Many of you will have heard about the riots in London and around the UK this week, the causes of these are many, complex and I’m not about to go into my views on them here. There are many repercussions to be felt from these that will no doubt be felt for years, if not decades, to come in this country. An immediate one though is the needless destruction of a warehouse containing stock from over 150 independent labels, including Ninja Tune and its sub-labels. PIAS (Play It Again Sam) have been our distributor for many years now and I have nothing but admiration for the way they are handling this catastrophe alongside AIM, – official Ninja statement below.
A fire on Monday night in London wiped out the entire stock in the primary warehouse of 165 Independent record labels. The best way to help in the immediate future is to buy an album from one of these labels from a UK digital store, local record shop whilst stocks last or direct from the label. This will enable them to remanufacture CDs and vinyl more quickly, to resupply the record shops who are also affected by the riots. For Ninja Tune it means we have had to put Toddla T album release back to August 22nd and spend a lot of money repressing other titles. It’s very sad to know some of our wonderful and more obscure back catalogue titles may never get to be repressed.
Alison Wenham, Chairman and CEO of AIM, the UK’s Trade Association for the Independent Music Industry, has also commented: “This is a disaster for the music community, but with the fans’ help, labels and artists will survive. Please show your support for the music community by buying a digital album from an independent label today.”
Although we despise the many gross inequalities and immoral profiteering in our country, it’s emblematic of the riots’ futility that a warehouse storing millions of units of the unusual, interesting and less commercially minded albums on indie labels was torched. We wish all the other affected labels and our excellent distributor the best of luck. And thanks to all our supporters! The full list of record labels is here: http://www.pias.com/uk/pias-distributed-labels-list/
Also – news of a new fund to help struggling labels – see the link below for more:
[PIAS] & AIM Establish Fund for Labels Adversely Affected By The Sony DADC Fire
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