Opsound writes:

Opsound Copyleft Record Label Launch

New York City, Dec. 2, 2005

EVENT WEB LINK:
(http://www.opsound.org/opsound/events/catalpaparty .html )

THURSDAY DECEMBER 2 - CD RELEASE PARTY & OPSOUND LABEL LAUNCH AT CBGB LOUNGE, 8PM - MIDNIGHT, $5 COVER.

New York, November 18, 2004. Opsound ( http://opsound.org ) an online sound pool of copylefted music, launches its experimental record label with a release party for the electroacoustic band Catalpa Catalpa's debut album, Hardoncity.The evening will feature live performances from Catalpa Catalpa, Ben Owen & Andy Graydon, Scavenger, and Weapons of Mass Destruction and will take place at the CBGB Lounge, 313 Bowery from 8pm to midnight on Thursday, December 2, 2004. There will be a cover charge of $5. The first 25 guests will receive free schwag bags.

"I'm delighted to have Catalpa Catalpa's debut as the label's first release," says Sal Randolph, Opsound's founder. "Catalpa Catalpa's roots are in rock but their sheer love of sound and noise breaks down genre barriers, incorporating elements usually segregated into pop, electronica, hardcore, and experimental."

PARTY LINEUP: CATALPA CATALPA, BEN OWEN & ANDY GRAYDON, SCAVENGER, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Catalpa Catalpa's two members Hayes Shanesy and Justin Stewart have been playing since grade school and though they're recently out of college they've already been in a succession of bands whose names evoke their hardcore affinities: Backhand, Bladder, Racecar, Leichman, Midnight Garden of Eden, and Skankerscores. Always restless, the Catalapa sound moves from unapologetic beauty to storms of noise with a sure hand for melody and development. Among the shimmering washes, pop riffs, and throbbing drones are wolf howls, lawn sprinklers blending into rhythms, recordings of friends talking. Feedback and distortion are manipulated like instruments, exploring the full range from delicate, almost singing sounds to crashing waves of loudness. Their first full-length CD, Hardoncity, is out now on the Opsound label.

Ben Owen ( http://www.seasonalbk.net/b.html ) works with projected slide film manipulations and experimental electro-acoustic sound composition. His collaborations can be found with Ting Ting Jahe, tiptip, and radio transmission works with free103point9 and broadcastatic. He also organizes Seasonal - a series of listening environments that include live performance, installation, an internet radio program, Home Listening; and the mp3 series, Addenda. Andy Graydon ( http://www.andygraydon.net ) is a film and video maker and sound artist living and working in New York City. His sound work has appeared in his own internationally exhibited videos and installations, as well as in live and radio broadcast performances in NYC. Andy also composes sound in several related side projects: Figure To Ground uses field recordings to create expressive concrete compositions. Undr generates dark ambient drift and drone music from a minimal palette of source material. Ben Owen & Andy Graydon collaborate on long-form meditative sound works and performances.

Scavenger is Trevor Healy and Tianna Kennedy. Instrumentation: sciencelab. Tianna Kennedy's work explores lo-fi/neglected sounds in the form of field and home/band-practice recordings. The daughter of a Geographer and Granddaughter of a Hobo and a bit of a wanderer, herself, Tianna is fascinated with all things transient. In addition to pimpin' her cello, Tianna is a founding member of BION and Special Events Coordinator for Free 103.9, currently working on her MA in Performance Studies at NYU. Trevor Healy, guitarist for the band The Weigh Down, is also known for his loop-based guitar work as First Hand.

Weapons of Mass Destruction is a Brooklyn-based guitar and laptop band, specializing in semi-ambient deconstructions and blasted-open pop covers. WMD are Sharilyn Neidhardt (guitar, keyboard, vocals, and sounds) and Sal Randolph (laptop, rhythms, vocals, field recordings, sounds). They have performed recently at The Bowery Poetry Club, Pianos, and Subtonic and will be touring this winter in Germany and the UK. Download their free copyleft songs from their site ( http://www.weaponsite.com ).

THE OPSOUND LABEL: SELLING FREE MUSIC

Opsound is an experimental record label and open sound pool of copyleft music, organized through the website opsound.org. It is a laboratory for looking at how artists can release music in a manner synergistic with the internet's capacity to encourage communication and sharing. Opsound explores the possibilities of developing a gift economy among musicians, borrowing from the model of the free and open source software communities.

Like the music in Opsound's online pool, all work released on the Opsound label will be copylefted, meaning that it can be copied and shared freely, remixed, and even resold. "The idea of a record label selling free music has always been part of the Opsound concept," says Randolph. "Opsound's experiment aims to demonstrate that file sharing and free copying help rather than hurt record sales; it takes inspiration from the thriving economies of the free and open source software communities. "

Opsound uses a copyleft-style license designed by Creative Commons ( http://creativecommons.org ) especially for music, art, writing and other kinds of non-software content. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding alternatives to traditional copyright through its spectrum of licenses. Creative Commons licenses are featured in the cover story of November's Wired Magazine which includes a CD of Creative Commons licensed music by artists like David Byrne, the Beastie Boys and Le Tigre, given away free with every issue.

Selling CDs of free music requires new strategies. "We're concentrating on making the CD something physically beautiful and interesting, something that people will want to own," says Randolph. The packaging features a fold-out hand-silkscreened poster designed by one of the band members. The poster, which serves as the liner notes, folds into a sleeve, and the CD is fastened on the outside, rather than placed in the sleeve, so that the CD graphics become the cover art.

EVENT WEB LINK:

for further information visit the event web page: (http://www.opsound.org/opsound/events/catalpaparty .html)

Contact: Christina Ray
pr [at] opsound.org

For further information:
Sal Randolph
opsound [at] opsound.org