Minimal Wave Records

It’s probably not much of a secret that there is a bootleg CD of Iko ‘83 floating around on Ebay.

There seems to be two extra tracks on it (“Military Service” and “Surrender To The Dream”) though that baffle me as I thought they’d only released the ‘83 album and the digital delight single.

Is there more Iko out there? A 12, a demo cassette, a 7” that weaved around Montreal back in the day?

I gotta track that down then if it’s so.

Let’s hope there IS more
I love IKO… it’s a scandal that they didn’t receive an official re-release yet!

Originally this CD-R was compiled by IKO’83 member Zao when receiveing a request for the band’s material from a French collector. If I remember correctly, this kind of fan edition was made in a number of 8 copies. Also - if I remember correctly - the two additional tracks were the only unreleased tracks from them.

8 copies? I’ve seen this item sold on eBay at least 20 times. In fact, there’s one on the ‘bay right now. The guy who sells them (Trizo586) sells nothing but CD-rs that he (or others) have cleaned up with digital restoration packages.

I thought peddling CD-rs on eBay was forbidden…

I meant the “original” fan edition by Zao was eight copies. Those on ebay are of course duplicated and sold by someone else in an ‘unlimited’ number….

hi i can send a jpg of the original CDR artwork by Zao.[/img]

i ripped it in my blog at 192

No of course, if it is a problem i can remove it as well

I don’t see any problem honestly…

The Iko stuff is long out of print, it has never been re-released officially, and Peter doesn’t make any money of it because he shares it for free with fellow music lovers…

If that’s a problem, than maybe each and every music blogspot should close down  
Just my opinion.

Don’t you think your answer is a bit naïve ?

Considering the fact that i i buy minimum 20-30 records every month and i buyed the full catalogue of MW, including also your release, i can say NO, is NOT naïve.

If the artist will directly come to me and say “please, remove for this and that reason” i will do it in 1 second,simply.  Just to do an exemple of the contrary: Taste Of Decay singer was coming to my blog to say thanks that i ripped a record that nobody or just few persons were able to listen in the 80’s.

Im an italian journalist for a music magazine (and yes i also reviewed Ensemble Pittoresque lp on our pages), so i can say that im touched directly by this topic. I talked already a lot of times about with some friends and you should believe me: a lot of people would never be into this music now, buying all that releases from recent labels, if some people would’t rip some things.

Im not doing money on ripping, i also spend my time to rip from vinyls/tapes/cds some things that r not really easy to find,  just to share with lovers of this kind of music. This IKO cdr i ripped in fact is a bootleg, somebody is doing money on it selling on Ebay, so the only thing i can do against is to rip it and spread it for free.

This is just my opinion. If you think that P2P system and the Blogs are killing the underground music you are very far from the reality..Do you think that this period of re-releasing is just a fashion period, that it will vanish in 2 years, or do you think that is a solid cultural movement that it will stay in the future? We should all be honest with ourselves: WHO buyed and is buying music, will continue to do it. The others will never buy even a 7’’ for 1€, but at least their personal music culture it will be bigger than The Cure and Joy Division. And maybe, inside the mass of downloaders, somebody will start to buy..

Anyway is a very complicate and long topic, i prefer to talk about in person than inside a forum

I’m sorry Ton but it is your opinion that is naïve and insulting to this music community. You seem either unwilling or incapable of making a distinction between “music consumers” people that download the latest madonna or dj tiesto cd and people that are serious music lovers.
Those people are looking to DISCOVER new old forgotten works of art that nobody gives a fuck about but those that share these songs with each other. Do you have any idea how many collectors are sitting on their most desired releases they want to own and NOT share with anyone out of selfinterest? You seem to assume all those songs that are ripped are already known to half the world and the downloaders are downloading so they dont need to buy it. And if a downloader says: thanks for sharing that amazing piece of art!! do you not think he also indirectly pays tribute to the artists themselves? How much more direct do you want your praise?

Well here’s a newsflash Ton: most people downloading a. dont know it and b. after downloading are looking to find the original or reissued material. Seeing this community as a bunch of joyriders is incredibly insulting to the few hundred people without whom this music would have already died in the nineties.

And you dont have very clean hands yourself if I’m not mistaken. Complaining about Ensemble Pittoresque LPs being shared online when there were only a bunch of them available for sale for the friendly price of 60 euros. How the fuck am i otherwise able to listen to your music Ton if you could excuse me for not having that much money available for such luxury items?

Oh and did i tell I have put DAYS of effort over the past year in tracking down an artist I love with all my heart, through former friends finally get hold of his mail. Thanking him for the music, giving him tribute, asking if he still has a copy of his record to not receive any reply? So should I just forget about the release or fucking settle with a shitty mp3?

If you think im boosting my ego, you r even more far from the reality than i was previewing - I dont care of “thanks”, i dont care of “who is ripping what”, i dont even understand your position, that it sounds a bit strange.

With my blog, i just want to promote culture, and in this case, musical culture. This is what i do anyway in my job as journalist, reviewing famous or unknown albums, doing interviews to Vince Clarke or to Humour Malade, just to say 2 estreme positions. You should know that already big names as Radiohead released their last album for a kind of free on the net, selling then the real release in a collector’s edition. The music business (and i really hate this word) is clearly heading on the lovers/collectors/fans, like labels as Annalogue, Minimal Wave, Brouillard Definitif and many others are doing.

