international news _ 8th November, 2006
Vinyl Dance Distributor Goes Bankrupt
Text by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
Leading UK vinyl distributors Intergroove ceased trading this week, with administrators being appointed to wrap up the independent company.
The sudden closure is expected to have serious financial consequences for scores of independent dance labels, with the breaks sector in particular likely to be hit hard.
"Intergroove has been very honorable in upholding their payments to labels,” Abel Reynolds Finger Lickin’ told DJ Magazine.
“But as a result of the company closing, quite a few labels will go bust too, because they won' receive payment for records distributed by Intergroove in the last couple of months,” he predicted.
Berlin based record label owner Mark Reeder (whose label Flesh wasn’t affected) was sympathetic, though unsurprised, telling Skrufff ‘it’s another sad day for the indie vinyl record industry, but as much as we love vinyl, we cant halt progress. Vinyl is expensive and it's slowly becoming a purist’s luxury, I guess traveling DJs don't want to slog a bloody big bag of heavy vinyls around with them anymore either.”
“So, in the current economic climate more and more labels and DJs are saving through the internet, therefore it’s understandable that we are going to hear of more closures like this in the future,” he suggested.
“It’s even more unfortunate that so many indie labels will feel the devastating consequences of this closure too, as we all did with the demise of Prime.”
“I also feel sorry for Andy Howarth too as IG-UK was his baby and he was always a very enthusiastic vinyl maniac,” Mark added, “I'm sure he fought to the end. Still, I wish him the all very best in whatever adventure he decides to take on next.”
Biff, label boss for breaks label Functional, took a different stance, however, saying ‘it’s sad to see Intergroove gone but I am not convinced it’s not down to the “death of vinyl due to MP3 sales”.’
“We have done well with Intergroove for vinyl sales which have been rising steadily over the last two years, our latest release selling over 800 in the first two weeks,” Biff added.
“We have found a new home and hope to start trading with our new distributor in the next week to ten days. In the long term we have no plans to stop vinyl, we have very healthy digital sales, which is something we embraced from the beginning. We see the two formats running side by side for many years to come,” he added.
64 Records chief Rui Da Silva also pledged to continue operating releasing both vinyl and digital releases though admitted Intergroove’s collapse will reduce their number of releases.
“Vinyl sales still account for about 60 to 70% of our total sales,” said Rui, “And we do feel that we are right in the middle of a transition period in where the way people consume music has changed.
“The systems that were in place to reward everyone that had worked on a song are becoming obsolete and the new ways that people consume music still don’t reward those people who are involved in music from the writing to the delivery,” he suggested.
“It seems that we still have to find the system to reward those that dedicate their time to make sure that we all can enjoy great music, to a certain extend we consumers are destroying the ecosystem that previously provided us with good music. Let’s hope that the new one that was born a few years ago can become bigger and stronger than the one that it came to replace,” Rui added.
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