Maxwell Volume<p>It's <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/netlabelday" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>NetLabelDay</span></a>! Here's to all the <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/weird" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>weird</span></a> <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/obscure" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>obscure</span></a> <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/obsessive" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>obsessive</span></a> <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/enthused" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>enthused</span></a> <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/effusive" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>effusive</span></a> <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/outsider" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>outsider</span></a> <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/indie" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>indie</span></a> <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/unheard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>unheard</span></a> passion projects and all other <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/music" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>music</span></a> that exists online outside the corporate sales-pitch panopticon AI Amazong Boogle hellscape.<br><br>I've had an almighty shittery of a year thus far being sick or recovering 4 out of 6 months, so I haven't prepared anything special this time round - which is a shame, as 2025 marks the 25th year I've run a <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/netlabel" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Netlabel</span></a>. A potted history follows, for the two of you out there who are interested in such things!<br><br>Starting in 1999 I cobbled together what would now be called a netlabel which I called Novy Mir (after a combo of the samizdat adjacent Russian experimental magazine & the British new wave SF mag New Worlds), with a lot of help from Michael Moorcock and a little bit of Hawkwind-adjacency, I released ten or so albums on tape, a couple of CDs and attempted to make downloads work on dialup (failing on the latter). Later, 2010ish I formed Flamedog Records with Orlando Allen (lots of Gong family, Daevid Allen, Gilli Smyth etc). This time with full independent self-hosted paid downloads (as opposed to Bandcramp, Spitifiy etc). In 2018, from the ashes of burnout and mental anguish I set up my third and hopefully final label Tryptophonic Records, which exists to this day. All downloads free, <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/creativecommons" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>CreativeCommons</span></a> and "pay if you like".<br><br>So there you go. I recently released a <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/psychedelic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>psychedelic</span></a> <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/ambient" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ambient</span></a> <a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/tags/drone" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>drone</span></a> album entitled Longmeadow under the moniker of jlmxv, which is a collab between myself and <span class="h-card"><a href="https://gotosoc.tryptophonic.com/@jlm" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>jlm</span></a></span> - free to download at <a href="https://tryptophonic.com/longmeadow/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://tryptophonic.com/longmeadow/</a></p>