The package comes [...]]]> Today marks not only the eve of Callum’s birthday at BOI HQ (put it in your diaries), but it also marks the release of the brilliant “Distal” by Crash of Rhinos. The beautiful CD package can be seen below and can be ordered RIGHT HERE with an exclusive Crash Of Rhinos badge for just £7.99

The package comes with a beautiful 16-panel insert including lyrics, photos and recording details; and the first 100 are also hand-numbered, so make sure you get in now and secure one of these extra special ones.

What are you waiting for?

There are two main reasons that we have [...]]]> The more eagle eyed of you may have noticed that this last week we have moved our downloads from Bandcamp over to our own webstore. You may also have noticed that we are now charging for our downloads rather than everything being free. Here we’d like to explain why…

There are two main reasons that we have changed our policy on downloads.

Firstly, whilst allowing all of our music to be downloaded freely was great for getting our artists’ music out there, it didn’t do much for their wallets. These guys work very hard and spend a lot of money in order to create and record their music, and we think they deserve to be rewarded. Whilst we’ll never be the sort of label who bitches and moans when people share our music (in fact, we love people sharing music with each other), we feel that we should set our stall out and show our artists that we value their work.

Secondly, by giving away everything, we tied our own hands when it came to rewarding loyal fans. There are many people who really support this label, and we’d like to be able to say thanks by giving them free stuff, like download codes. That’s kinda hard when everything is already free.

Although we are now charging for downloads, we’re not charging much. Downloads are £1.99 across the board, less than the price of a latte in our local coffee house (much less, in fact).

And just so you know we’re not complete money grabbing corporate rock whores, we will still be putting out plenty of free music as we go, starting today with our release of The Rhubarb Radio Sessions.

Several of our artists have recorded sessions at Birmingham’s Rhubarb Radio and we’ve put them all together into a downloadable album. Just click here and you’ll be able to download the album in exchange for a tweet or facebook post.

We hope we haven’t upset anyone with this change in policy – we have tried to keep the price fair for everyone, and we really will still be putting plenty of free tunes your way.

Finally, thank you guys for all of your support over the last 18 months, it means a lot to us.

Nick & The Brave Or Invincible Massive

We are proud to now release the Mark McCabe EP ‘When I Grow Up’ on the BOI webstore.

Head over and check out the awesome package we’ve put together, and you can also get the download on a “pay what you want” basis from [...]]]> Hurrah!

We are proud to now release the Mark McCabe EP ‘When I Grow Up’ on the BOI webstore.

Head over and check out the awesome package we’ve put together, and you can also get the download on a “pay what you want” basis from Mark’s Bandcamp.

Toodles!

Mark is a resident of Paris, but hails from our favourite BOI hunting ground, Aberdeen. We will be releasing his brand new EP “When I Grow Up” on the 29th October, which will [...]]]> It is with great excitement and pleasure that we can announce today the latest artist to join us here at BOI towers, Mark McCabe.

Mark is a resident of Paris, but hails from our favourite BOI hunting ground, Aberdeen. We will be releasing his brand new EP “When I Grow Up” on the 29th October, which will be available as the next in our series of vinyl-CD packages, alongside an A3 poster and badges. The EP will be available via the BOI webstore as well as directly from Mark on his upcoming UK tours.

Above is Mark performing a live version of the opening track to the EP, ‘Just Ask Nicely’.

We’ll have more updates on this as we go, but rest assured you won’t want to miss this one. Keep ‘em peeled.

Nick

There are two ways to get this single – a “pay what you want” download (starting at £0), or you can get your hands on one of the limited edition physical packages that includes a vinyl-cd, lyric sheet and A3 poster. Both [...]]]> Katerwaul’s brilliant new double A side single release is now available exclusively through BOI Records.

There are two ways to get this single – a “pay what you want” download (starting at £0), or you can get your hands on one of the limited edition physical packages that includes a vinyl-cd, lyric sheet and A3 poster. Both are available at our bandcamp page.

We only have 10 copies to sell through the label, with the rest being sold by Katerwaul directly at gigs, so if you want to get your hands on this great package you had better move fast!

Nick

The CD comes packaged in a beautiful 24 page booklet filled with artwork and lyrics by Tim Courtney. We love interesting physical product here at BOI towers and this certainly ticks all our sweaty boxes!

To celebrate the release [...]]]> Huzzah! We are now selling Katerwaul’s brilliant album ‘Here There Is No Why’ in our BRAND NEW BOI Webstore.

The CD comes packaged in a beautiful 24 page booklet filled with artwork and lyrics by Tim Courtney. We love interesting physical product here at BOI towers and this certainly ticks all our sweaty boxes!

To celebrate the release we’re knocking 20% off the price which means you can get your hands on a copy for just £7.99

We also have the album up for ‘pay what you want’ download on the BOI Bandcamp page, so there really is no excuse not to get on the Katerwaul bandwagon

Enjoy!

Nick

If you head over to our special BOI Mixtape Bandcamp page, you can purchase your mixtape and get [...]]]>

Ladies and Gentlemen, the time is finally here! The BOI Records Mixtape: Volume 1 is available to buy now! For just the measly sum of 5 english pounds sterling, one of just 100 limited edition mixtapes could be yours.

