Technopodcast.com

Bandcamp re-ignites DIY culture in techno

Like us, you may have noticed a lot of techno labels and independent artists are turning to Bandcamp.com recently. From the larger names in the scene like The Black Dog, Alan Oldham, Claude Young and Peter Van Hoesen’s Time To Express to smaller underground labels like Blank Records, Rodz Konez, Limetree Projects, Armatura, Singularity, Truncate and our own Pareto Park many have turned to the site; aswell as individual artists including Mike Parker, Sleeparchive, Clatterbox and Casual Violence to name a few.

Perhaps its the freedom to set their own prices and have more control over their music and features like embeddable artwork players with the ability to preview the whole track instead of the measly 1 minute you get on some stores. Perhaps its the huge amount of formats its supports (audio is uploaded uncompressed and can be bought in many formats including FLAC aswell as wav and various mp3 qualities). Maybe its just that other download sites are clogged up with music irrelevant to independent techno labels and their fans.

Whatever the reason it seems to be taking off, and its not just for digital sales – labels including 2 of the most popular underground techno labels to emerge in recent years Semantica and Perc Trax are selling vinyl and CDs direct to the collector, while Orphx even sell t-shirts from theirs.

The flexible pricing allows not only the labels to set prices, but in some cases customers to name theirs – I Love Acid’s compilation which includes artists like Ben Sims, Luke Vibert and even the mighty LFO can be picked up for whatever you want to pay (yes, really) here. Going beyond that labels can give away tracks for free or for an email address, as Dispired Industrials are doing currently. Re-issuing past music is also popular including oldskool sampled techno from Player, Arne Weinberg’s archives, and Paul Birken whose early 90s productions, that were recorded in one take straight to cassette, are now re-issued digitally here.

Some are offering their content on Bandcamp exclusively with no other distribution at all – Rob Booth recently launched his whopping 60+ track Electronic Explorations compilation this way taking in artists from Neil Landstrumm and Perc to Milanese, Radioactive Man which topped the sales charts for the entire site, see http://electronicexplorations.bandcamp.com/

With a lot of techno labels and artists struggling with their place in today’s oversaturated market, Bandcamp has allowed techno to get back to its DIY roots, connecting artists and labels direct to their fans whether they sell vinyl, mp3s or even give their music away. http://bandcamp.com/

“Bandcamp re-ignites DIY culture in techno” published on http://www.technopodcast.com/ 1st August 2012. Check our own Bandcamp page out at Pareto Park.