Hausu Mountain | |
---|---|
Founded | 2012 |
Founder | Doug Kaplan, Max Allison |
Genre | Indie rock, heavy metal, experimental rock, electronic |
Country of origin | United States |
Location | Chicago, Illinois |
Official website | www |
Hausu Mountain is an American independent record label co-founded in 2012 by Doug Kaplan and Max Allison in Chicago, Illinois. [1] The label specializes in releasing small editions by emerging artists on cassette tape, CD, and vinyl. [1]
Kaplan and Allison met at Northwestern University in 2008, where they co-hosted "Greatest Bits," a radio show focused on video game music. [2] [3] They decided to start their own label to release their own music as members of The Big Ship (Kaplan) and Good Willsmith (Kaplan & Allison). [4] They drew inspiration from Ralph Records, the label run by The Residents. [2] Kaplan worked with independent labels as the General Manager of WNUR and at the time he co-founded Hausu Mountain, Kaplan worked at Thrill Jockey and had completed an internship with The Numero Group. [4] Kaplan and Allison rely on the relationships they build as friends, fans, and touring musicians to discover and sign music that is "boundary pushing, forward thinking, and unique within an artist's context or methods of creation, regardless of genre." [4] Allison focuses on preproduction and design, often designing elaborate collages drawing on niche and popular culture for the label's releases, while Kaplan handles shipping, social media, and logistics of releasing albums. [5] Both share responsibility for curatorial decisions, press campaigns, and communicating with artists. [5] Kaplan and Allison have both released solo projects on the label, along with their Good Willsmith bandmate Natalie Chami. [6]
The cassette culture refers to the practices associated with amateur production and distribution of music and sound art on compact cassette that emerged in the mid-1970s. The cassette was used by fine artists and poets for the independent distribution of new work. This article focuses on the independent music scene associated with the cassette that burgeoned internationally in the second half of the 1970s.
K Records is an independent record label in Olympia, Washington founded in 1982. Artists on the label included early releases by Beck, Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. The record label has been called "key to the development of independent music" since the 1980s.
Cultural Amnesia (CA) are an English post-punk music group, first active between 1979 and 1983 as participants in the so-called cassette culture of the late 1970s and early 1980s in the UK. During this first period the band released three cassette albums: Video Rideo (1981), The Uncle of the Boot (1983) and Sinclair's Luck (1983) on English and German record labels, and contributed to a number of compilation albums. Early on in his career, CA worked with the late Geff Rushton of Coil, who wrote a handful of songs for them and who was an important supporter and enabler due to his contacts as editor of Stabmental magazine, arranging most of their releases and providing constant encouragement. The band has become more widely known since 2000 following release of a number of compilations of their early '80s music in which the members of the group have been fully involved. Since the late '90s the band has also been occasionally active in the recording of new music and there have been a number of releases of new material since the early 2000s.
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Resurrection Band, also known as Rez Band or REZ, was a Christian rock band formed in 1972. They were part of the Jesus People USA Christian community in Chicago and most of its members have continued in that community to this day. Known for their blend of blues-rock and hard rock, Resurrection Band is credited as one of the forerunners of the Christian metal genre. Christianity Today called them "the most influential band in Christian music history." Following their debut in 1978, the band's greatest popularity was during the early 1980s, but later in the decade they received some crossover success when they had two music videos featured on MTV.
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Rounder Records is an independent record label founded in 1970 in Somerville, Massachusetts by Marian Leighton Levy, Ken Irwin, and Bill Nowlin. Focused on American roots music, Rounder's catalogue of more than 3000 titles includes records by Alison Krauss and Union Station, George Thorogood, Tony Rice, and Béla Fleck, in addition to re-releases of seminal albums by artists such as the Carter Family, Jelly Roll Morton, Lead Belly, and Woody Guthrie. "Championing and preserving the music of artists whose music falls outside of the mainstream," Rounder releases have won 54 Grammy Awards representing diverse genres, from bluegrass, folk, reggae, and gospel to pop, rock, Americana, polka and world music. Acquired by Concord in 2010, Rounder is based in Nashville, Tennessee.
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