As some of you may know, during this week’s horrific riots across the UK, a SonyDADC warehouse that stores the physical distribution for Pias was burned to the ground and, among it, the stock of huge swaths of independent record labels. The list of labels is frankly extraordinary — between them, they have provided a large proportion of the joy I have experienced since I first started buying music and the thought that so many may of them, in one act of crazed stupidity, have lost so much, is deeply upsetting.
In the light of the fact — that, in many cases, there may be hardly any physical releases left, it has been suggested that the best way people can help is by buying digital releases from those labels affected. Here are some suggestions of things you might like: Zomby, Dedication (4AD); Surgeon, Muggerscum Out (Soma); The Fruit Tree Foundation (Chemikal Underground Records); Thurston Moore, Demolished Thoughts (Matador); Let’s Wrestle, Nursing Home (Full Time Hobby); Other Lives, For 12 (Pias Recordings); Pete and the Pirates, Half Moon Street (Stolen Recordings); Tim Key, Tim Key (Angular Recording Corporation); Yamasuki, Yama Yama (Finders Keepers). You should, strictly speaking, own all of these already — but, in case you don’t, now is a good time to replenish your music collection and help support some of the people that make the music in this country so very awesome.
