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The Smaller Labels Page
A LIST
B LIST
Click on a record label name to go straight to the entry or scroll down to browse
Asian Man Records.....Asthmatic Kitty Records.....Badman Recording Co......Better Looking Records.....Boompa Records.....
City Slang.....Cloudberry Records.....DeSoto Records.....Diesel Only Records.....Eenie Meenie Records.....Empyrean Records.....
Epitaph Records.....Eyeball Records.....Fat Wreck Chords.....Flameshovel Records.....Hush Records.....I Eat Records.....Imputor Records
.....Jade Tree Records.....Jagjaguwar Records.....K Records.....Kill Rock Stars.....Labrador Records.....Letterbox Records.....Limekiln Records.....
Lookout Records.....Luckyhorse Industries.....Lujo Records.....Machine Records.....Magic Marker Records.....Messenger Records.....
Misra Records.....Morningside Records.....125 Records.....Parasol Records.....Pehr.....Polyvinyl Record Co......Rainbow Quartz
Records.....Redder Records.....Reverb Records.....Rubric Records.....Saddle Creek Records.....Secretly Canadian.....Some Records.....
Stereo Test Kit Records.....Suicide Squeeze Records.....Tapete Records.....Team Love Records.....Temporary Residence Limited.....Turn Records.....
Unsound Records.....White Whale Records.....
Three dozen or so MP3s are available from this
label; start at the home page and click on the "Downloads" tab near the top. Among the bands to be found here are Goldrush, the Album Leaf, and the Jealous Sound.
Eleven Thirty Records
Eleven Thirty Records is a cousin label to Yep Roc, and the site is clearly based on the same design architecture, including (unfortunately) Yep Roc's clunky pathway to the MP3s. Even less good is the fact that too many of the MP3s are just sound clips--not a problem if they were labeled as such but they aren't. That said, it's still an appealing label both for its artist-oriented intentions and it's small but rather high-profile roster, which includes the likes of Tanya Donelly, Hothouse Flowers, Josh Joplin, and Maria McKee. So far I can't find too many full-length MP3s here, but there are a few; if they ever see fit to increasing their store, I'll move this one to the main Music Site Guide.
Eenie Meenie Records
The High Water Marks, Troubled Hubble, and Division Day are among the dozen and a half acts on the L.A.-based Eenie Meenie Records roster. More than 30 MP3s are available on the label's media and downloads" page, in addition to videos and links to paid downloads.
Flameshovel Records
This active Chicago label has a roster of 20 bands and more than 60 MP3s available on its down to earth and easy to navigate site. There is no "media" or "download" page per se, but if you go to the catalog page, you'll see the track listing for all of the label's current albums, from each of which are typically offered two MP3s. Among the bands in the fine Flameshovel family are four with songs featured on "This Week's Finds": Bound Stems, the End of the World, Judah Johnson, and Lying In States.
Hush Records
A tasteful label from the Great Northwest (U.S.), Hush features nearly 50 MP3s on their "Media" page. Among the quality acts to be found here are former TWF artists Shelley Short, Norfolk & Western, and Corrina Repp; also, the Decemberists previously released a CD with Hush, and still have an MP3 available here. Hush leans towards the acoustic and/or atmospheric and/or chamber-pop-ish end of indie rock, so if you like the gentle, intelligent stuff, definitely check this label out.
Jagjaguwar Records
It's an odd name, but it's an interesting record company. Based
in college town extraordinaire Bloomington, Indiana, Jagjaguwar features a couple of
dozen artists, none of whom are household names but more than a few of whom merit
a listen, including the mighty Okkervil River. The label offers roughly 50 MP3s on its site, organized by album rather than band. But you can also go to each individual band's page for links to all their MP3s more readily grouped together.
K Records
From Olympia, Washington comes the redoubtable K Records, an indie label with spirit and an unusually long history (founded back in 1982). Where once the site featured about 100 free and legal tunes, a re-design significantly reduced that number; there are now about 35--which, to be fair, is still a decent number. Among the artists on the current roster at K are Beat Happening, Kimya Dawson, and the irrepressible Mirah.
