Old basement

 

 'the convergence of ceremonial cadences, echo-laden instrumentation & [mournful resignation]'

 

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Plenty more

 

One final transmission from the last-chance saloon: in the spirit of maximising inclusion & recognition, here are 25 more 2020 releases that lightened & brightened a year in profound need of both...

This alternative list is a way of acknowledging the inevitable limitations of the original Festive Twenty (or any list...). While those 20 stood out to us as especially meaningful or evocative or thrilling, they are of course very far from constituting last year's only great releases.

It also completes our broader picture of the year's music. Besides the two Twenties, this also includes a baker's dozen of compilations & 10 'projects' beyond the bounds of a single release.

 As ever, this list is constrained to one pick per artist/label - in order to acknowledge as wide a listening range as possible. Moreover, this one had no prospect of picking up votes for multiple releases from the same artist or label since it's all on jl (whereas the original Twenty is the combined work of al & jl...).

Again as ever, this constraint also meant having to exclude outstanding releases such as Geneva Skeen's Double Bind, Past Walls & Windows by Todd Anderson-Kunert & Pinkcourtesyphone's Leaving Everything To Be Desired (all among a raft of brilliance in Room40's 20th anniversary year, as noted...) - never mind other losses to the hair shirt like Grand River's Blink A Few Times To Clear Your Eyes (Editions Mego) & Romeo Poirier's Hotel Nota (sferic). 

 

Anyway, the (alternative) list:

William Basinski & Richard Chartier :: Something From The Pink House (self-release)  

Black to Comm :: Oocyte Oil & Stolen Androgens (Thrill Jockey)

Celer :: Wasted In The Waiting (self-release)

John Chantler :: Doing Nothing / Nothing Doing (self-release)

CLEARED :: The Key (Touch) 

EMRA GRID :: five cycles through an empty chamber (LINE)

Lawrence English :: Lassitude (Room40)

FEAN :: II (Laaps) 

FRKTL :: Excision After Love Collapses (self-release)

David Fyans :: Crushing Depth (self-release)

Haarvol :: Ridge of Humming Spoils (Moving Furniture)

ISAN :: Nothing Picked & Placed Nowhere (wiaiwya) 

Kassel Jaeger :: Swamps/Things (Shelter Press) 

France Jobin :: Death is perfection, everything else is relative (Editions Mego) 

Kim's Spirit :: Blossom Everywhere (A Red Thread)

The Necks :: Three (Northern Spy)

Jake Muir :: the hum of your veiled voice (sferic)

Lynette Sandholm Evvers :: Fundamental Colours II (Other Forms of Consecrated Life)

Simon Scott :: Apart (12k)

Tom James Scott :: Mine Is The Heron (Students of Decay)

Sontag Shogun, Stijn Huwels :: The Floating World & The Sorrowful World (Thesis)

Richard Skelton :: LASTGLACIALMAXIMUM (Aeolian)

Three Point Circle :: Layered Contingencies (Palace of Lights)

Ida Toninato :: We Become Giants (Dragon's Eye)  

Jeremy Young :: Filaments (Eliane Tapes) 

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

And counting...

Factory never died, it turns out. It just moved south. For LMYE's Label of the Decades, Touch, is the label Factory promised to be and might even have proved to be had it sustained its own model of a defiantly independent, endlessly ambitious imprint (something more than just a record company) - as Touch so manifestly & triumphantly has across its now 35 years of inspiring operation. 

So many happy returns today - the latest anniversary of co-founder Jon Wozencroft's first contact with New Order (by Touch mythology, the official start...).  

Factory has been a profound influence on Touch across the years, of course. Both New Order & Tuxedomoon feature on that first Touch tape later in 1982. Even today Chris Watson (of Factory Sample-ed Cabaret Voltaire) remains a core Touch artist. 

The connection was highly evident at Touch's last big birthday event at the end of 2012 - from the pontifical blessing of Atmospheres 4's audience with Peter Saville to the Ian Curtis postcards handed out to Wozencroft's willingness to frame almost anything in terms of Joy Division/New Order (& his Blue Monday beat-boxing to send the last night audience home) to an in absentia rendition by Watson. 

You might also compare Touch with the even more long-lived ECM. The two clearly share an insistence on the integrity of the whole product - emphasising recording & presentation - with quite a shared visual aesthetic - alongside/around the music. 

