Music is art. Music when recorded has also since the early 1900's also been associated with mass-production. We may be moving on from those times, at least when it comes to music as a physical medium, and at least partially. One way for record label owners, curators and musicians making sense of the diminishing amount of (records) artefacts circulated in the economy, is to make fewer records, items which people may actually care about. This limitation is when it comes to various labels such as Time Released Sound, Ornaments and many more, self imposed and not forced upon them by terms of lack of sales. The difference is important, as is the motivation: Time Released Sound is one outlet which clearly wants to trancend the division between the record and art, and the art in this context means creating unique containers for the actual records.
"(...) There are the 'labour of love' labels, run by people definitely not into it "for the money", releasing extremely limited physical releases mostly packed in hand-crafted artwork so delicate and complex that it would be impossible to create more than 50 copies of a release."
Some people might scoff at the notion of releasing so few records, at the same time it illustrates the difference of motivations among artists. Of course, some will still want to live the rock n' roll lifestyle with many listeners and followers, others find different motivations. And I admit that having a record which I know has in some way been handcrafted does on a personal level simply feels better, then just buying a generic CD.
(image and music courtesy of Time Released Sound label)
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