Beliefs:

The devaluation of music is not inevitable. Virtual and tangible realities are neither mutually exclusive nor competing. Large scale and small scale are neither mutually exclusive nor competing. The local and the global are neither mutually exclusive nor competing. Neither exclusivity norscarcity have an effect on the real value of music.

Dealing with/in an Anti-Market:

This label’s idea is to operate on the grounds of the recognition that in the world of music money and value are not necessarily interrelated. Nowadays audiences can listen to any recording of their choice for free, or (better put) for virtually no specific price, at any time and any place any how. Neither is a payment necessarily a prerequisite for audiences to have access to any given recording, nor is recording artists’ monetary compensation a given. This has been the case for quite a long time and by now one could call thisan anti-market.

Nevertheless, there is no reason why listeners who appreciate recordings of a particular kind and a particular artist should not have a chance to express that appreciation and to assign monetary recognition according to the value a particular recording has to the particular listener personally.

Music is a positive sum game in any case and this is a most pragmatic approach to deal with both the present virtual and tangible realities. At the end of the day the value of music derives from the appreciation of the individual listener and can therefore hardly have one price that fits all. Especially in the case of music that is listened to on a comparatively small scale, as is the case for a lot of really good music obviously.