Developped in the Libre Culture Manifesto
you can download here (43Kb
.pdf taken from Free Software Magazine)
BurningEmptiness Inc. is a homemade microlabel
run by B¨L+DDN (who make the final decisions, soak up
what little glory there is, write about themselves in the
third person and tend to forget who exactly does what). We
release great music in the genres of just about everything
(dub ambient, grindcore, minimal, non-commercial pop, improvised
weirdotronics of all types, noise, etc.) i.e. stuff we dig.
BurningEmptiness Inc. is for us, for our artists, and for
those interested in edge-music produced and distributed outside
channels compromised by non-artistic concerns (yeah, this
one was real punk).
BurningEmptiness is not a stepping stone, a leg up, a calling
card or any other kind of means to a more famous and celebrated
end. We do not 'wannabe' big. It is a project in itself and
all its ambition is in its quality and integrity. We are not
interested in profit, sales, magazine coverage (with notable
exceptions), in the charts, in large-scale distribution, in
success as normally measured. In fact, being normal individuals
in the society, we can actually say we got no interest in
making profit or having an attitude. In fact, THAT is our
attitude. Our releases are produced cheaply and offered for
sale at €5 each, whatever the format, wherever you live.
That said, we insist that the design and musical content are
uniformly excellent. Costs are kept low by a combination of
dedication and generosity and magic, not by any skimping on
quality.
Don't get us wrong - this isn't a hair-shirt, elitist, holier-than-thou
operation. Quite the opposite: we are into life-affirming
creative endeavour. We like all kinds of independent media
(in fact, webzine coverage gives us most of the clients we
have), email distribution lists, small independent mail order
and catalogue based distributors, receiving interesting post,
flyers, linking up with people overseas, trades and communication
with the like-minded (and the other-minded too), gigs organised
for the thankless love of it on a non-profit basis, and so
on. BE Inc. is proud to be a node in this amazing network
and it is lot of fun too. The whole music business as traditionally
understood is largely irrelevant to us, which is kind of exciting.
Let us spell it out further. We don't even want to make a
living out of BE Inc.: not now, not ever. In fact, we can
afford not to be influenced by commercial ideas because of
our jobs and because we’re, you know, just normal people.
All we want to do is treat our artists and 'consumers' fairly
and provide an outlet for stuff we dig without having to be
compromised by other concerns. We believe that the official
sanction of major reviews, a barcode and ubiquitous distribution
is, at best, unreliable, and at worst insulting. Dropping
16 quid (that is €24, people, music is expensive over
the channel -and don't even think about how much it is in
US$ these days) in HMV on what you've been told to buy is
a risky strategy. It can sometimes pay off, but generally
is an utter failure as a joyous life-enhancing experience.
Let's just take it all outside.
BurningEmptiness Inc. is a non-commercial
interdependent homemade record label interested in giving
different music a chance on our soon-to-be radioactive wasteland.
We say different music: we do not specialize in any style/genre,
we release acoustic and electronic, noisy and silent, harsh
and mellow, minimal and maximal. We say interdependent not
independent: we get help from friends all around the world
to distribute the music, and basically we depend on *you*
to exist. We say non-commercial not anti-commercial: we do
not cry out 'no compromise' mottos, we do not advertise our
supposed AntiCapitalist attitude in the corporate-business-owned
press, we release stuff we like as well as stuff we don't
but think interesting and we do not rely on the label to make
a living. We say homemade: we Do It Ourselves as much as we
can, we release albums on CDRs because they're the cheapest
and on floppydisks because they're so beautiful.
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