Geographic North debuts with pricey but classy single
July 21st, 2008 by Chad Radford in Music news
A Sunny Day in Glasgow 7-inch
After being hit off with a few hushed complaints around town about the high cost of the “(cult of) The Cemetery Flowers (mandolins version)” b/w “Walking Pneumonia” 7-inch from Philadelphia’s A Sunny Day in Glasgow that appeared in local records stores this week, I decided to do some investigating.
The Sunny Day… single is the debut offering from Geographic North, a new, Atlanta-based label launched by former WRAS DJs Farzod Moghaddam and Farbod Kokabi. According to their press release, the label “strives to to release records with the highest quality in both packaging and music alike.”
This is the first installment of a 12-month subscription series, titled “You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever.” The series is sold in 6 month installments for $36 (subscribers receive free postage and “special gifts”). All singles in the series will be pressed on various other colors of vinyl and are limited to 300 copies, which is sort of a standard M.O. for most small labels these days.
To the record buying public, the …Sunny Day single looks like just another 7-inch. Sure it’s on cool, sky blue vinyl. But why the $7.50-7.99 price tag?
It actually only costs that much to by the record through local retailers, like Wax’n'Facts and Criminal Records. To buy it through the website the cost is $6.00, which isn’t so bad.
“It’s really limited and we spent a lot on printing and we really did try to make it as classy of a release as possible. That plays into the up charge and we really aren’t going to make any money on it,” Moghaddam explains.
Other factors that contribute to the cost include the sleeves which were created via off-set printing, as opposed digital printing which is much cheaper, and the use of opaque blue vinyl, which is actually a mixture of blue and white vinyl adds the cost of two separate colors to price tag.
“It’s mostly record stores who have been complaining about the cost,” he adds. “There’s not really a great warehouse deal on it. We’re hoping to sell out via subscriptions.”
Moghaddam went on to talk about the importance of presenting each record as an overall piece of art, while stressing the influence of UK labels, such Factory Records (Joy Division, New Order) or Touch (Fennesz, z’ev).
Forthcoming singles in the series include records from: Tussle, Tarentel, Au Revoir Simone, Psychic Powers, Papercuts, Soft Circle and Landing.
For more information, including how to order individual records and to subscribe to the series click here.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 5:32 pm
i went to one of their ambient music nights at teaspace a long time ago. strange kids, but you could kind of tell they were destined to do more. my interest is peaked.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:35 am
i’ve seen these guys perform under the name Lyonnais and they seemed pretty swell. i am excited to see what they do next.