We are thrilled to welcome Constellation Records to Mirlo—as of today, you can subscribe to them and great musicians like Godspeed you! Black Emperor, SANAM, and Radwan Ghazi Moumneh. Shout out in particular to Sandro Perri and Craig Dunsmuir, who released their new album last month. We've been working hard in the background to get Mirlo's subscription features fleshed out for them and it has been a pleasure to collaborate on this exciting milestone. Please take a moment to support them directly and enjoy the sounds that this iconic label has been bringing into the world for over 30 years.
In his book "Muse-Sick", Ian Brennan notes that "the point of punk rock was not that anyone could be a star but that there should be no stars at all". It's no understatement that the vast majority of our music industry does not follow this maxim. Across the board, the emphasis is on superstars, scale and staunch individualism as bastions of achievement that we should emulate, whether we want to or not: opting into unfavourable terms, embracing monoliths of sound and technology that block out all other light from the universe.
Thankfully, not everyone wants to operate in this way, or believes it to be for the betterment of the music ecosystem. We don't believe in a one-size-fits-all scenario for musicians and labels, recognizing the difficulties that accompany such approaches when looking at groups of people from very different backgrounds and with variable needs. It's why we're open source and integrating the social web, and why we're constantly talking to other people about their own projects. We've been trying to reframe the dominant mode of the music industry, one of capitalist supremacy and winner takes all thinking, and entrusting communities with the tools to manage their own music scenes. One concept we kept coming back to was the idea of "constellations", because as much as Ian Brennan's words resonated with us, a sky without any stars at all would be just as bleak. Our stars are clusters of activity, not singular markers where one outshines another. Like this, we can take a step back and appreciate the entire web of light shining through the night sky.
We know that others desperately want music to exist in this realm too, rather than one of consolidation and corporate interest; where, without your consent, your album can be linked to warfare and you find yourself dealing with opaque structures built for burnout. When navigating the current landscape of options as a musician, band, or independent label, much of it presents itself with a degree of futility. What can be built that imagines life outside of that and instead invites, care, relationships, and community? How can clusters of musicians and labels exist through a collaborative and longterm lens, documenting, sharing and sustaining their work?
As their name suggests, Constellation Records has been exploring these questions through all of the twists and turns of the music industry's tumultuous recent decades. We're immensely grateful to them for bringing their experience producing great music on their own terms into conversation with us. Their commitment to principles, from the relationship-based way they help bring music into the world to their steadfast support of the Palestinian struggle. As the so-called "independent music" world continues to consolidate under corporate control, we hope that this work can help us find new ways towards the kind of autonomous collective creativity that the music on their label exemplifies.
To support Constellation Records' adventurous musical experiments, subscribe to their catalog here on Mirlo!
Constellation will be joining other labels currently on Mirlo, like YK Records, Ediciones Subterranias, Blaser Music, Ursinewave, Timeless Records, SHIFT+CTRL Music and more.
If you'd like to run your label on Mirlo but have questions, drop us a line or to get started today, sign up for an account.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://mirlo.space/team/posts/643