Kill Rock Stars
As you might infer from the name, Kill Rock Stars is a rather vehemently independent
label, with a punk rock inclination and warm-hearted intentions, if those two things
are not contradictory. Based in Olympia, Washington, the label has released its share of
non-punk over the years, including early recordings by Mary Lou Lord and the late Elliott Smith, as well as being the current home to the Decemberists. I find the web site endearing but also more than a little confusing; it's hard, for instance, simply to find a straightforward list of artists currently on the roster, which apparently includes Deerhoof and the Gossip, among lots of others. You can find a listing of currently available MP3s here.
Labrador Records
From its roots in the late '90s as a one-man project releasing 7-inch singles featuring unknown Swedish pop bands, Labrador Records has grown in a short time into one of Sweden's larger independent labels. The "Sounds" page on Labrador's clean and attractive web site features full-length MP3s from each of the label's couple of dozen artists (more than 50 MP3s in all), plus many more songs available in the more restrictive WMA format. Among the acts currently signed to Labrador are the Acid House Kings and Sambassadeur.
Misra Records
Misra is a great little record label from Austin with a small but really nice lineup of acts, including the Mendoza Line (plus its spinoff, Slow Dazzle),
Shearwater,
Flotation Toy Warning, Evangelicals, and Summer Hymns. Once saddled with a clumsy (albeit nice-looking), frames-heavy web site, the folks at Misra have seen the error of their ways and have redesigned everything. Hooray for them! The site is much more streamlined and easy to get around, and the MP3s (some 70 of them) are now gathered (hooray again!) in one place.
Parasol Records
What began as an Urbana, Illinois-based mail-order business for independent musicians in 1991 has developed over the years into a series of small record labels (five in all), with a combined roster of more than 200 current and catalog acts (including Bettie Serveert, Moonbabies, and the Orange Peels). While the web site is very bulky and complex-looking for my taste, there's no doubt that there are both good intentions and good music on display here, if you're willing to dig around. This page features free downloads, apparently introduced once a week; there are now more than 80 of them, but there's no obvious organization to it, just a list that's probably in reverse chronological order but that doesn't help find anything. I guess you just have to browse. What's more, the fact that David Fridlund's "April & May," a "This Week's Finds" pick in April 2005, is hiding out on the David Fridlund page suggests there may be a smattering of additional MP3s residing on the site's various artist pages; I've seen others, but, again, you have to poke around a bit.
Polyvinyl Record Co.
Polyvinyl is one of the most active and impressive independent labels in the land, and they've been accumulating a fine collection of free and legal MP3s over the last few years. From the home
page, click on "Audio/Video" and
you'll be taken to a page with some 80-plus MP3s from Polyvinyl artists,
including three from the five from the husband-wife, keyboard-drum duo Mates of State, and three from the prickly but engaging trio 31Knots.
Saddle Creek Records
Conor Oberst--who either is or leads Bright Eyes; it's an unsolved mystery--may have put the Omaha-based Saddle Creek Records on the alternative/indie map, but there is definitely more to be found here than Bright Eyes songs. The label features 12 artists currently, including Azure Ray and Cursive, in addition to Bright Eyes. There are a good number of MP3s on the site, but its Flash-based design defeats centralization; you have to click on each band, and then on "downloads" to see them, band by band. Note also Team Love Records, a Saddle Creek spinoff, which as alphabetical luck would have it, comes next in the listing.
Team Love Records
Team Love is a Saddle Creek affiliate, founded in New York City in 2003 by Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes' manager Nate Krenkel. Among the 15 artists on the roster are Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, David Dondero, and Tilly & the Wall. More than 30 MP3s are available on the MP3s page.
Asian Man Records
Very small Northern California label with a big heart, a 10-year history, and more than 50 MP3s to sample. No bands with much name recognition here, but the vibe is good, and an apparent inclination towards indie-style power pop makes me believe there's music worth listening to if you poke around a bit here.
