buy EMI's recorded music business for £1.2 billion ($2.5 billion).The recorded music division includes artists Katy Perry, the Beatles, Tinie Tempah, Gorillaz and Coldplay.

A consortium led by Sony/ATV announced a separate deal to pay US$2.2 billion ($2.8 billion) for EMI's publishing division - in charge of songwriting copyrights for such artists as Rihanna and Norah Jones. Both parts of EMI are being sold by its lender Citigroup. The Wall St investment bank took control of EMI in February after its previous owner, Terra Firma, the private equity firm of Guys Hands, was unable to meet its loan covenants. This came after its ill-fated £4.2 billion acquisition in 2007. The deals draw a line under a turbulent four years for EMI. As the company found itself in ever greater difficulties with its huge debts, fears were raised last year that Abbey Road could be sold to investors - possibly becoming a Beatles museum and cashing in on the tourist value of its location in St John's Wood in North London. The news that it will remain a working studio was all the more welcome for an institution celebrating its 80th anniversary this year. "Abbey Road Studios are a symbol of EMI, a symbol of British culture, a symbol for the creative community," said Lucian Grainge, chairman and chief executive of Universal. "This is an historic acquisition and an important step in preserving the legacy of EMI Music."

Universal's French parent company Vivendi said it would finance the £1.2 billion acquisition from its "existing credit lines" but would concurrently also sell €500 million ($875 million) worth of non-core assets of Universal. Although job losses are likely among the combined group's 7600 employees, Universal stressed it planned to invest in EMI and that it was "committed to the music industry and the development of artistic talent". EMI is thought to have suffered from a slowdown in investment as Terra Firma wrestled with its debt mountain and then it fell under Citigroup's ownership. It was Terra Firma's purchase of EMI that led to the departure of one of its biggest bands, Radiohead, which set the tone for the company's slide. At the time the band's guitarist, Ed O'Brien, said: "It's been taken over by somebody who's never owned a record company before, and they don't realise what they're dealing with." Mick Jagger was among those celebrating the sale to Universal. He said: "I particularly welcome the fact that EMI will once again be owned by people who really do have music in their blood." In the auction of EMI's recorded music business, Universal is understood to have seen off competition from Warner Music Group and BMG Music Publishing. Since last year, sales of physical & digital record albums are up 3 %, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Thus far 255 million albums have been sold in the U.S., up from 247 million this time last year. At this point last year, album sales were down 13 % from the previous year.

In partnership with New York City promoters The Bowery Presents, Pitchfork announced Forms, a full-on four-day multi-media festival in New York City that crosses art, music, and gaming.  The idea is to not just be a music show, but various kinds of media combined in creative ways to explore new ways of interpretation. Pitchfork wants to get its groove on beyond the live show experience, and Forms will combine the idea of Pitchfork Media and videogame arts and culture company Kill Screen.  

“Forms celebrates and explores the interconnected and growing worlds of independent music, art, and gaming.” 

The festival will take place February 1-4 of next year, and ticket/scheduling announcements are expected soon. Stay tuned. Pitchfork announces: FORMS

The 4th annual Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival will take place this Friday November 11th and Saturday November 12th in Brooklyn, NY. Founded in 2008, BEMF hosts homegrown New York talent and artists from around the world at venues along North 6th Street in Williamsburg. Matthew Dear tops this year's lineup with a set at Public Assembly on Friday, joined by local techno artists Spinoza (AKA Bunker host Bryan Kasenic) and Donor. Elsewhere, Fischerspooner, Hudson Mohawke, Diamond Rings and Michna will make appearances. Both rooms of Public Assembly will be open on Saturday. The back room will have DJ sets from Four Tet and Thugfucker, while the UK's Night Slugs and its Brooklyn sub-label Fade to Mind take over the front room with BPC's favorites Girl Unit, Electric Method, Hudmo, Kingdom, Nguzunguzu and others. The day's other events will host sets from local Beats in Space host Tim Sweeney, Daedelus, Jackmaster and others.

With its most ambitious outing yet, BEMF is rapidly becoming an NYC mainstay as a homegrown festival with an international audience.   The festival features over 40 artists, a curated food-truck lot, street art and installations and more.  Get the full skinny at www.brooklynemf.com or act like you know and purchase tickets here (for the entire weekend or for one day).  Ticket pick-ups at the food-truck lot at 61 North 6th street.