But where ECM has been underwritten for most of its near 50-year life by the earnings of a few outlying successes (Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert, in particular - as Factory was too, of course: think Blue Monday...), Touch has sustained itself despite a championing a more resolutely uncommercial output - one that has been subsidised neither by the market nor public money.  

After all this time it combats middle-aged spread with an unmatched appetite for going beyond conventional boundaries. Who else runs a mentoring programme, hosts conferences, publishes print & audio-visual work, repositions the organ, curates free recordings by aligned artists, experiments not just with formats but multi-channel recording, proclaims a psychological/digital 'Kingdom', & even collates recipes & commissions its own beer mat?!

As a label Touch remains the benchmark despite its age - essential, genuinely pioneering, unself-consciously experimental, constantly reinforcing & broadening its unmatched body of work. One mark of its greatness: even 34 years in, few other labels - apart perhaps from eMego - rivalled the richness & vitality of its 2016 output. 

Ditto almost all of LMYE's 10 years...

Of course, Touch's non-pareil roster of artists - from Oren Ambarchi to Fennesz to Philip Jeck to Phill Niblock to Watson - is ageing with the label. Will it outlive them & its founders?

That's still unclear. As Mike Harding, Wozencroft's partner in Touch, considers in a typically thoughtful response (taken from an unpublished interview): "The artists we work with tend to be middle-aged – they’re in their 30s, 40s, 50s. I’m stretching middle age to encompass not-youth & not-extreme old age, that period. So ‘will Touch survive the artists around whom we are flourishing?’ I honestly don’t know because I don’t know what’s going to happen. And I don’t know what’s going to happen in relation to the reaction against things digital which is definitely alive and kicking hard. You never know. Someone completely outside our experience might come along and find a huge amount to relate to and vice versa, because all of our relationships are completely collaborative." 

"Maybe, thinking about it, there’s something generational about what we’re doing and young people relate to it in a different way compared to people who have lived through the same period that we’ve lived through and have themselves experienced the evolution and development of recording technology but also the cultural responses – digital and all the rest of it that we’re also horrified and fascinated and preoccupied with in equal measures." 

"We never react to anything. We respond, giving it the dynamic activity of a communicative dialogue-based relationship. Something doesn’t happen & we go ‘Ooh’. We do thoughtfully and carefully respond to issues that arise. And it may not seem to be necessarily very direct but all the time we’re having this discussion and these debates and conversations about what we think’s important."

Certainly Touch is far from winding down with age. On the contrary, it's been replenishing its ranks. As noted, its most compelling releases last year were Bethan Kellough's Aven & Claire M Singer's Solas. 


More established parts of its canon, BJ Nilsen & Hildur Gudnadottir are other younger artists who could "carry the flag into the long-term future". Moreover, the label has embraced Simon Scott in recent years. 

It is also mining an increasingly rich seam on the US west coast - scene of its 2016 'conference'. This connection links it with Kellough, the Richard Chartier/Robert Crouch/Yann Novak nexus & older Touch connection Mark van Hoen (Harding's collaborator in the excellent drøne), as well as Lustmord (Dark Matter). 

Novak's outstanding recent Ornamentation is soon to be followed by Crouch's Sublunar & Something You Are Or Something You Do by Chartier alter ego Pinkcourtesyphone for the allied Tapeworm... 

Pinkcourtesyphone – Live at LACE

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Hidden burn

Drama - the sense of moment, event or even ritual - figures notably large in Touch’s recent output. It always has, of course (think Kiri No Oto or Without Sinking…). But ravishing new releases like Claire M Singer’s  Solas & Bethan Kellough’s Aven seem drenched in it - most obviously because of their string & organ parts, but more broadly because of their shade & light interplay of acoustic, electronic & field recording elements.









It also seems to reflect the imprint’s growing body of live releases this year. Aven is one; Floodlines by Simon Scott – whose gripping Insomni for Touch affiliate Ash International was part of LMYE’s 2015 Festive 33-1/3 - & Fennesz's Mahler Remix two more. All clearly gain great atmosphere & power from being captured in the moment... 



Touch’s US West Coast ‘conference’ in the summer amped up this emphasis on performance. Besides Aven, gripping shows by Philip Jeck, Daniel Menche and Mark Van Hoen were shared through Touch Radio – a wonderfully rich ‘platform for recordings from artists affiliated to or whose work appears on Touch’. 

