A few months ago I was approached by an A&R who was interested in signing me to a new, supposedly ‘revolutionary’ digital-only record label called Red Skin Records. Dubious as always, I got on the phone to the label boss and picked his brains for about an hour, to try and work out what I would be getting myself into if I signed.

I’d already gone down the traditional record label route a couple of years before, releasing a track on Wall Of Sound and very nearly signing to them to record an album. For various reasons - namely lawyers (and the fact that I was advised not to sign by quite a few people I trusted) - the deal never worked out. I would have signed over my publishing and recordings to one company, something which seems a ridiculous thing to consider doing, in this DIY era.

So I was intrigued by the concept behind Red Skin Records, which was a purely digital label that would license music from me to sell exclusively on its website. After talking to the label manager, however, it seemed to me that there wasn’t a lot Red Skin was going to do for me that I couldn’t do myself - except, of course, the traditional promotional aspects (getting tracks to offline press and TV) and plugging singles to radio.

I declined to join the enterprise in the end (and the A&R who approached me left the company not long ago, urging those he’d introduced to the imprint to look “very closely” at the contracts they’d been given - not a hopeful sign), but the label now looks close to launch and I’m certainly interested in seeing how they fare.

Digital-only labels are the future (as evidenced by the upcoming launch of RCRD LBL) and in a future post I will try and outline ways in which independent artists might capitalize on this trend by starting their own digital labels.

Broken Social Scene – Love and Mathematics

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