It’s a new template for a label as a collective of like-minded friends and colleagues pooling their resources and talents to benefit one another. O’Keefe: “It’s an opportune time to start a digital label, because I don’t believe that CDs are going to be around much longer in terms of a product people purchase. Ten years from now it will all be digital sales.” He pauses. “If not sooner.”
But whereas the traditional start-up has business plans, venture capital, and million-dollar lawyers, O’Keefe is counting on friends, acquaintances, and old associates to help him along the way. “Most of these people are friends of mine, so we already have a sense of trust. I met Jake (Trussell, a/k/a DJ C) back when he was doing the Electro-Organic Sound System. Ian Bradley (a/k/a Slouch) just graduated from RISD and we did a night together called the Cozy Lounge. And Brendan Britton of Triangle Forest I met when he was performing at AS220 as B-Lite, the blind rapper.”
Cozy wouldn’t be much without AS220. Through the center’s programs for visiting artists and residencies, O’Keefe has made enough contacts to schedule 11 releases in the coming months, including UK producers, Australian sound designers, and, most astonishing, an album of unreleased material from electronic-music legend Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Kluster, Brian Eno). Sonic Snapshots is a collection of unreleased collaborations the icon has done, including two tracks with ambient producers the Orb.
“I would never have enough money to release all these as albums,” O’Keefe says with a laugh. “I’m having a hard time with the promo side of it, but I’m trying to invest as much as I can, you know? I hope to get people interested in the quality of the stuff I’m putting out so they won’t be just like, ‘Oh, fuck this.’ ”
That shouldn’t be too much of an issue. One thing O’Keefe’s years at AS220 have given him is a keen ear. His own tfo project wouldn’t sound out of place next to the Pet Shop Boys, and Hoska produces a real smart prog-house sound. And Triangle Forest, who open for Mixel Pixel and MC Tracheotomy this Tuesday? O’Keefe: “One of the things I like about them is that they play all their instruments live, no sequencers. It was good to see someone with a keyboard who actually knew how to use it and wasn’t afraid to create melodies. I don’t want the label to be known for one specific genre.”
Indeed, Triangle Forest are a perfectly executed new-wave tribute, complete with echoplex vocals and plaintive lyrics. O’Keefe signs all this music as digital exclusives, then upstreams it to Iris, which in turn gets it to Napster, iTunes, Emusic, Rhapsody, Beatport, and so on. “That’s what’s so great about it,” says Hoska. “If it’s digital and it’s on the Web, the whole world is at your fingertips. I mean, I just got signed to a label in Spain, and they’re distributing the vinyl all around Europe.” The concept is tilting much of the record industry toward independents, where quality, promotional guts, and tour-friendly acts can make a big difference. O’Keefe: “Obviously, the big thing is getting exposure, getting reviews, and working that whole angle, promoting it in a grassroots way. It’s a project for me, to see, in the next year, what ways I can establish the label.”