To these ears at least, it connects too to drøne’s Reversing Into the Future. This thrilling piece – surely the most kinetic non-dancefloor record in an age ("sounds moan and sing, forming their own phonemes") – feels like an honorary part of Touch’s work even if formally a debut for Anna von Hausswolff’s Pomperipossa: a collaboration between Touch co-founder Mike Harding & Van Hoen (whose digital-only Artefacts I came out on the ‘audio-visual resource for ‘emerging artists’’ TOUCHLINE in October 2015). 

Much more Touch performance in tonight's 17th Spire ("organ works past present & future") at Organ Reframed - for which Singer is artistic director. Hope to see you there...

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Austere retrace

Casting off the hairshirt in which we clad our Furtive 30 key 2012 releases before Christmas (no more than one pick from any artist or label per co-author...), here's a further raft of 80 new sounds that last year would have been much the poorer without. They include a group of exceptional pieces - most notably, Below Sea Level, Coda (For WK),  For/Not For John Cage, Lichtung, Portraits, Recurrence, Secret Photographs, Superstorms & Valence - that only failed to make the original 30 because of its self-imposed constraints. Which begs a question over those constraints, but still...

Even though he claims two slots as it is (one with Steve Roden), other Machinefabriek pieces might well also have been classed in this group - his collaborations with Chris Dooks & Michel Banabila, listed below too, for example. Perhaps the thought reflects these ears growing further into his sound world, but 2012 seems to have been one of the Rotterdammer's finest. 

No other artist is represented as frequently in our two lists this year (even if you lump the fecund Quiet Evenings family together...) - though Stephan Mathieu comes close, inevitably. Fine installations & other commissioned pieces, such as The Breaking Water for the Rotterdam Film Festival, supplemented a raft of memorable Machinefabriek releases. 

Anyway, while this additional list risks irrelevance by only shambling out well into the new year, it still seems important to acknowledge the array of talent & achievement beyond our Furtive 30. So we round out our Hot 110 (ahem) with this appreciative roll-call - plus the obvious but necessary health warning that 2012 featured even more great records than we've found space to acknowledge: 


Alex Durlak/Damian Valles - Guitar and Drums (Komino)
Andrea Belfi - Wege (Room40)
Attilio Novellino - Through Glass (Valeot)
Anne Chris Bakker - Weerzien (Somehow)
Banabila & Machinefabriek - s/t (self-released)
Between - s/t (12k)
BJ Nilsen - Draught #1 (Touch)
Celer - Truth Abandons (Prairie Fire)
Chihei Hatakeyama & Asuna - Scale Compositions (Home Normal)

Banabila & Machinefabriek (album preview)

Chris Dooks & Machinefabriek - The Eskdalemuir Harmonium (Komino)
Dino Sabatini - Shaman’s Paths (Prologue)
Eli Keszler/Keith Fullerton Whitman - Split (NNA Tapes)
Ekkehard Ehlers - Adikia (Staubgold)
Eugene Carchesio - Circle Music (Room40)
Evan Caminiti - Dreamless Sleep (Thrill Jockey)
Ex-Easter Island Head - Mallet Guitar Two/Music for Moai Hava (Low Point)
Felicia Atkinson - A River (Space Slave Edition)
Fieldhead - a correction (Gizeh)
France Jobin - Valence (LINE)

Evan Caminiti f/ Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Rideaux de Nuit

Gareth Davis & Frances-Marie Uitti - Gramercy (Miasmah)
Giuseppe Ielasi - Untitled, 2011 (Entr'acte)
Grant Evans - Jewels from the House of Worms (A Guide to Saints)/Solos for Muted Transparent (Tranquility Tapes)
Gregg Kowalsky w/Josef van Wissem - Movements in Marble & Stone (Amish)
Helm - Impossible Symmetry (PAN)
High Aura'd - Sanguine Futures (Bathetic)
Hildur Gudnadottir - Leyfdu Ljosinu (Touch)
Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier - An Age of Wonder (Shelter Press)
Joe Evans - Affected Piano (runningonair/Somehow)

helm - impossible symmetry (album preview)