If you head over to our special BOI Mixtape Bandcamp page, you can purchase your mixtape and get the audio and artwork straight to your desktop to listen to at your leisure.

With the quality of music on offer, combined with the frankly INCREDIBLE artwork created by our 9 artists, we think this release is an absolute bargain. And if you feel the product is worth more than £5, we’re giving you the option to possibly pay a little more if you so wish.

We also just want to take this opportunity to thank all the bands on the compilation for their co-operation, all the artists who took the time and effort to be involved in this release, and of course, you for reading this and supporting independent record labels like ours.

Now the mixtape is out, we’re not resting. Keep your eyes peeled right here, over on our official Twitter feed and also our brand new Facebook page. We’ve got some great stuff coming your way in the next couple of months!

The BOI Records Crew

Sometimes when a label does this, it can seem like it’s a ‘fire sale’ or an ‘everything must go’ situation as they desperately chase lost revenue. Not for us. This is about remembering why we started this [...]]]> So you may have seen yesterday that we are now selling the Tiny Cinema album Designs for £1 on CD.

Sometimes when a label does this, it can seem like it’s a ‘fire sale’ or an ‘everything must go’ situation as they desperately chase lost revenue. Not for us. This is about remembering why we started this label in the first place.

This time last year we were just four friends on a University course. Chris W and Callum were putting on a gig for one of their modules and needed an artist to play. I have known Darren (Tiny Cinema) for 20 years and have played in countless bands with him for the last 15. He has always been my favourite songwriter, and since our last band parted ways he had started to produce some solo work. I recommended him to the lads for their gig, and they fell in love with his music too.

All Darren has ever wanted to do is write music, but he (by his own admission) is not a promoter. It’s the side of music that he has always hated, and always avoided. We decided that we could help get his music out there, simply because it deserved to be heard. We got Ryan on board, and later Shearer, and we started planning out how we could work this label.

We work with some really inspiring and forward thinking people, and we all have really strong views on the music industry and how people should strive to do interesting things, and create interesting products. The only way people will want to pay you for music these days is if you create something they want to pay for, something different, something cool. This, of course, is why we went out and got “Standard Jewel Case 4pp CDs” made.

Yeah. We fucked up.

We got caught up in the ‘old’ way of running a label, and we did things that we fundementally do not agree with.

It is not that the product is bad. The artwork by our friend Gavin Weir is beautiful, the package is well made, and I don’t think I need to tell you how much we love the music. It’s just that there is nothing different in this physical package, there is nothing to excite, there is no unique selling point.

The main problem that this has caused is that we had started to make decisions based on “well, we might shift a few CDs” and we had forgotten our orginial reason for starting the label. We no longer wanted to make decisions based on “shifting CDs”, it was taking all of the fun out of running this label, so we are taking them out of the equation.

On every other level we have delievered on our intentions for Tiny Cinema. Close to 200 people have downloaded his music from Bandcamp, he has played to new audiences and we have got him press coverage that gets his name out there, and we will continue to do this for as long as he lets us.

This post may be quite candid, and not something you would expect from a record label. Most of the time labels like to paint themselves as always right, but we are still learning, and importantly we have learned from this. We are not invincible, so we try to be brave.

Don’t ever expect to see us release a bog standard physical package again. Indeed, keep your eyes peeled as we have some really cool stuff happening soon.

The important thing we hope that anyone looking to release music takes away from this is to do things YOUR way. Don’t think just because you are releasing music everything has to be ‘major label standard’, like you would see in your major high street music shops. Fuck those places. They are dying, and if you align yourself with them then you will do.

Finally I will go back to why we started this label. To get the music that we love heard. So with that in mind, head on over to Tiny Cinema’s bandcamp and download some music.

Hey, and if you feel like buying a CD, that’s just fine too.

Much love

Nick x

Let’s just hope we can keep hold of him if Universal Pictures [...]]]>

Let’s just hope we can keep hold of him if Universal Pictures come knocking

With our products nearing delivery we can now finally announce the official release date for the Tiny Cinema album Designs, as well as some bonus offers we’ll be throwing in to celebrate the release.

The album will be officially released on 11th January 2010, however for you lucky lucky people we will be making pre-sale copies available [...]]]> Hurrah!

With our products nearing delivery we can now finally announce the official release date for the Tiny Cinema album Designs, as well as some bonus offers we’ll be throwing in to celebrate the release.

The album will be officially released on 11th January 2010, however for you lucky lucky people we will be making pre-sale copies available via the Brave Or Invincible Records website and the Tiny Cinema Bandcamp page from 1st December 2009.

The record will be available in CD format or via download, both priced at £6.

As an incentive, the CD format will come with a download code enabling fans to get hold of a BRAND NEW AND EXCLUSIVE TC EP, ‘Hotel Radio’, for absolutely free.

We here at BOI towers have heard Hotel Radio and can safely say it is some of TC’s best work, and well worth doing your bit to keep physical formats alive!

Keep an eye on the website for more updates, and also a live blog of our forthcoming ‘production day’ where I’m sure Chris and I will be having a few choice words, and plenty of tea & biscuits.

Tata for now!

Nick x