Asthmatic Kitty Records
Asthmatic Kitty has nine artists on the roster and three different offices, none of which are located in the city in which the company was founded (Holland, Michigan). Ah, the wacky world of independent record labels. And yet this is no record company to sneeze at, as it were, since one of the artists on the label is the estimable, and strikingly high-profile Sufjan Stevens (he of the 50-state, 50-CD recording project). MP3s on the site are not formally gathered in one place; you are encouraged to visit each artist's page on this clean and well-designed site and seek MP3s there; there are about two dozen in all, including five from the aforementioned Mr. Stevens.
Badman Recording Co. updated
My Morning Jacket, Innocence Mission,
and Mark Kozelek (ex- of Red House Painters) are among the dozen and a half acts
to be found here. The label used to offer a whole lot more free and legal downloads than it has since redesigning the site a bit; go to the "media room" page and you'll find eight of them, with a promise for more at some point.
Boompa Records
Boompa is a Canadian label with big aspirations, setting itself up as a company providing a wide variety of services for musicians well beyond that of a record company. Artists on the Boompa roster include the Salteens, the Lucksmiths, and Catlow. There are roughly 20 MP3s available on the "Media" page.
City Slang
City Slang (no "Records" as far as I can see) is a German-based label with
mostly English-speaking acts on its roster (whether they release albums from these bands
internationally or just in Germany is unclear). From the home page, click on the word "media" at the top, on the right, and you'll be taken to a page with 20 or so MP3s from City Slang bands, which include Calexico, Lambchop, Broken Social Scene, and Stars.
Cloudberry Records
If we survive bald-faced lies by highly ranked elected officials, global warming, endless war, the vituperative blogosphere, and wireless everything, some day we will wake up and all record companies will look like Cloudberry Records. This Miami-based purveyor of "the sound of jangly guitars" releases three three-inch CD-R singles every month, each with three songs, one of which is always available as a full-length free and legal MP3 on the web site. As of late 2007, there were some 60-plus MP3s online. One hundred hand-numbered copies of each release is made and when it's gone, it's gone, but the MP3s live on. The web site is refreshingly simple; everything is on one page, so just scroll down through the list of releases to find all the free and legals. "Are you scared to get happy?" the label asks us. Maybe not anymore.
DeSoto Records
A small but together-looking label based in D.C., DeSoto Records boasts a mere seven bands on its roster, but there is something to be said for quality over quantity. Among the acts here are the impressive Kansas City band Doris Henson, and the unusual drag-rock of Edie Sedgwick. Roughly a dozen MP3s are currently up on the Downloads page, along with a number of videos.
Diesel Only Records
Could be the only alt-country-oriented record company based in Queens, New York. The critically-acclaimed singer/songwriter Laura Cantrell is the best-known of Diesel Only's artists. The label has 30 MP3s available on its downloads page (click on the word "downloads" at the top of the home page to see the offerings.
Empyrean Records
Eric Matthews and Wheat are two Fingertips-featured artists among the dozen on the Empyrean roster. The MP3s here are not necessarily easy to find, but are probably worth seeking out. First, there are some available on the page you're directed to when you first get there, before actually entering the site--and not all of these, confusingly, are going to show up in the places you'll otherwise find MP3s on the site, which is within each individual artist page. What you do is click on the names of individual albums listed on an artist page and go to see if there are any MP3s available. There are a smattering throughout the site. The name Empyrean, incidentally, comes from the Latin word referring to the highest portion of heaven, which was said to contain the pure element of fire.
Eyeball Records
Eyeball is a small New Jersey-based label with 15 acts on the current roster, including Kiss Kiss and New London Fire, and a simple, nice-looking website. At last a record company that puts actual dates (including release dates) in actual places where you can actually see them! I'm so tired of label sites that don't want you do know how infrequently they are updated by not putting dates anywhere to be seen. (You'd be amazed how often I have to go to Amazon just to find out when a CD was released.) Note, however, that when you click the word "Downloads" on the main page, you get not to a page of downloads but a page that tells you to choose a band and go to their downloads page--"downloads" in this case being a catch-all word for banners, wallpaper, buddy icons, videos, and also by the way MP3s. If you're just looking for MP3s (which are available for most of the bands), it's easier to click on the word "Artists" on the main page go in that way.
