It’s my kind of music

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

: for free on the internet to get visibility and spread awareness about their music. We wanted the entire rock scene to be recognised as a serious entity and started Dogma Tone Records,” says Bangalore-based Ramprakash L. He started the label with two friends, Sunil Anand and Varun R, who hold down full-time IT jobs and work on the music over the weekend.

“The cost of getting a band together and getting into a studio to record eight tracks could range from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakh. Nowadays, many musicians master their own tracks so that the cost gets absorbed and production expenses depend on the number of tracks put out,” says Samiran Gupta, founder of Indiabeat, which embarked as a web radio for world music in 2006 and was recently launched as a music label too, bringing out the works of Indian and international artists such as Amit Heri, Amit Chatterjee and Sanjay Mishra — spanning Indian classical, folk, jazz and even Indian progressive rock.

While the major labels remain risk averse, getting an indie label going could be akin to guerilla warfare. In April last year, musician Raghu Dixit decided to give up his search for a musical career, after being turned down by most of the labels. But at his solo gig at Zenzi in Mumbai, which he decided was going to be his last performance, the folksy tunes impressed Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravijani (the Vishal-Shekhar duo). That was enough to swing an album deal for Raghu Dixit on their label, Counter Culture Record. The seven-track album titled Raghu Dixit released in February this year, has been a huge success. “Every artist’s preference is to be signed with a major label. It’s only when that doesn’t work, that independent labels come into the picture,” says Rajeeta Hemwani, VP, A&R, Universal, who also adds “The reason being that while the smaller labels are driven by their passion for music, it’s very difficult for a lot of them to sustain themselves considering the kind of economics involved. Hence, sustainance is the biggest challenge for any small label, both in terms of money and distribution.”