Culture & pleasure: Esprit III Aspic project

"We have devastated mind,
our releases are chaotic.
We certainly do not deserve the word "label".
But we still have a cool logo!
WE are just Aspic records"

Fuck music business, we are back in the underground !
or why we gave up putting music on plastic !

"Here is, in a few words (I will try) my questions :
- I have tried to release Cd’s the classic way, and to distribute also. I failed (Optical sound and aspic records). I discover that the business of music has no place for me. Or that I did not want to take part of it. To be clear, I discovered thing like : if I want my cd’s to be sold, I have to get in the business, not pressing only 500 cd’s. A review in some magazine has to be paid. If I sell the cd’s, the artist will never get money from it, but the distributors and shop surely will. At the end of the story, we gave more “promotionnal” cd’s than we ever sell. And I was disgusted and lose all interest in this (I will stop here, there is so much to say).
- If I release 500 cd’s, I have to give at least 200 copies to the media. 300 copies can be bought by “real” listeners. It cost me much, and I will - in the best case - get my money back.
If I put all this online as mp3, it cost nothing, and everybody can listen to it, not only 300.
- I definitly think the cd, as an object, is a piece of shit. No picture can exist with a small size like that. The sound quality is a lie (listen to your vinyls !!!). The plastic box gets yellow when old. Nobody touch the object anymore, read the liner notes, And it is fucking expensive !!! The prices have at least increase 200% since the time of the vinyl. The media said “it is expensive at the beginning, but when everybody will buy only cd’s, the prices are going to be normal again’. This never happened.
- I recently buy again vinyls. It is a pleasure to buy those objects. For example, the White noise b&w cover looks great. As a Cd, it looks like nice-price Cd ! Or the Tes vinyl, on Lex, with traces of pen !!! On Cd, it looks like a chicken scratch !
And at my record shop, they are cheaper than cd’s ! Can you believe it ?!?
- In record shop, I only can find some styles of music. Very hard to find, for example the last Lithops, Hecker (the one on mego), the Books, Kyo Ichinose…
- I am interested in too many sounds, I will never be rich enough to buy all I want. Soulseek is definitly my main purveyor. And do not tell me I download more than I can listen. Because I do listen to all my downloads !
- when I order directly to an artist, or a label, I am sure that the artist will get some money."
(Stéphane Fransioli "Aspic founder")

First serie (1999 - 2000)