The Listening Mind

The Importance of Small Labels in Ambient Music
Why independent labels still matter as curators, communities and cultural anchors

There was a time when the name of a record label on the back of an album could tell you almost as much as the name of the artist on the front. You might not recognize the musician, you might never have heard the album, but seeing a familiar label could be enough to make you curious. Someone whose musical judgment you had learned to trust had already listened and decided that this music belonged in a particular family. 

For those of us who have spent decades exploring ambient, electronic, new age, world and instrumental music, certain label names became signposts along the journey. Windham Hill, Narada, Hearts of Space, Private Music, Higher Octave, Projekt and Spotted Peccary were among them. They didn't all sound alike, nor were they trying to accomplish exactly the same thing. That was part of their value. Each represented a particular musical perspective and, taken together, they helped create an ecosystem in which music outside the mainstream could find an audience. 

Windham Hill is perhaps one of the clearest examples of what a label could become. Founded by guitarist Will Ackerman and Anne Robinson in 1976, it developed an identity around instrumental music that drew from acoustic traditions, folk, jazz and classical influences while refusing to fit comfortably into any one of them. Artists such as George Winston, Michael Hedges, Alex de Grassi and Liz Story helped give the label a recognizable personality. It was sad when that era came to an end in the early to mid 90s and the label was purchased and eventually folded into major labels. The story didn't end there but it shed its independent status and became one of many labels that have been absorbed over the decades since that time.    

But Windham Hill wasn't just selling individual albums. It was creating a context in which those albums made sense together. 

The same was true of Narada, founded in the early 1980s. Its musical territory eventually stretched well beyond what was being called new age music to include world music, jazz, acoustic guitar, piano and other instrumental forms. Artists including David Arkenstone, David Lanz, Michael Jones and Jesse Cook gave listeners numerous paths through that catalog. You might arrive because of one artist and discover three others while you were there. 

That process of discovery was one of the great strengths of labels. 

Hearts of Space offered another variation on the idea. Growing out of Stephen Hill's pioneering radio program, the label extended the philosophy of contemplative listening into recorded music. The radio program and record label were different expressions of a similar idea: that there was an audience for music built around space, atmosphere and sustained listening, even if mainstream radio and the larger record industry didn't quite know what to call it. 

Private Music, founded by former Tangerine Dream member Peter Baumann, provided yet another pathway. Its catalog brought artists such as Yanni, Patrick O'Hearn, Suzanne Ciani and eventually Tangerine Dream itself to listeners who were discovering a growing universe of instrumental and electronic music. Higher Octave explored still other corners of that world. 

Looking back, what strikes me isn't just how many labels existed, but how different their personalities were. They were curators. 

That word has become increasingly important in the twenty-first century because we now live in a musical environment where distribution is easier than it has ever been. An artist can finish an album, upload it to Bandcamp and the streaming services, announce it on social media and potentially reach listeners around the world without a traditional record company ever becoming involved. 

That's an extraordinary development for independent musicians. But something unexpected happened along the way. As distribution became easier, discovery became harder. 

There is just too much music for any listener to absorb. Thousands upon thousands of new recordings flow onto digital platforms, each one asking for a few minutes of our attention. The old problem was getting music into the marketplace. The new problem is helping people find it once it's there. 

That's where the small label remains remarkably important. 

Projekt Records is a wonderful example. Founded by Sam Rosenthal in 1983, Projekt has traveled through darkwave, ethereal, electronic and ambient territory while maintaining a recognizable identity. For ambient listeners, its association with artists such as Steve Roach, Erik Wøllo, Michael Stearns and Forrest Fang has made the Projekt name itself meaningful. 

Seeing Projekt attached to an unfamiliar album doesn't guarantee that I'm going to like it. No label can do that. But it tells me something about the neighborhood I'm entering. Someone with a long history of working within this music believes the recording belongs there. 

Spotted Peccary performs a similar function from a different musical perspective. For more than three decades, its catalog has explored the meeting places between electronic and acoustic music, ambient soundscapes, space music, melodic electronic music and other forms that frequently resist easy categorization. Artists such as David Helpling, Craig Padilla, Deborah Martin, Hollan Holmes, Tom Eaton and many others have contributed to an increasingly deep catalog. 

Again, the important word is catalog. 

Streaming has weakened our sense of the catalog as a place. When an album appears in a streaming application, it can seem almost disconnected from everything around it. We see an artist, a title and an image surrounded by millions of other choices. 

Visit the website or Bandcamp page of a good independent label, however, and the experience changes. Suddenly you're wandering through someone's musical worldview. An album you already know sits beside one you've never heard. That artist collaborated with another artist whose name looks familiar. You follow the connection and discover something unexpected. 

The label has created a neighborhood. 

This continues with labels such as DiN, founded by Ian Boddy, whose adventurous electronic catalog has provided a home for music that frequently explores the more experimental edges of synthesizer-based composition. Synphaera has developed its own identity around ambient and electronic music. Quiet Details has built a fascinating catalog around the idea that artists can explore their individual voices while working within a broader conceptual framework. Sound in Silence, Castles in Space and other independents continue to cultivate their own corners of this enormous musical landscape. 

None of these labels needs to become another Windham Hill. That's precisely the point. The health of this music depends upon having many different people listening for different things. 

A label can also provide something less visible but equally important: community. Ambient music is often created by individuals working alone in studios, sometimes separated by thousands of miles. A label connects those individuals. Artists meet one another, collaborations develop, audiences overlap, reviewers and radio programmers become familiar with the roster, and gradually something resembling a community forms around the music. 

I've watched that process from the other side for almost three decades with Ambient Visions. When music arrives from a label I've dealt with for years, there is history attached to the package or download. I know something about the people involved, the artists they've supported and the standards they've established. That doesn't determine what I'll write about an album, but it gives me a reason to listen. 

Trust has been earned one release at a time. 

We shouldn't romanticize the independent label. Running one in today's music business can be extraordinarily difficult. Physical media doesn't sell in the quantities it once did. Streaming revenue is notoriously small. Promotion requires constant effort, and many artists are perfectly capable of building successful careers without a label. The modern independent label isn't essential in the way record companies once were for manufacturing and distribution. 

Perhaps that makes what they do now even more interesting. They survive because their most important function was never simply putting records into stores. Their real contribution was choosing, nurturing, connecting and believing in music. 

Windham Hill and Narada helped listeners understand that instrumental music could constitute an entire world rather than a shelf of miscellaneous recordings. Hearts of Space demonstrated the value of listening deeply to music built around atmosphere and space. Projekt, Spotted Peccary and today's smaller labels continue creating pathways through an ever-expanding universe of sound. 

The technology has changed. The record stores have largely disappeared. CDs have given way to downloads and streaming, and artists can now reach the world from a laptop. 

But listeners still need guides. In fact, with more music available than at any other moment in history, perhaps we need them more than ever. Anybody can put music into the ocean now. 

The small independent label helps us decide where to dive.

Michael Foster, editor Ambient Visions