This sucks. Absolutely Kosher — the excellent off-center indie rock label formed in 1998 that fostered a hell of a lot of great 00s bands in their pre-stardom years (Frog Eyes, Xiu Xiu, Sunset Rubdown, The Wrens, The Mountain Goats) — is saying goodbye to record-making for the time being, due to financial bullshit. Label owner Cory Brown posted a statement about the decision on the label’s website:
After 13 years, Absolutely Kosher will cease to release records for the foreseeable future. We’ve got one more album to share with the world before scaling back the operation to just administer our catalog. It’s by a Canadian artist called Himalayan Bear and the album is called Hard Times. No, the irony isn’t lost on me.
We should’ve been celebrating the label’s bar mitzvah this year, but it’s not to be. I wish I could tell you there’s a grand plan, a new chapter waiting to be written, but the truth is, we’ve been struggling for years and the only thing on my plate right now is to eliminate our debts and rejuvenate my spirits. We’ve made all sorts of adaptive changes at the label over the last several years, many of them yielding some positive results, but none at the scale and speed we need them to be at.
I got the chance to briefly chat with Brown at a record fair a few years ago, and he came across as a really smart, nice dude, and the fact that the artists on Absolutely Kosher were never really bound by any contract says a lot about the label’s generosity. Here’s hoping things turn around for them soon.
• Absolutely Kosher: http://www.absolutelykosher.com