Fat Wreck Chords
A punk rock label in San Francisco with a bit of an attitude (sample question from the FAQ: "What the fuck is the RIAA and is Fat a part of it?" Answer: "They are the Recording Industry Association of America. Are we a member? Not only no, but FUCK NO!"). But Fat Wreck Chords (say it out loud; get it?) rises far above the realm of most DIYish outfits by being very apparently well-run, a fact that this nicely well-designed web site makes crystal clear. Among the almost 50 bands on the roster are the Loved Ones, Nerf Herder, and the self-proclaimed oldest active punk band in the U.S., the Dickies. If you're a punk fan, the site is a treasure trove, featuring more than 100 free and legal MP3s.
imputor? Records
Given that their hearts are in the right place, I'll humor the folks at Imputor Records once, with their lower-case-plus-unnecessarily-punctuated name, but as this otherwise violates Fingertips usage rules (see web page not yet written), don't expect to see it as anything other than "Imputor" from this point onward. Imputor is a small, lovingly put together label based, somehow, in both Seattle and San Diego. Among the artists on the roster are the Vells and Diagram of Suburban Chaos (I never heard of the latter band but you have to love that name). Some 30 MP3s are available on the MP3 page, and you also have to love this statement, which comes straight from the MP3 page: "Please download these songs and give them away to anyone you like or don't like. It gives us free worldwide promotion. Thanks."
I Eat Records
An Austin-based label with 12 artists, a cool logo, and a comfortable look and feel, I Eat Records offers 20 free and legal MP3s on its sounds page, including two songs that have been TWF picks: "Overgrown" by Darling New Neighbors, and "Song About Dying" by Casting Couch.
Jade Tree
Jade Tree is a small, hard-working label based in Delaware with roots in the '90s punk/hardcore scene. The most well-known band among the 50 or so on the roster may well be not-punky-at-all Pedro the Lion. This may be the first web site I've ever seen that has de-Flash-ified itself, and they deserve a huge round of applause as a result: things are much more accessible now, including the MP3 archive, which offers many dozens of full-length songs. They don't seem to be in any particular order but there sure are a lot of them.
Letterbox Records
Letterbox is a small label based in the picturesque port town of Whitehaven, West Cumbria and to begin with, how many other record labels can say that? Right now home to six artists, one of them the splendid California band the Arrogants. Each artist has at least one MP3 available, but they're not gathered in one place--you have to click on the name of a given band and then look to the right and click on the word "downloads."
Limekiln Records
Ian Love and the 101 are among the 11 artists signed to this small but personable Philadelphia-based (yay, Philly) label. There are roughly 20 MP3s available on the downloads page.
Lookout Records
Punky but cute, this label has well
over 100 bands on board, many with names like Couch of Eureka, Furious George,
and Surrogate Brains; probably the most well-known of the bunch is Ted Leo, but there are also a few worthy Fingertips artists here, including Engine Down and Troubled Hubble. Many of the bands have free MP3s available, which you can
find by starting at this page.
Luckyhorse Industries
Another tiny label with a good vibe and a bunch of little-known acts (Blood Brothers, LAL,
Winfred E Eye, Plan B et al), Luckyhorse Industries has a dozen or so full-length
MP3s to download on its site. Go here to look them over.
Lujo Records
More than 85 MP3s from Lujo's roster of three dozen artists await you on the nicely designed web site of this relatively new (founded 2001) Louisiana-based label. It's hard from a quick perusal to tell if Lujo leans towards any particular subgenre, although it does seem that they like their share of the loud stuff. Lujo's roster of 19 does not yet include any widely-known bands, but some of you may have heard of some of these acts, including Suffering and the Hideous Thieves (a TWF pick in Dec. '05), Baby Teeth, and the Gena Rowlands Band (a TWF pick in May '07). Or maybe not, what the heck.
