Disquiet

A funny thing happened on the way to downloading the most recent release from the netlabel known as Kikapu. Run by musician Brad Mitchell (aka Pocka), Kikapu has been posting for free download original electronic music since 2001. The latest release popped up late last month as a headline in my RSS reader, with links to archive.org, the Internet Archive, where Mitchell and many other netlabel administrators house their media files.

But when I visited to the Kikapu website, kikapu.com, for additional information there was no mention of the release, a nine-tack set titled VXVII by Mikronesia. Given the punctuality and professionalism that have been Kikapu’s standard for nearly eight years, the lack of information at kikapu.com seemed odd.

The next day, a visit to the website explained everything: Mitchell was closing down the label, after 109 of its virtual albums and EPs, with a suddenness that defines un-ceremonial — little more than an “R.I.P.” tagline (“2001 to 2008″) and some poetry by Walt Whitman:

The Past! the dark, unfathom’d retrospect!
The teeming gulf! the sleepers and the shadows!
The past! the infinite greatness of the past!
For what is the present, after all, but a growth out of the past?

While neither the first netlabel nor the most prolific, Kikapu has been, since its debut, one of the most substantive and consistent. It was a stable entity in the vast, growing and often chaotic field of freely, legally downloadable music. Kikapu didn’t contain Whitman’s multitudes so much as it hinted at them.

I’d first interviewed Mitchell almost exactly four years ago (disquiet.com). He explained then that he’d discovered netlabels, such as Monotonik (mono211.com), while looking for music to play on his college radio show. In time, he set up his own, releasing work by Raemus, Karl Zeiss, Veem and others, including Leonard J. Paul’s soundtrack to the documentary film The Corporation — an appropriate partnership, given the inherently anti-corporate nature inherent in any netlabel venture. Many of those releases have been reviewed as part of this site’s ongoing Disquiet Downstream section.

With Kikapu now shut down, I corresponded with Mitchell via email, and he agreed to answer some questions about the end of his much-loved netlabel.

Marc Weidenbaum: How did you come to the realization that you wanted to close down the Kikapu netlabel?

Brad Mitchell: The thought had actually crossed my mind a time or two over the years, but the final decision came about six months ago. The past few years, the amount of time and energy I’ve been able to put into the label has decreased significantly. When I started it I was still at university and had a lot of free time, and I really enjoyed it. But now that I work full time I don’t have nearly as much free time to devote to it, and this caused me to lose interest in it, to be honest.

I feel that the artists involved are giving 100 percent of themselves to their releases, and when I’m not able to match their dedication I feel that I’m cheating them of something. Running a label requires a lot of work, way more than I ever expected. Once I started spending less time on the label, promotion slowed, and I think some of the releases didn’t garner nearly as much attention as they deserved. And I mainly blame myself for this. Hence, I decided to stop doing any more new releases, so hopefully the artists can find homes at new labels that are able to put in all of the necessary work to get their music heard. Read More »