Kangding Ray - The Pentaki Slopes (Raster Noton)
Kane Ikin & David Wenngren - Strangers (Kesh)
Kleefstra Bakker Kleefstra - Griis (Low Point)
Koen Holtkamp - Liquid Light Forms (Barge)
Kyle Bobby Dunn - In Miserum Stercus (Komino)
Lawrence English - For/Not For John Cage (LINE)
Lee Noble/Ensemble Economique - Motion Forever (Hands in the Dark)
Leonardo Rosado - A Long White Sleep (Laverna)
Machinefabriek - Colour Tones (Fang Bomb)/Secret Photographs (Important)
Motion Sickness of Time Travel - Traces (A Guide to Saints)

Plateau ( a single source of truth ) by Kangding Ray

Mike Shiflet/Joe Panzner - s/t (Rubber City Noise)
Mind Over Mirrors - Small Portion (Digitalis)
Nicholas Szczepanik - La Luna del Este/We Make Life Sad (self-released)
Oren Ambarchi - Audience Of One (Touch)
Pete Swanson & Rene Hell - Waiting for the Ladies (Shelter Press)
Pillowdiver - Cassette Recordings (Analogpath)/Frozen Soundtracks (Nomadic Kids Republic)
Pinkcourtesyphone - Elegant & Detached (Room40)
Portraits - Portraits (Important)

pinkcourtesyphone - elegant & detached (album preview)

Primitive Motion - Two Ellipses (A Guide to Saints)
Pye Corner Audio - The Black Mill Tapes Volumes 1 & 2 [Second Edition] (Type)
Quiet Evenings - Patience Folding Waters (Hooker Vision)
Richard Chartier - Recurrence (LINE)
Richard Skelton - Limnology/Verse of Birds (Corbel Stone Press)
Rick Tarquinio - Waves (Resting Bell)
Seaworthy - Bellows & Breath (Preservation)
Shackleton - Music for the Quiet Hour/The Drawbar Organ EPs (Woe To The Septic Heart!)
Simon Scott - Below Sea Level (12k)

Limnology - Richard Skelton (Preview)

Steinbruechel - Sinus (The Tapeworm)
Stephan Mathieu - Coda (For WK) (Minority/12k)/Palimpsest (w/Sylvain Chauveau; Schwebung)/Strings (w/David Maranha; Cronica)
Steve Roden & Machinefabriek - Lichtung (Eat, Sleep, Repeat)
Superstorms - Superstorms (Experimedia)
Taylor Deupree - Faint (12k)
Terrence Dixon - From the Far Future Part 2 (Tresor)
The Swifter - The Swifter (The Wormhole)
Tim Hecker & Daniel Lopatin - Instrumental Tourist (Software)

Part 2 by Superstorms

TVO - Red Night (Broken20)
Two People in a Room - Endless Bummer (Rural Colours)
Unrecognizable Now - Two Rooms (Kesh)
Villages - Theories of Ageing (Bathetic)
Voices from the Lake - Voices from the Lake (Prologue)
Windy & Carl - We Will Always Be (kranky)
Yann Novak - 3 Surfaces (Reductive)/Fata Morgana (w/Robert Crouch; Murmur)/Paradise & Winchester (Unfathomless)

Villages - The Narrows/Growth Rings



Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Evening fog

Both because of its longevity & its fiercely non-strident aesthetic, LMYE's Label of 2012 is easily overlooked. So long an essential part of the fabric of what we term 'less obvious music', it can seem that 12k - the standard-bearer for accretion over assertion - has always been there.

Lauding its output this year is partly a prod against complacency over a treasured imprint, then. No label is just 'there', least of all in the current environment. Sustaining one - especially one that works with more challenging music of limited commercial appeal - is clearly a struggle. The most obvious dimension: piracy that brings "nothing but hurt", as 12k founder Taylor Deupree notes in an exclusive interview below. 

Recognition (which follows its earlier selection as 'staggering consistency label' in our first set of label awards, back in 2009, & adds it to Type, Low Point, Experimedia & Room40 in our roll call of overall winners) is also about celebrating what will go down as an exceptional year - even within a body of work as rich & deep as 12k's over the past decade & a half. Framed by two Japanese-inflected (like so much of its output) pieces - the exquisite, jisei-enjoined Zen songs of Steve Peters & Steve Roden's Not A Leaf Remains As It Was in February (one of our Furtive 30 essential 2012 releases) & the 'supergroup' (Tomoyoshi Date, Marcus Fischer, Corey Fuller & Simon Scott in tandem with Deupree) Between's gorgeous self-titled Kyoto performance in December - the label unveiled a thrilling, near-flawless run of misty, intensely textured releases. 

