Posted: August 10th, 2011 by Nick
As many of you have read in the press or via social media, a large part of the independent music community took a serious hit very early Tuesday morning, when the Sony DADC / PIAS warehouse in the Enfield neighborhood of London burnt to the ground amidst continuing riots and unrest across England. A good summary of what occurred and which labels were affected can be read here: http://pitchfork.com/news/43478-labels-react-to-sonypias-warehouse-fire/
Dead Oceans, Jagjaguwar and Secretly Canadian, as well as our SC Distribution label brethren Asthmatic Kitty, Lovepump United, No Quarter, Suicide Squeeze Records, Post Present Medium and We Are Free, all lost 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. We extend our support to them, and we are committed to doing all that we can to help them with the recovery.
With regards to how this affects us and our releases, 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. Also, we have the utmost confidence that the emergency plan that PIAS and Sony are currently implementing will result in a new fulfillment system being up-and-running very quickly. Currently no release dates outside of the UK and Ireland will be delayed, and it is looking more and more like release dates within the UK and Ireland will be delayed by no more than a few weeks.
Although the lost sales and the amount of extra work will be significant, Dead Oceans, Jagjaguwar and Secretly Canadian are healthy enough to be able to weather this unfortunate storm. So it is that our more primary concern, again, is with those outside of our camp – the peer labels that we madly respect who have more of their stock more centrally committed to the Sony DADC / PIAS system – as well as the overall health of the independent music sector in the UK, especially at a time when over the past few years, physical retail and music sales in general had already been taking such a significant hit. Above all, we hope that the violence and vandalism in the UK gives way to peaceful demonstration and a thoughtful dialogue. Particularly to our friends in London, we wish you safety and a return to normalcy soon.
