The past: 2004 - 2009

ILR began as a a digital-ONLY electronic music record label based in Melbourne (Australia) in January 2004, and was founded by the little known bedroom DJ/Producer, Praveen "PJ" Jayarajan. In the beginning, all ILR release's were made available through various specialist dance music websites, including Beatport, DJ Download, and Juno, amongst many others. Also, courtesy of the Internet Online Distribution Alliance (IODA), the ILR catalog was made available on more mainstream outlets such as Audio Lunchbox, MusicMatch, MusicNow, Napster, Rhapsody, and Sony Connect.

Just like any other label releasing 12-inch vinyl or any other format, ILR promoted it's music to select club/radio DJs, CD/mp3 record pools, dance music magazines, online websites, messageboards, newsgroups, and mailing lists. ILR focussed itself on discovering new artists and releasing a diverse range of music. Many of the artists already signed to the label have since gone on to release music on other labels, work on remix projects, as well as gaining DJ/live performance bookings. These artists come from various countries across the world, including Australia, USA, Canada, UK, Norway, Portugal, Italy, and Croatia.

In 2005, ILR branched out and developed 2 new projects. Firstly, the Infamous Record Pool - an mp3 promo service which enabled other independent record labels to get valuable and affordable real-time feedback on their latest music releases through digital music promotion. And secondly, the Infamous Podcasts - a series of DJ sets made available on the internet through the utilisation of the latest trend of online blogging and podcasting. In 2006, after 10 releases in the digital domain, comprising various singles and EPs, ILR released it's first full-length album on CD. This was a limited edition CD Digipack release that went on sale through CD Baby.

Since it's launch, ILR has received international press attention from DJ Mag, International DJ, m8 Magazine, Resident Advisor, inthemix, 365 Mag, and Progressive Sounds. Individual releases have also received support from some of the world's A-list DJ's, noteably from luminaries such as James Zabiela, Hernan Cattaneo, John Digweed, Tyler Stadius, Cass, Phil K, Demi, Omid 16B, Chris Fortier, and Carl Cox. ILR releases have also graced international radio airwaves, with plays on BBC Radio 1, Kiss FM, and Proton Radio.

In 2009, after a long hiatus, ILR formally removed it's entire back catalog of music from 3rd party digital download websites and made selected releases available for free download.

The future: 2009 +

Future ILR releases are to be released under a Creative Commons license.

The culture...

Article by Ben Osborne, Music Week April 2009.