Machine Records
Billing itself as "a new kind of record company," Machine is a Chicago-based outfit with a DIY mentality and a hands-on approach to promoting their artists. There are only five acts signed to the label right now; two of them, however, have been TWF picks (Martha Berner and the Apparitions), so I'm thinking these guys have discerning taste. Click on the words "FREE music downloads here," at the very top of the page, and you'll be taken right to a page featuring six MP3s, one from four of Machine's artists and two from Berner.
Magic Marker Records
The Owls, Boat, and Dear Nora are among the 19 bands on the roster of this friendly Portland, Ore.-based label. The MP3s aren't gathered in one place; rather, you have to go to the individual page for each artist and there you'll often find one or two downloads. Magic Marker is also home to a band from Sweden called the Faintest Ideas, who are certainly worth a listen just for that great name.
Messenger Records
Messenger is a small NYC-based label with but four artists on the roster; two of them, however, are actually reasonably well-known--Dan Bern and Chris Whitley. There are about two dozen MP3s available if you click on the word "sounds" on the left side of the main page.
Morningside Records
I'll admit that I have barely begun to explore what record labels from other countries may offer in the way of free and legal MP3s. But here is a start: an agreeable-looking, English-speaking label from Denmark called Morningside Records. There are some 30 MP3s available here, including songs from the Figurines and Under Byen.
125 Records
Now here's a label with a unique history: it was founded by a guy who won big money on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? in 2000; when Regis asked him what he was going to do with his windfall, he said he and his wife were going to start a record company. So saying, they did, and 125 Records has been in business in San Francisco ever since. Concentrating on musicians from northern California, and with a predilection for good old power pop, 125 Records has a small roster but there are a few notable names here--Mitch Easter and Don Dixon among them. Some 20 or so MP3s are available on the "Sounds" page.
Pehr
Apparently eschewing the word "Records," Pehr manages to appear at once very hip and very friendly--an unusual combination to be sure (about as unusual as a record company assuring musicians "We love demos," which this L.A.-based label also does). Pehr features 18 artists on the current roster, and seems to lean towards the spacey and/or experimental, but not exclusively. There are about 20 MP3s available on the clean, appealing, and vaguely European-looking home page, but you have to find them by heading to each individual artist's page (click on the word "bands" in the menu on the left). There are also 50 more MP3s available on the "nonpehr" page--songs by bands not signed to Pehr, available without much explanation.
Rainbow
Quartz Records
Billing itself as "Your Source for Perfect Guitar Pop," Rainbow Quartz
Records is home to 30 or so guitar-based acts, including the Jessica Fletchers, the Asteroid #4, and the resolutely Beatlesque combo Cotton Mather. The MP3s aren't collected onto one central page, so you'll have to hunt for them band by band.
Redder Records
This Queens, N.Y.-based label has a couple of dozen MP3s available when you click the word "media" on the home page; 13 of them, you should know, are cover versions of other band's songs by Kind of Like Spitting, for no apparent reason. Among the nine artists on the label's roster are Summer at Shatter Creek and Saturday Looks Good to Me.
Reverb Records
Seven acts currently have themselves a sleek yet cozy little home at Portland, Ore.-based, shoegaze-friendly Reverb Records, including the High Violets and Nina Hynes. The web site is everything a small record site should be: clean, informative, and super easy to navigate. There are about 40 MP3s available on the MP3 page, including some notable songs on the label's compilation CDs from off-label guests (among them former TWF bands Asobi Seksu and Thebrotherkite).
Rubric Records
A small, rock-oriented label founded in New York City in 1999, Rubric Records
works with an eclectic group of 28 mostly little-known artists, but does have the
indie-spirited singer/songwriter Mary Lou Lord (who, sad to say, is no longer recording) and the British neo-psychedelic one-man band the
Bevis Frond on the roster. There's a nice assortment of MP3s available
here; scroll down past the video section to find them.
Secretly Canadian
More than 70 MP3s are available at this idiosyncratic label's site, right there on the MP3 page. Among the artists with songs available here are I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, David Vandervelde, and Jens Lekman. They appear to be in reverse chronological order, so you just have to scroll through them to see what's there; you can also go to each artist's page and see what MP3s are to be had that way.
