Labelnotes 12/25

Recycled from a recent Instagram post and our last newsletter issue.

Look what I got for Christmas!

When my son was born, I gave my mother-in-law a couple of old T-shirts of mine, which she turned into kids’ clothing. My son rocked a Giardini di Mirò shirt when he was three. My daughter still wears a CYNE shirt that’s almost three times older than she is.

The shirt from the photos was part of the stack I gave her to recycle. We did a small run of these more than 20 years ago (it must have been before 2004, because it still has the old logo with the dot after the 2). I had almost forgotten about them.

She never made a shirt for the kids from this one, though: My father-in-law snatched it, because it’s such a nice, soft, heavy fabric. He wore it for years.

Knowing that I’m back in business, she eventually persuaded him to part with his beloved shirt and gave it back to me.

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As the year winds down, it's time to look back on our first few months since the comeback. Even though a lot of things turned out to be harder than expected, I'm personally really happy to be back doing label work. There's something incredibly fulfilling about holding a finished product in your hands, especially when it came together as beautifully as EVERYTHING THAT IS NOT COUNTED WILL BE LOST. 

But honestly, the journey getting there is just as rewarding: diving deep into the music, while it's still being created, figuring out how to present it, and how to get it out to listeners. It's fascinating on so many levels, but honestly, what makes it truly special is the people. The content matters, sure, but it's the amazing, interesting humans I get to work with that make it all worthwhile.

I hope that circle keeps growing to include more of the audience – not just the folks involved in making the music. Back in the day, during 2nd rec's first chapter, we had a lot of direct exchanges with listeners, and I still miss that a bit. In the pre-streaming era, we had plenty of direct sales through our online shop and at shows, which naturally led to conversations with the people actually buying our records. 

But people who discover the Nitrada album on a streaming service feel so much more distant. Many of them probably don't even know there's a label behind the release, let alone which one. (Some might not even know what a label is. Or they might not even know the artist, because it's just some track the algorithm dropped into their feed.)

For next year, I'd love to hear more from the people who spend their hard-earned money on our music pressed into polyvinyl chloride. Or those who consciously keep coming back to our releases on their streaming player. Or the ones who've actually read this newsletter all the way to here (thank you!).

That also means we need to get out there more. More direct connection, more community, more IRL. One small step: starting now, you can pick up your orders directly from us (just select "Pickup/Abholung“ at checkout and swing by our office).

To everyone who supported us this year – whether through a purchase, by recommending our music, or just with constructive feedback and encouraging words: thank you so, so much. We couldn't do this without you.