First there was a gradual shift away from vinyl to recordable CDs but now with laptops running specific software, DJs are rushing headlong into a digital revolution and it is changing their business and their roles After decades resisting new formats, dance music is currently leaping into the digital future. It is a transformation that is both rapid and far reaching; changing not only the dance music business, but the role of the DJ and the music itself. The rise in digital distribution of dance music is partly a reaction to market trends affecting other parts of the music industry, not least that digital sales are growing - especially in the dance-friendly singles market. The figures are striking. Overall UK music sales dropped by 3% in 2008 (according to data from the Official Charts Co and the BPI), but singles sales in the UK rose by 33% to 115m units. Of these only 4.8m were physical sales - the remaining 110.2m were digital. Given statistics like this, it is not surprising dance music is embracing digital distribution. But there are more compelling factors fuelling dance music's rapid digitisation. Traditionally dance music has been antagonistic towards new formats. DJs spent 20 years resisting the onset of CDs. The first serious challenge to vinyl DJing was the Pioneer CDJ 1000, which replicated the vinyl DJ experience on a CD deck to an extent that made CDs acceptable. "There was much more emotional attachment to decks and vinyl in dance than other music scenes," says Tom Kihl, who recently left Ministry of Sound's online operations and started Alchemy Content, a digital content company with strong roots in dance music, of which he is now director. "The tipping point was Pioneer's CDJ-1000 deck. Combined with CDRs and online distribution it was ideal for dance culture. This meant the dance scene was ready to adopt digital wholeheartedly, at a time when the mainstream was preoccupied with defending the [CD sales-centred] status quo," says Kihl. Pioneer's CDJ-1000 created CD-playing DJs, but it failed to ignite a CD-buying culture among them. Instead it introduced DJs to the flexibility of digitally-distributed music, which they could burn onto CDRs. So while CDs have become more commonly used by DJs than vinyl, DJs have not fallen in love with CDs themselves. The new format is merely a disposable tool - easily jettisoned when a better one came along. The majority of DJs these days are downloading tracks and burning CDRs," says DJ magazine technology editor David Eserine. "But the shift to laptop DJing is in full swing. DJs are already collecting and organising music on computers. Burning a CD almost seems like hard work. "Next to CDJs, digital vinyl systems are the biggest selling and growing products on the market. Almost all new CD decks can either play MP3s from iPods and USB drives, or are designed to control DJ software," says Eserine. "Serato Scratch Live was the first product to install confidence in this new way of DJing," continues Eserine. "DJs could still use their turntables or CD decks, but they're now plugged into the laptop. And Scratch Live quickly gained a reputation as being the most reliable. Its key selling point is that it doesn't need an expensive laptop to power it and it's incredibly easy to use. This lead is shifting over to Native Instruments' Traktor Scratch Pro, who were the first people to make DJ software. Where Scratch Live suits DJs who want to scratch, Traktor is a much more powerful application with four virtual decks, studio quality multiple effects and is much more suited to dance music." "The positives of adopting a software approach now vastly outweighs the benefit of sticking with CDs," adds Terry Church, director of Beatportal, the editorial/community site attached to the Beatport store. "CDs have never really been part of DJ culture. They were merely convenient for the early adopters of digital technology. You can do so much more with these new tools, and, ultimately, they offer the DJ many more routes to express their creativity." At the moment most DJs are still CDJ and vinyl users, but there is little doubt that this is changing rapidly, as software improves and prices drop. It now costs less than the price of one CDJ-1000 to buy a complete digital vinyl package. And since the software aims to replicate and improve physical DJing, changing to digital DJing is an intuitive process. "The main reason we started using Serato was we have always been fans of vinyl and what Serato does very well is emulate vinyl," explains Tim Garbutt of veteran dance act Utah Saints. "You can do everything you can do with normal vinyl and more. When you travel on an aircraft you can probably carry about 60 [vinyl records] without getting charged for excess baggage. With Serato you can have your entire record collection with you at all times. "We love the fact that you can be sat on a train on the way to a gig and you can re-edit a track and then two hours later be playing that off [Serato] in a club." Another contributory factor to dance music's rapid adoption of digital formats is the debate around DRM barely registered in the dance community. "DRM was never going to fit in with a scene used to pressing up vinyl and delivering it by hand - and it's far too restrictive for DJ performance," says Kihl. "This is another reason why the dance industry is in better shape to embrace the new media ethos of sharing, remixing and relaxed copyright - all of which is far more in tune with dance music values than DRM." "DRM got in the way of digital DJing because most MP3 decks and DJ software have a problem playing it," says Eserine. "Stupid things like looping would be deactivated because it is seen to break the copyright of the recording because the deck samples a portion of the recording to loop it. It's a relief to see iTunes give up on the idea, but all professional DJ download websites have always offered their music DRM-free and with high-quality encoding." Compression on MP3 has been a bigger obstacle, as poor-quality MP3s lose bass and high end when played on club systems. But recent developments, such as shops and distributors tightening quality control, are resolving these problems. "People complain about the quality of compressed audio, but with memory capacity growing at the rate it is, this simply isn't going to be an issue in the near future," insists Kihl, who is also adamant that dance music is maintaining artistic quality. "At the International Music Summit in Ibiza last year, Andrew Keen, writer of that most pessimistic book on the cultural effects of digital media - The Cult of the Amateur - was pleasantly surprised at how the dance scene had managed to establish a working model for using digital music," he says. For Groove Armada the growth of a digital dance market has been artistically liberating. Earlier this year at Midem they unveiled a digital download deal with Bacardi, which gives fans access to free music via a new sharing distribution model. This will be followed by two further albums projects, all artistically-driven and digitally- focused. "The major difference is