Hey everyone—
Things are going well in the Burly Time world, and we're happy about that. The most recent development is an 8.4 and "recommended" status for Bowerbirds' Hymns for a Dark Horse on Pitchfork Media. You can read the great review here: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/43725-hymns-for-a-dark-horse.

Thing is, we've got a lot of great friends in great bands who haven't been as lucky as us, and they need help, like all bands, selling records on a national level. Hymns for a Dark Horse is going to do just fine, and we feel the same way about Burly Time. But we can't sign every band we love that needs help, but we'll at least respond to your e-mails before the biggest Web site in the world writes about you. It's common courtesy, and we just feel that strongly about music. But Insound, an online indie retailer who claims to be such a place and has claimed such for nearly a decade, isn't doing its job on this front. We reached out to them for weeks, and they never responded. This morning, they reached out in light of the review with a middling offer, which we have declined.



Hi Patrick—
After talking about it a little more this morning, we're going to
decline the consignment offer from Insound. I feel compelled to tell
you why, too, though you can stop reading now if you'd like, as I'm
sure you've heard it all before: We've been trying to contact you guys
for a few weeks now, and we hear back (actually, it wasn't a response;
it was a separate query!) this morning, after an 8.4 on Pitchfork. In
the past month, Bowerbirds have been written about all over the place:
John Darnielle called this the best debut he's heard in years; the
band was #6 at elbo.ws with TWO songs in the top 5; press from Paper
Thin Walls, Harp, Venus and upcoming words from Spin, Paste,
Popmatters, TONY and The Boston Globe; gushes from David at Continuum
Press. We've sold hundreds of copies of this disc through our Web
site, and the street date isn't for another two weeks. Still, after
repeated inquiries at Insound, nothing until today. That said, is
Insound really the leading voice in Independent music it claims to be?
What ground does Insound have its ear to? I know you're busy wading
through discs, but the guys that run this label—a music critic and
record store clerk—know how that feels. Doesn't it seem a bit
ridiculous that you have to wait for perhaps the biggest music Web
site in the world to recommend a record, and then offer us a middling
3-disc consignment offer because we're still contracting a
distribution deal? We're a small label with two releases from bands in
North Carolina. Thing is, the music is really fantastic, and there's
currently a headline review on the biggest music Web site in the world
with a link to your Web site, telling people to buy it. Perhaps that
you don't have it already or show any serious interest in carrying it
makes us look exactly like what we are— a small label with two
releases from bands in North Carolina. Or maybe it makes you guys look
massively out of touch with the people you aim to sell to and/or
represent.

We're passing on the 3-disc consignment, as it hardly seems worth it
too tie up three discs with no guarantee of sell from you guys while
people order several discs an hour on our Web site. But this isn't
about us: This is about the hundreds of fantastic bands out there
without even a chance for distribution. Who's representing them? Maybe
Aquarius, maybe Other, maybe Forced Exposure. Certainly not Insound.
We're eager to hear your thoughts.
Thanks a lot—
Grayson Currin and Brad Cook
Burly Time Records
Durham, N.C.