I remember the first time I realized how horrible the music industry could be.

I was in Rochester, front row centre awaiting the trip-rock goddess Poe on her Haunted tour, sponsored by of all things Pantene.  Opening for her was Think Of England, winners of a contest to both tour with Poe and record a demo for Atlantic Records.  Two days prior, we’d learned that Atlantic had dropped Poe mid-tour.  Needless to say, my friends and I were pretty flabbergasted.  Haunted was and remains to this day one of my top ten albums of all time, a true magnum opus with ties to a breakout debut novel by Poe’s brother Mark Z. Danielewski, House Of Leaves.  Poe lovingly stole my “Fuck Atlantic – We Love You” sign and held it up for all to see before claiming it at the top of the set.  Afterwards, the perplexed and worried openers signed my copy of their EP with the same declaration.

But it was far worse than merely dropping an artist they hadn’t bothered to adequately promote.  Poe was literally restriced legally from performing her own songs.  For years, she fought a vicious legal battle to take back her tunes.  To this day, we remain in limbo as a fanbase, awaiting a third album that is always “coming”, feasting on her sneaky guest appearances on Conjure One.

Yeah, the music industry can suck, and promoters are often part of the bloody problem.  OTM contributor 2020k is well versed in the ups and downs of promotions, but the masterminds behind Heresy Records are experts on the matter.  Wisely, they’ve decided that they’ve had enough of the commercialization of art and have set out to bring it back to what matters:  great goddamn music.

Seems like it should be a no brainer, right?  As Heresy Records’ Derek Leduc (Grief to you when he’s making the floors shake with spectacular tracks) puts it on the official site:

We want to provide the tools and the means to help artists make music and distribute it. Not everyone is a social media genius or a marketing wizard, but with our help the artist can focus on doing what the artist does best. It’s about honesty, fairness, and saying fuck you to the politics, because there are too many people between the artist and the listener.

OTM swung by the album launch party at Detour Bar recently and we have to say, we’re impressed with the calibre of talent on offer.  EDM, dubstep, house, drum & bass, even a little metal – you name it and Heresy wants to make you move to it with its quality roster. OTM’s planning on dancing their collective asses off to future gigs and suggests you join the party.  After all, summer’s just begun and maybe the Mayans were a year off.

Connect with Heresy and, as a wise movie character once declared, “Damn the man!  Save the Empire!”

Heresy Records website