Listening to the Wind: Encounters with 21st Century Independent Record Labels

‘Delightfully overwhelming in the amount of music to investigate … a late-night voice if I ever heard one’. Gideon Coe, Late Night Book Club, BBC 6Music

If there’s a cultural artefact capable of withstanding the vagaries and fickleness of the digital age as well as the printed book, it’s the vinyl record …

In Listening to the Wind, Ian Preece sets out on an international road trip to capture the essence of life for independent record labels operating in the twenty-first century. Despite it all - from algorithms and streaming to the death of the high street and the gutting of the music press - releasing a record to serve its ‘own beautiful purpose’, as 4AD’s Ivo Watts Russell once said, is a flame that still burns through these pages. With countless labels, albums and artists to be discovered, this book is for those who share that inextinguishable love for music.

**Features extensive, original interviews with the likes of Analog Africa, Light in the Attic, Thrill Jockey, International Anthem, Dust-to-Digital, Pressure Sounds, Heavenly, Touch, Mississippi, Sublime Frequencies and more!**