Today, Jean-René Etienne and Emile Shahidi, heads of French electronic imprint Institubes, announced that their nearly eight-year-old record label—that worked with artists the likes of Para One, Zombie Disco Squad, Harvard Bass, Midnight Juggernauts, Surkin, and Das Glow, among others—will no longer be releasing music. In a lengthy press release (that also doubles as a sort of State of the Union address for the music world), Etienne and Shahidi state, “We never lived those halcyon days some industry elders tend to rave about. We always moved through a post-apocalyptic, terminally pauperized landscape, complete with irradiated A&R zombies and mutated eyeless bloggers. It’s always been a bit of an uphill battle. But it got worse and worse. At first it was fun to figure out ways to get people to check out our music. But once that’s done and you have something resembling an audience, it becomes apparent that this is not really your job. Your job is to reconcile the public with the very idea of buying records. All the power to you if you can bear it.” It’s a sad state of affairs, to be sure, but it ends with the announcement that a “closing event” will be coming soon. You can read more of the piece, which includes information on the remaining artists from Institubes roster, here.

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