we're through the major label set up," says Tom Finlay of Groove Armada. "I don't think major labels and dance music have been particularly good bedfellows. The majors are not great at dealing with nine-minute-long records. They want big hooks and radio-friendly tracks. "So one of the LPs is a straight-up dance record. It's a chance for us to release stuff we've been DJing with for years, so for us it's quite exciting. We want to do a mix album with our stuff on it, that we will probably give away. Then people will be able to go to somewhere like Beatport, or maybe just our own site, to buy the individual tracks and we won't release them except digitally," continues Finlay. "I'm still a believer in vinyl and there's still a place for [London shops] Black Market and Phonica and the expert, specialist stores. But in a mass market sense, it doesn't make sense any more - sadly." Finlay also says the technology is changing the way the music is made and played - with shorter tracks, intended for DJs to loop, potentially replacing the long-burning disco remix: "That whole mash- up culture has sprung out of digital DJing and what's emerging from this potent technology is being able to throw one tune into another without having to think about it. "I think it may be the death of 10-minute rework though, so the downside may mean the end of the Francois K remix," says Finlay. From a label perspective the switch to digital has been revolutionary, as Positiva label head Olly Rice explains in dramatic terms. "With the CD and vinyl market now representing less than 10% of total sales for one of our dance single releases, the focus is very much on the digital single. It has affected the entire business chain," he says. "Digital is taking by far the lion's share of our business and this is very much what we are focusing our singles business on. "Whereas once we may have done a vinyl specialist mailout, this is now being replaced with a secure MP3/CD mailout to specialist DJs/ retailers. Whereas once we may have looked to do a physical format exclusive to one physical retailer, like HMV, now we are discussing exclusive mixes with the likes of iTunes, Xpressbeats and so on. "With marketing, we're targeting core fanbases through expandable leaderboards, banners, mailers and social networks and spending less money on traditional media for specialist releases," says Rice. Positiva now releases everything in digital formats, but will only manufacture CDs if it looks destined to be a UK Top 20 hit. "This is simply because there are less racking opportunities at retail now and the CD singles market is in continual decline," says Rice. "Vinyl we manufacture as there is still a small but relevant market, although we do have to take imports into account if [there's] a licensee in another territory." The Compost and Get Physical labels are also still shipping enough vinyl to make it viable, but report falling physical sales. This is naturally changing the way they operate. "Physical sales have declined, but we have had our best year on Beatport ever, as well as a great year on iTunes," says Get Physical Music label manager Marcus Finkt. "So we have been more conservative in initial [vinyl] pressings. And we have launched a new label, Get Digital, which will on one hand release white labels and on the other be available on our website before being served to other digital shops. So in this way we are more independent." Compost Records' rights manager Thomas Herb reports similar changes: "We saw exploding digital sales in 2007. And in 2008 we still had an increase of 50% compared to 2007." But he rejects the idea that this points to the end of physical product. "If you compare a disco, house or tech-house release with a hip-hop, post hip-hop or breaks release, it's clear that the vinyl market for disco, house and tech-house is much better. The reason is quite simple - nearly none of the jocks in the hip-hop or breaks stables play vinyl anymore. "It's important to have a product and/or collector's item for people who are still looking for real records. So, apart from the quality of the music, the packaging, artwork and liner notes are getting more important. "We also believe we will see a return of small, specialised record dealers but in a different environment - shop-in-shop models or non-traditional outlets. There are already some very good examples; Colette in Paris and Dussmann in Berlin showing there's potential." For Herb the most important thing is to be careful when pressing physical product to avoid overstocking. "We try to analyse each product, especially the singles, in terms of the target and making it available in various formats in realistic amounts," he says. James Grant, managing director of Above & Beyond's label Anjunbeats, also sees a mixed format future with digital leading the pack: "Anjunabeats is still very much a physical and digital label. We lose a bit of money on vinyl but we feel it's important to give artists and fans something that looks and feels nice, so they can take it home to show their friends and family, or just cuddle it. "Overall, we're probably selling more units in total than ever before. That doesn't automatically equate to more net income for the label because third-party licensing income has seriously diminished, but unit sales are growing and we're very optimistic for the future," says Grant. "We're also quick to jump on new income streams and were the first UK indie to sign up for YouTube's commercial partner deal, via our Above & Beyond TV channel," he continues. The dramatic rise in downloads has already created its first major success stories, with Deadmau5 breaking through almost solely via Beatport sales. "I was speaking to Deadmau5's manager and he's selling masses through Beatport," says Finlay. "If you're doing that why would you want to put out anything physically? He's getting massive sales from single releases, which is what it used to be like with vinyl." "Deadmau5 was solely a digital phenomenon," confirms Church, "both his product and his profile. He had many number ones on Beatport before any physical media outlet wrote about him, and by then he already had a huge following that he'd built organically." Among all this optimism there is anecdotal evidence that technology is changing DJ culture in some unwelcome directions. "DJs need to spend more and more time in front of the computer," says David Eserine. "So the social side of it moves online and into forums, which is not the ideal way for humans to communicate." Kihl also points out that digital DJing tends to create less impressive performances, with DJs either looking like they're reading emails or, worse, bouncing around pretending to twiddle knobs. "Performance is something a laptop continues to fail miserably at," says Kihl. "A lot of the controllers just look too small and inactive compared to records flying about. We need an equivalent of the Nintendo Wii for pro DJs, and I don't doubt it's coming." And if it should arrive it looks likely to be welcomed by DJs, as Finlay points out, "Watching laptops just isn't rock 'n' roll."