Saturday, March 14, 2009

Pondering a New Kind of Netlabel

Lately, I have become interested in the concept of the netlabel. I have downloaded music from various netlabels of different genres. For those unfamiliar with netlabels, a netlabel is basically a record label, except it releases its music mainly, if not exclusively online- free for digital download (often under the Creative Commons license). You can find a listing of different netlabels at Netlabels.org. One of the most interesting (note that interesting does not mean good) netlabels I have come across is the dramacore netlabel. This netlabel releases "dramacore music" a self-defined genre. The sound is a mixture of noise, industrial, chiptune, and hardcore. The only artist that I actually like from the site is ehafh, who uses some interesting sampling techniques in his works. Though I cannot claim to be a giant fan of the music, I love the concept- that one can create a new genre and release new, interesting works.

My question is why the concept of netlabels hasn't crossed over to publishing. I wonder why there are no "netpublishers" that publish free books/stories online. Why are there not new, experimental, genre-pushing publishers? Setting up a netpublisher would not require any effort, nothing more than a blog and an archive.org account. I would love to see the creative works that would come out of such an effort.

-techierant.muzik

P.S. More reviews coming soon.

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