a powerful team: label & artist

So, how came the founding of Selma Records? Here are three pictures:

 

  •     Two artists, both very different in style and career, but both already successful in their field, both ambitious and with great potential. Both are about to release an album and now want to do it on their own: Arrange for the pressing, subscribe to a streaming service aggregator and then use the many contacts they have - make use of social media and distribute the recordings via private mail order. Neither of them really wants to do anything boring and the bureaucracy related to GEMA and more. Both of them like the idea that their studio buddy could just start a new label.

 

  •     The studio buddy who doesn't want his artist friends to end up signing with an anonymous, non-transparent distributor who provides them with a label code and ISRC numbers but doesn't do any marketing for them (the precarious artists have to take care of that themselves from A-Z nowadays) - so the prospect of success depends on too many coincidences. Or, alternatively, that they end up with someone who actually rather follows his own agenda and perhaps doesn't take the stylistic individualities and the artistic goals as seriously as would be necessary for them to develop in a healthy way as professionals.

 

  •     One lesson: Musical partnership is based on trust and somehow doesn't work without friendship, letting you openly describe to each other what your own desires are, and also the potentials you recognize in your counterpart.


... and the beautiful name of this record label, it is dedicated to perhaps the most gentle creature that ever walked on four legs on earth.

.. . a little story

some facts:

mission statement

  • Comprehensive processing from DDP master to GEMA product registration and commissioning of the pressing plant
  • Assignment of ISRC codes and EAN barcodes
  • international distribution of CDs and vinyl via our Bandcamp store
  • reliable stream upload to Spotify, Apple Music etc.
  • promotion to radio, TV, print and online editors using our network-in-progress
  • transparent infrastructure for our artists using our own Nextcloud server (under construction)
  • active affiliation to VUT, the representative of independent labels in Germany, part of the european IMPALA-network
  • Komplette Abwicklung vom DDP-Master über die GEMA-Produktanmeldung bis zur Beauftragung des Presswerks
  • Vergabe von ISRC-Codes und EAN-Barcodes
  • internationaler Vertrieb von CDs und Vinyl über unseren Bandcamp Store
  • Zuverlässiger Stream-Upload bei Spotify, Apple Music uvm.
  • Bemusterung von Radio-, TV-, Print- und Online-Redaktionen über wachsendes Netzwerk
  • transparente Infrastruktur für unsere Künstler*innen über eigenen Nextcloud-Server (im Aufbau)
  • Aktive Mitgliedschaft im VUT, der Vertretung der unabhängigen Labels in Deutschland, Teil des europaweiten IMPALA-Netzwerks

What about sustainability?

So what about streaming? Isn't that fundamentally more environment-friendly than a physical medium? The point is this - it depends, firstly, on the way the streaming provider hosts its offering technically, e.g. where the servers are located and how they are operated. Second, on your listening behavior. If you're constantly streaming your favorite songs, you're not being sustainable. If you want to listen to them more often, download them and make local playlists, even on your mobile device if you like to listen to music on the go.

Here's an interesting link to do that: (external link to "utopia.com" in German). There is also a Greenpeace studio linked there that reveals the differences between various providers.

So I'd better use streaming?

As a production studio and music label, we also have to ask ourselves how we can act as sustainably as possible.
For our mixing suite (and also for our web services), we use clean energy (Green Energy) and do not use equipment that consumes an unnecessary amount of electricity.
Most of the equipment in the studio is used and maintained for many years, overhauled and repaired when necessary. The heart of our mobile set (see STUDIO) is a 10+ years old high quality audio interface that was recently upgraded to the latest technology (fast network interface).
It runs perfectly well with a Mac computer from 2015 with the latest software.

And what about you specifically?

Und was macht ihr konkret?

Art? Statement? Both crucial