Sink and Stove Records
This small, Bristol, UK-based label run by Benjamin Shillabeer of the Playwrights has recently redesigned its web site; there is both good news and bad news to report. The good news is there is now a nice page of downloads available, featuring a mix of high-quality MP3s and lower, AM-radio quality downloads. The less good news is that the site doesn't otherwise seem to be operating for me via either Firefox or Safari at this point (August '07). Bands on the roster include, of course, the Playwrights (twice a TWF pick), You and the Atom Bomb, and Querelle. Sink and Stove is also the UK label for the Canadian band Controller.Controller and NYC's The Vibration.
Some Records
I'm always surprised to find a really small label based in Manhattan, but there are a few of them, and Some Records (funny name) is one. There are but eight artists currently on the roster, including Earl Greyhound and Walking Concert; there are eight others in the catalog. The site features a couple of dozen MP3s in all, from both current and catalog artists.
Stereo Test Kit Records
This small London-based purveyor of fine Swedish pop has but four artists currently signed; what they've got is good quality, however--Boy Omega, Audrey, and We Have Soldiers We Have Guns being three of them. Click on "Sounds & Media" on the home page and you'll find more than 30 MP3s from STK artists past and present.
Suicide Squeeze Records
Over the course of 10 years, Seattle-based Suicide Squeeze Records has nurtured a talented roster of indie-minded acts; among the artists currently on board are Chin Up Chin Up, Minus the Bear, S, and Page France. To find MP3s, go to each individual artist's page and scroll down.
Tapete Records
A small label from Hamburg, Germany with strikingly good taste--there are only 9 MP3s on the MP3 page at this point, but to my ears every one of them is worthwhile. (There's one more free and legal MP3 available on the Downloads page, plus a couple of other interesting offerings.) The label was co-founded in 2002 by Dirk Darmstaedter and Gunther Buskies, Darmstaedter being the driving force behind a band called The Jeremy Days (nice name!), which was very successful in Germany from the late '80s through the mid-'90s. Born in Germany, Darmstaedter actually grew up in New Jersey before moving back to Germany at age 12, which perhaps accounts for Tapete's English orientation. Among the artists on the Tapete roster are a few North American acts (including Peter Elkas, Maplewood, and Salim Nourallah), Tapete apparently being their label for European releases. As for the MP3s, Dirk tells me there will be more to come, so definitely check in at the site every so often.
Temporary Residence Limited
Twenty-three bands call Temporary Residence their home, and this is surely one of the most mysterious-looking lists of bands to be found at any one label on the web.
I don't mean simply that I've never heard of these bands (but for two--Explosions in the Sky, and Rob Crow--I haven't); I mean the names themselves seem repeatedly to evoke strangeness, elusiveness, ineffability: The Anomoanon, Eluvium, Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Lumen, Rumah Sakit, Sonna. And then some. The site is elegantly designed, if frames-heavy; click on the fourth bird from the left at the top of the home page and you'll find a page with roughly three dozen MP3s available for downloading, from bands both past and present.
Turn Records
A small label based in Santa Clara, California, Turn Records boasts Thee More Shallows and Dealership (both TWF-featured bands here on Fingertips) among its roster of artists. There are currently more than 20 MP3s available on the site's main page--just scroll down and look to the left and you'll see them.
Unsound Records
If you like your labels small, your music lo-fi, and your pop on the avant-garde side, Unsound Records in the place for you. This Brooklyn-born, Portland, Ore.-based label is home to five idiosyncratic artists, the Bird Names and the Pages among them. One of the bands on the label has yet to release a first album, but the others each have three MP3s available to download. You'll find them by going to each individual artist's page and looking for the words "Listen To..."
White Whale Records
Kids These Days and the Mohawk Lodge are among the half dozen artists signed to this tiny, artist-owned Vancouver-based label (which by the way has no connection to the old California-based label that put out the Turtles records). About a dozen MP3s can be found here.
updated 8 Apr 08
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