In fact Spartak is totally right when he said that “most people downloading a. dont know it and b. after downloading are looking to find the original or reissued material” - it works exactly like this.
But in the ripping there’s also a negative effect. Probably you already know (or can imagine), that exists a parallel “movement” of mp3s,shared between a close circle of fans and no longer available in large compilation as New Wave Complex or Flexipop: what you find in the net is simply the iceberg of all this “movement”. One of the reason why it happened is almost clear. The ripping is increasing day by day the prices of records .. 5 / 6 years ago bands as the Factory or Schleimer K, just to do two examples, where not so “famous” as now, and it was possible to buy them for a normal price, in fact i did in the past, buying for a kind of nothing records that now r is nearly impossible even to find.

Another point that i would like to clarify is that for me is very important to NOT RIP the things that r still available to buy (in stock) from the Labels we all like. They do a great and difficoult job, with a small quantity of copies, they simply have to survive to print other things.

I will continue to buy your music - if something will be reprinted, i hope so - cause i like it a lot, but sorry it seems you want to talk to me in a “superior” position and i really dont like it. So there’s nothing more to talk about.

Greetings from the sunny Italy,

Alessandro Adriani
:Ritual: Magazine

Ton, well I do get angry when you call people with love for the music disrespectful. You seem totally unwilling to see the context and stare yourself blind on the formal right of the artist on publishing the music. Yes, the artist owns the music. But this is not a mainstream music community and quite some records are only available for insane prizes, if they are available at all. You sound like a farmer in africa whos crop got destroyed by a plague complaining about the UNHCR delivering free food for the hungry.
And what’s the use of a reissue when there are only 20 people that know of the music? You cannot have your cake and it it too.

In that respect, your remark about me thinking i have the right to own the music sounds a bit elitist: if i and hundreds of other fans cannot hear it (radio and blogs really arent that different, i can download veronicas show as well and have the song)  how are we supposed to know about the music we would like to buy? Should I have friends that own and play that music for me? Tough luck on me I guess as there doesnt seem anyone around in my neighbourhood that has invited me for a listening session (in this specific subgenre that is). Perhaps because I’m an antisocial dick nobody would like to have over, or maybe because there arent any in my vicinity. Your formal approach would bury 80% of the forgotten music for the vast majority of music lovers with the exception of a dozen supercollectors that do not need such blogs or radioshows to gather their information.

Nobody is trying to make money with sharing the music, it happens small scale and 90% would buy an official reissue of there would appear one.
Besides, like peter said, you wont find any new or recently reissued releases on such blogs, and even on p2p most people dont share new material that is still for sale.

Regarding record collectors asking the artist if there are still copies available, i cant see anything wrong in that. I dont see For This is Past shared on the website so how else would someone not willing to pay ebay prizes get hold of the album then a. ask the artist himself or b. find it as a download somewhere else.

And although i appreciate what you said you dont need to apologise for not saving me a copy. I am not entitled to anything and i hope i didnt make you asume otherwise with my previous post. But i WILL try to find (and share) the mp3s of records i cannot seem to find otherwise for a reasonable price.

Spartak: you’re such an “antisocial dick”!

FUCK OFF ASSHOLE :!:

Aww you two

I do have problems with the blogs and their easy-access mp3s, actually… I’m sure I’m not the only “record collector” here, and I suppose we’re all music fans in one way or the other. As a collector, I like owning the music in its original format; cassette, vinyl, cd or whatever - and I like owning special editions, like press info, picture inserts, promos, bonus DVDs, coloured vinyls et al.

And although my funds are limited, I prefer to obtain the original records, tapes or discs rather than collecting music as files on my hard drive.

I have actually found that zips from blogs trivialise the music; I’ve sometimes heard the music on mp3, but not liked it that much, but when I later get the vinyl I find the music grows on me too. Not because mp3 sound worse, I’m no hi-fi freak and frequently rip my vinyls myself - but more due to the lack of “context” (stuff like the liner notes, cover design, even the history of the item: did I get it from the artist? did I get it signed? Did I pay a lot for it on ebay?) - even when the cover is scanned and added to the zipfile I prefer holding the real cover in my hand and watching the record revolve…

Another example of blogs trivialising the music is the sheer mass. If you’re on a half-decent cable, you can download a year’s worth of minimal electronics from dozens of blogs in a few evenings. You get more zips on your harddisc than you have time to unpack and _really_ listen to! And as a music fan, actually I am frustrated about the stuff I have on my pc that I’ve never heard, or maybe played once while solving sudoku and not really concentrated on…

So I’ll give Ton that much: Music deserves better than getting stowed away in some blog, then piled up among other music on a harddisk.

Having said this, of course I’m off to download the IKO cd just now. And what else could I do? If the two last tracks in the zipfile (sorry, .rar file) have been released in a total of EIGHT copies, I’m not likely to find them in their proper format anytime soon, and if they get a proper release (like a proper CD, LP or just those two songs on a 7”), I’m bound to pick them up anyway - unless I really dislike the songs.

Whether any label would risk releasing them now the mp3s are available for free is anyone’s guess - although, what do you guys who run labels say?