The Key

As you’ve probably heard by now, a Sony Music warehouse containing stock from 150 indie labels burned to the ground yesterday during the riots in London. Thankfully, no one was hurt during the incident. (And, when looking at the big picture, it’s nowhere near the top of the list of important issues and concerns brought up by the riots.) However, for many of these labels, the loss of property and damage will prove difficult, if not impossible, to recover from. The long list of labels affected includes Secretly Canadian (which has released albums by Philadelphia’s The War On Drugs and Nightlands) and Dead Oceans (Sun Airway); you can see a full list here.

For their part, the folks at Secretly Canadian/Dead Oceans/Jagjaguwar have said in a statement that they “[L]ost significant amounts of stock in this fire. This being said, our primary thoughts and concern are with the Sony warehouse staff and PIAS sales staff whose lives were all massively disrupted by the tragic event, as well as our independent label peers who had a more significant portion of their worldwide stock committed to the Sony DADC / PIAS warehouse… Dead Oceans, Jagjaguwar and Secretly Canadian are in the fortunate position of having significant stock holdings dispersed around the world. We’re working very quickly now to shift some of that existing stock to make our records available in the UK and Ireland as soon as possible.”

If you’re interested in helping out any of the indie labels that have been affected, now would be a great time to buy a few tracks directly from the labels’ websites, as doing so will get needed money to the companies faster than buying from iTunes. A donations page has also been set up here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK5ecuxXyYM&feature=player_embedded