Further key moments in this were Scott's glowing, dense Below Sea Level (previous coverage); Kane Ikin's hazily blurred & warped Sublunar (another Furtive 30 pick; NB: each LMYE co-author was limited to one release per label/artist); & Deupree's spare, delicate Faint, as well as Stephan Mathieu's Coda (For WK) - rightly blurbed "a journey into the essence of sound".  

This sequence further refined what Deupree characterises as 12k's "hushed & delicate" sound, adding impressionistic warmth. It & other releases also carried the label towards a more acoustic, sometimes voice-centred music. It explained the two developments as "continuing to move away from the “electronic” tag" & "further play[ing] the line between experimental electro-acoustic sounds and structured music."

While Deupree offers a valuable reminder below of previous "eras" in the 12k sound, he also concedes (of Gareth Dickson's Quite A Way Away (featured on of Mountain7's outstanding best of the year list, incidentally...)) that "if you played me this album 14 years ago and told me i was going to release it i wouldn't believe it." He relates this to his & the label's identity. "12k is always simply a reflection of my own tastes and continues to evolve and change."

Even so, for a 15 year-old label to still be pushing at the boundaries of its sound (also this year via the subversive post-pop of The Boats' Ballads Of The Research Department) seems like a powerful index of vitality. 

So too its appetite for extending the scope of physical formats - most obviously in the case of Scott's 80-page book of geography & memory in the East Anglian Fens that accompanies Below Sea Level. The recent Faint boxed set (augmented with photographs & a bonus CD), as well as that of Deupree & Fischer's earlier In A Place Of Such Graceful Shapes (photos & a 7"), are further instances. 

What next? Further Deupree collaborations, a second Illuha album & a new solo Fischer are scheduled for the new year. Several vinyl releases are due too. 

But the most tantalising prospect is an undefined format innovation Deupree reveals below ("it's not USB, but it's taking a lot of work and will be a really exciting development for some time to come"). Whether this relates to the beguiling Mono/logues video that recently trailed 'A new series, coming in 2013' is not yet clear. But while only a fluttering moment the clip offers much in any case...     



How has 12k developed this year? Have you done anything different in 2012? Anything new you want to keep doing now it's started?
"i think the obvious thing that sticks out this year was the release of the gareth dickson CD. 12k has obviously explored guitars and acoustic sounds over the years but to have something so straightforwardly singer/songwriter is quite different. if you played me this album 14 years ago and told me i was going to release it i wouldn't believe it. it just reinforces the fact that 12k is always simply a reflection of my own tastes and continues to evolve and change.

starting late last year, with mine and marcus fischer's "in a place of such graceful shapes" boxed set and continuing this year with simon scott's "below sea level" book edition and my own boxed set for "faint" i think the idea of expanded physical packaging is something 12k will do more of going forward."

Did you always expect to make it to your 15th anniversary? Do you anticipate following Touch's lead & making it to your 30th?
"i never had a doubt about that. 12k is who i am and i will always do it even if the music industry falls apart so totally and no one needs labels anymore... that it becomes a label i release only my own work on. i see no reason why i would stop doing it. it's not terribly profitable, which is a good thing. it doesn't need to make enough money to make business partners happy, it only needs to make enough to print the next release.

i started the label in 1997.. january 1st ..... so, jan 1st 2013 will mark 15 years complete.. onto the 16th year... it's great!"

Is being an US label significant for 12k? How do you assess the state of US 'experimental' music currently?
"i think being a US label has hurt 12k over the years. there are certain distributors and magazines that seem quite anti-US... like the people and artists are as bad as our politics, which simply isn't the case. there is so much great music being made in the US, but it's never been as "cool" of a place as a lot of other countries so it never gets taken as seriously. it's a weird thing, but it's been on my mind a lot since i started the label."

Do you see yourself & the other 12k artists as working in any kind of tradition? Is there a 12k sound or typical artist? 
"i don't think any of us are thinking about traditions or genres or trying to fit into one thing or another, we're just creating what comes naturally and exploring techniques that interest us. most of the current crop of 12k artists are pretty firmly rooted in what they do and have developed their own styles after years of creating. it's not so much about fitting in or putting themselves in a certain niche, just more about creating and doing what they do, and let the press or listeners place them wherever they want for whatever reasons they need to. 12k definitely goes through periods of sound as the years go on. periods that get marked as "eras" in 12k by the general sound. it meanders and evolves as the years go by. i don't think, at this point, i would be very eager to categorize 12k though recently there's definitely been a marked move towards hushed and delicate music."

