One day while following a twitter feed…
I saw a post come through about a member of the day on an online community I had never heard of, yet at the same time familiar. After a little investigation and a few clicks later I landed on relaxedmachinery.com, which then took me to relaxedmachinery.ning.com. Right! A Net Label.
A little back ground on relaxedmachinery.com first (Relaxed Machinery or rM…from their website <!–edited>):
relaxed MACHINERY
Organic .: Ambient :. Techno
A haven for ambient and minimal techno artists in the vast ocean of the internet.
.: What is Relaxed Machinery?
Relaxed Machinery is an ambient and techno label that promotes the artists and their releases.
To the artists on the label – this is a very different business model. Think of it as more of an artist collective – a group of friends that wish to “self-release” their album, but want the marketing and promotion and buzz that builds behind a label. While I ‘own’ the label, I truly believe in consensus and advice from everyone.
Relaxed Machinery releases.
Primary release is digital download via CD Baby. This gets the album into all the major digital services (iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Rhapsody…) as well as on CD Baby’s site directly.
The additional goal is to have a special package available for every release on the relaxedmachinery.com website – with larger art, notes, history of the artist, photographs that influenced the album and artwork, wallpaper, etc… something very “special”. There will also be an official press release that anyone interested can download.
Hypnos will be making and shipping CDR’s for Relaxed Machinery and we’ll be pushing all sales of CDR’s to their store.
What’s the cost? What’s the benefit?
Here’s where Relaxed Machinery is very, very different from a normal label. The artist pays for each of their releases which costs about $55.00 per album. The benefit is simply this… the artist keeps 100% of what they get back from CD Baby. The artist gains a leg up over simply “self releasing” by doing it collectively through the label.
As the label owner, I really don’t want to be an accountant. I want to help the artists reach a wider audience through promotion and marketing through new media. My personal benefits are:
- no accounting, no tracking money, no paying the artists.
- I love the connections and networking with listeners, reviewers, internet radio, and other artists.
- I get to hone my tech skills building the websites and promotional material.
- the artist’s success helps my success as an artist – the more successful the label – the more successful all of our albums are likely to be – including my own.
- I love this music and want to see the artists succeed
If you would like to know more please visit their site. Okay now back to where this is going. …Machinery’s forum/community first started out as a label community, which later John, of rM decided to branch it out, and make it a community of artists, musicians, photographers, etc., which in my opinion was a great idea. It really is an expansion of the principles by which the label operates. rM just added it’s 200th member, which as of this post is higher still. I suggest you check it out and see if this group is a good fit for you.
Thanks for reading. Next time!
D. Ashley
