Minimal Wave Records

The original-era minimal wave band JACKET WEATHER is now celebrating their 30th anniversary(!), and we’re searching for fan & collector’s opinions on an evergreen question: which record label do you reccomend most for a band to approach to help release a career minimal-wave restrospective?

We’ll announce the digital download for the band’s 29-song complete collection next—but we’d love to have some kind of physical product to share with fans of the genre. So that’s question #2: as a fan would you prefer a CD with all 29 songs (and liner notes, music videos, etc), or a limited vinyl release with only a few of the songs (with an enphasis on previously unreleased tracks)?

Thanks for any al all positive input, and thanks to MW for keeping this music alive!

Timothy Gassen
http://www.purple-cactus.tv/garage-nation/jacketweather.html

Lots of views to this post but not one opinion on which minimal wave-type label you think is best for a re-issue? No one even stepping up to say our host “Minmal Wave,” lol?

No preference for a vinyl release, a complete CD release or digital only?

Well, I would really prefer some kind of Jacket Weather vinyl release—but instead we are working now on a complete digital download release through a label not usually associated with these kinds of sounds, but one great at connecting with indie music fans.

And finding people who want to hear these sounds is the whole point!

More soon!

Timothy Gassen
http://www.purple-cactus.tv/garage-nation/jacketweather.html

Hey Timothy,

not much action on the forum these days, that may be one reason you didn’t get an answer

There must be a dozen labels who could conceivably put out a JW release (Minimal Wave, Anna Logue, Dark Entries, Medical, Geheimnis, Vinyl-on-Demand, WSDP, kernkrach?, OnderStroom, Walhalla, Mannequin…) and who would probably have an opinion about what they’d like to do and how they’d like to do it. Hard to recommend one over the other as I don’t know what a musician would need from them - I buy the records, that’s all I know
I hope you get the unreleased songs out!
I’m definitely a physical format kind of buyer though, I avoid buying mp3s if the music is available on CD or vinyl. I don’t speak for everyone though, I know Minimal Wave have had digital-only releases out so there appears to be a market.

You established yourselves as a 7” EP band back in the eighties, it’d make complete sense to do another of those!

keep us informed anyway.

Thanks for the thoughts! Are there any other main forums where minimal wave fans hang out and discuss? Facebook pages, perhaps?

And yes, a vinyl release with some of the unreleased Jacket Weather tracks would be optimal. I agree that MP3s are a totally unsatisfying way to collect music—unless you are stealing it as an easy download like the vast majority of “fans” do now, lol.

I’ve been working with indie labels for 30(!) years now, and today is the most difficult selling environment by far for underground sounds.

Cheers!

I bought the CD/7” from you guys a few years ago and really enjoy it.  I would say keep going that route unless you’re set on having it available on 180g vinyl.  As I have only been involved as a consumer I don’t know how well the labels are, but I would suggest trying to go with an American label as you are/were an American band.

Thanks for the kind words, Ollie, and for picking up the 25th anniverary CD in 2007. The 30th anniversary edition has 11 more tracks that we’ve found, aplus a few others are now from first-generation tapes.

Yes, I’d love to do another bit of vinyl to go along with the digital download. Files are fine, but I still collect actual physical releases, lol. Nothing as good as holding a record in your hand, even better when you made the record yourself!

More Jacket Weather news soon….

Awesome news! I’ll check out here for the dates of this reissue i speak for myself too and i’m with the ones that need to hold my copy in my hands.
Regarding the format,  if there are lots of tracks (woow 11 “new found” tracks! can’t wait to hear them) a double cd would be fine for me but the point is : i’d buy in pre-order a Jacket Weather collection in every format as long as it’s not a CDR ( including factory-pressed cdrs, pro-pressed, high quality cdrs : different names for the same enemy ) - please… that was the reason i couldn’t but the previous collection even if i love your music.

Many thanks for the kind words, and I do hope to have more release news soon! For now, it’s all available as digital download from Bandcamp: http://jacket-weather.bandcamp.com/

And CD-R production has really improved over the past few years. Perhaps you’ve had bad expereinces with CD-R quality in the past? Many major film studios are going to a DVD-R on-demand format for some DVD releases, and that model will grow as physical disc production declines. I expect audio labels will follow suit shortly, as majors have already said they’ll stop releasing physical CDs in the next couple years. Several idnies I’ve worked with have stopped ANY kind ofphysical release, which makes me sad!

I actually have created a short-run CD version of the new Jacket Weather anthology with all 29 songs, restored music video, liner notes and booklet—but not for public sale, but only for the band and associates.

I’d love to have a commercial CD version released, but finding the appropriate label has proven more difficult than I thought.

It happened last year for the last time and in case you are wondering i have a rotel cd player, which works more than fine with real cds.
i won’t name the band because it’s a very well known minimal synth band - but last year i bought their cd in pre-order, without even thinking they would put out a cdr (because their previous output on their own label…ahem was a shiny vinyl)- it was also packed in plastic ... and it was a cdr so i converted it on mp3 and gave it away to a friend, i won’t even bother to put it on sale on discogs.
Sorry man but i don’t agree with that scary perspective you are giving - i don’t think that the cd production will stop anytime soon, in favour of cdrs ...
That perspective you are giving, dvd on demand are sold because the new standard for the high definition is the blueray - so the dvd is already a format of the past!
Nowadays there’s always less people that care to own the physical support and this makes the buyers more aware of what they are buying.. so on the contrary i think that the cdrs will cease to exist (at long last!) -
i can name shops or mailorder that stopped selling cdrs in the past years and hopefully this good habit will spread (quickly!)
but ask here around what people think about cdrs ... i think you’ll have a picture. I didn’t mean to be rude at all, on the contrary i feel that your music can’t be put out on that cheap media that won’t last (i can’t stand to spend my money on a thing that won’t last).

Hi again,

Thanks for all your thoughts. We are in total agreement that if music needs to be on CD, then a real glass-mastered manufactured CD is the way to go!

I still really like vinyl, too, and if I could choose a format for release, then a vinyl LP “best of” from the 29 song Jacket Weather anthology would be fabulous. But for a self-release that is also very expensive…thus the digital download release for our anthology.

And it’s not just my personal opinion about physical CDs declining and then stopping for label production—this was announced by many labels in the press a couple months ago of their intention to stop making them soon. And there are labels I work with that have already stopped their CD production, or curtailed their physical releases by more than half. As for DVDs and BluRay, industry pundits suggest that no physical discs will be made commercially within a few years.

Again, I hope this is not true! I still love physical product, and want the Jacket Weather anthology to exist as more than “just” a digital download, even though that version does have CD artwork if you want to burn your own CD & print your own booklet…

Thank again for sharing your thoughts! Casiotone on!

Sure! Vinyl would be the best choice - in any case keep us posted, i’ll surely buy it when it’ll be out

Thank you, my friend!

Timothy,

Look here:

http://www.mobineko.com/

DIY.
They press vinyls and glass-mastered silver CDs in tiny editions, and last i checked they had _very_ competitive prices.