Any 12k artists you believe merit more attention than they've had so far?
"all of them, of course! it's always the lesser-known ones, though, who perhaps just release one album and then sort of disappear from the light a little bit. artists like jodi cave or motion... such brilliant, beautiful releases but no one hears much from them anymore!"

How do you see 12k developing in the future? Any new artists you can mention &/or forthcoming new releases from established 12k artists? 
"i never like to project or guess how things will develop, i prefer to just let them go naturally. early in 2013 i hope that the new Illuha album will be ready, which is going to be a beauty. i've also got a couple of personal collaborations coming up which i'm excited about and will be on marcus fischer's case to finish a new one next year. the door is always open for established artists and we'll see about new artists. nothing planned yet."

Will you be releasing vinyl in future? Cassettes? Other media (DVDs/USB sticks/etc)?
"there's been 5 or 6 vinyl releases so far and that will continue in the future. i've got a vinyl-related series coming up in 2013 that should be pretty interesting as well. i'm not sold on cassettes as a final medium, though i do like the sound of them for recording.... DVDs.. perhaps... there has been a project on the back burner for too long already... USB sticks.. who knows? nothing's out of the question, i guess. there is a very exciting development we've been working on for the past few months that i hope sees the light of day in 2013 ...it's not USB, but it's taking a lot of work and will be a really exciting development for some time to come."


Mono/logues (2013) from 12k on Vimeo


Best thing anyone's said/written about 12k music? Worst?
"there's always the occasional negative review about an album, but i still love what the late alternative press magazine said about 12k many years ago which was "too minimal for its own good." i once turned that into a full page advertisement in a magazine. though lately i've been hesitant to throw around the term "minimalism" mostly because i try to stay away from any sort of genres or descriptors at all.

best thing? i'm touched by every positive review and kind word from listeners, though being compared once to factory records wasn't a bad thing. for all of factory's blunders and craziness, it's probably my main inspiration behind starting 12k."

How important is artwork to your releases? Who decides it?
"yes, of course, always. finding a visual theme was very important in setting up the label identity. i sort of took that idea from Fax records with its instantly recognizable package design. but 12k is also about a very anti-design aesthetic. by that i mean design that is very simple, nothing fancy, very much inspired by dieter rams and his ideas of functional design. the special editions and limited series gives me a chance to break away from the traditional 12k design to play around a bit more, but otherwise i'm really just trying to be as simple as possible.

i design all of the packages and do most of the photography for the covers. however, sometimes an artist will have a particular image they want to use and that's fine by me as long as it works with the overall aesthetic."

How challenging a time is this for labels? Are you tempted to go digital-only? Or the opposite?
"it's a very challenging time! almost entirely because of the pirating of music. on one hand it's a great time because we can offer releases in a variety of formats as well as downloads with many easy ways to purchase them. the social media outlets offer both a great way to reach fans but also make it a lot of work for us because we have to stay on top of all of these little areas.... but it's really the music pirates stealing the music that give us the most challenge. i don't care what argument they give for "helping" labels and musicians but it does nothing but hurt. i don't ask them to do their jobs for free and they shouldn't force that on us either.

digital only? i guess if you're going to talk about the death of 12k... that day would be if i ever decided to go digital-only. i have no desire to become a digital-only label and i've yet to meet one artist who prefers a digital release over a CD, vinyl or other physical format. yes, you're correct, it's quite the opposite. we'll be offering more music that's NOT available as download."

PS Where does the label's name come from?
"the name 12k came from the file size of midi song files on my computer during the creation of the album "12k" by one of my old musical projects (with Savvas Ysatis) called Arc. we released the album, as Arc, "12k" on KK Records (BE) in 1996 (it's now available digitally from 12k). i started the 12k label the year after and wanted to use that name for the label because it was short, abstract, mathematical, technical, and graphic. while technically it comes from "12k kilobytes" it can mean a few things.. like "12k kilohertz" or "12,000" or .. or it can mean nothing at all. most important to me now is that it's short and abstract and has taken on a life of its own."

Water Veins by Steve Peters & Steve Roden

Europa by Kane Ikin

Between (excerpt) by Between

Dreams Of Stairs by Taylor Deupree

_Sealevel.6 by Simon Scott


Kane Ikin - Rhea from 12k on Vimeo


Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.