The end of Rephlex Records?

My 2¢: not fond of how the RePhleX logo went from oval to round. Oval commitment! Juss sayin'.

  On 8/29/2014 at 5:50 PM, Abstract Daddy said:

 

 

  On 8/29/2014 at 12:32 PM, Herr Jan said:

 

Well, that will go to Richard / Warp. You could also ask yourself what happened to all the eBay / Kickstarter money that went to Rephlex. The biggest chunk went to Richard, but another big chunk went to Grant. I saw it as an investment in new Rephlex releases so I really didn't expect the end.

 

 

I never even knew about the rephlex kickstarter, I'd have put some money into that.

 

Grumpy's right you're a great acid/rephlex source.

 

 

he's referring to the Caustic Window LP kickstarter!

  On 8/31/2014 at 9:52 AM, oscillik said:

 

  On 8/29/2014 at 5:50 PM, Abstract Daddy said:

 

 

  On 8/29/2014 at 12:32 PM, Herr Jan said:

 

Well, that will go to Richard / Warp. You could also ask yourself what happened to all the eBay / Kickstarter money that went to Rephlex. The biggest chunk went to Richard, but another big chunk went to Grant. I saw it as an investment in new Rephlex releases so I really didn't expect the end.

 

 

I never even knew about the rephlex kickstarter, I'd have put some money into that.

 

Grumpy's right you're a great acid/rephlex source.

 

 

he's referring to the Caustic Window LP kickstarter!

 

Oh yeah, I forgot I got a reminder about that and kept putting it off. Should have put two and two together.

  On 8/28/2014 at 4:30 PM, Joyrex said:

 

  On 8/28/2014 at 4:05 PM, mokz said:

 

Why don't they put their back catalogue in bandcamp or something? I mean the overhead would be really small and they'd get money out of it.

Because unlike independent artists who aren't tied to a publisher like Chrysalis, that's not a problem - when all your output is tied to a publisher, they get a cut of everything you release - so it's not easy to just bung something up on Bandcamp, as I imagine individual track sales is probably a nightmare for one person to sort out what the publisher gets. Probably the reason Rephlex didn't just move to any of the digital storefronts. Not to mention, Bandcamp then takes it's cut as well, further reducing profits, making the whole effort of it not worthwhile.

  On 8/28/2014 at 4:16 PM, Herr Jan said:

 

  On 8/28/2014 at 3:54 PM, mcbpete said:

 

 

  On 8/28/2014 at 3:45 PM, Herr Jan said:

* = the Analord binder costing between 80-90 pounds each, while selling them for 40 pounds (including Analord 10).[/i]

Someone ripped Rephlex off there - The ring binder seemed real flimsy, the 'gold' coloured stamping seemed of pretty cheap ink and was just vinyl/lino covered hard card. I'd say it should've cost them more 8-9 pounds each (and then whatever the cost of the 12'' on top)

Too bad I don't have the binder (infinite regrets on that decision, but had no access to a creditcard at the time), but someone here also said it was supposed to be a leather binder but it didn't turned out to be.

 

Assuming Richard is telling the truth of course, it seems like a really weird investment looking back on it. But like he also said in that same interview: Grant and him were never looking at these things from a realistic pov, just "fuck it, go for it", blaming their 'naivety' as one of the reasons for it's supposed downfall.

I think something got lost in translation - I don't think the Analord binder was ever intended on being "real" leather, and speaking from experience, foil stamping is very expensive - just having the stamp made is pretty costly, and then the price-per-unit adds into that. Add to that the fulfillment aspect (boxing everything up, the costs of shipping materials, putting the vinyl in the sleeves, etc.), and it quickly eats away any potential profits.

Beating a dead horse pt.2

One thing that has slightly bugged me is that somehow I got the picture that in some degree it was Richard who decided to put Rephlex down. Like, weren’t there some pub talk rumors of Richard saying he didn’t feel like continuing the label? Was there something in the interviews, can’t remember. I think that it's been proved to be true that basically it was only Grant who got to deal with actually running the label while Rich wasn’t so much part of it. I really can’t see Richard filing papers behind the desk and listening to demos or whatever they were doing. What I’m aiming at here is that I, for one, would be super pissed if after all the hard work I had done someone else biked in saying ‘’sorry but I really don’t bother to continue this shit anymore’’ and the whole thing is done. But then again if it were bankrupted anyway it wasn’t necessarily so crucial what Richard was planning. Yet, can’t help but to think if Grant wanted to continue Rephlex. He has been active with AP and EDM releases so the guy really loves the braindance scene. For me those aforementioned releases are essentially Rephlex releases.

This is just speculating and raising more questions than it gives but there really isn’t too much info on what has been going on. In general I’ve tried to not be too hard on Grant & Rephlex with all the delays, lack of information and so on since it’s just one man. They did bring up frequently though that they did what they pleased so in my part I’ve just played along with my rants. Yet, I have to confess that their business planning don’t really deserve a prize for job well done. Somehow the wasted potential always pisses me off. Anyway, the bottom line of this drivelis that if Grant is now happy with his life and is still interested in putting out releases that is just great! IRL, much respect for Grant. Just feel that the credit should be pointed where it’s due. Average listener still thinks it’s only Aphex’s label...

I'm thinking they had been taking big losses for several years, and Richard was finally tired of funding it out of his pocket. The live gigs, CAT023, and SYRO helped him restock his coffers. 2 kids to put thru college, that's expensive no matter where you live. Pure speculation of course...

  On 10/21/2014 at 12:08 AM, Rubin Farr said:

I'm thinking they had been taking big losses for several years, and Richard was finally tired of funding it out of his pocket. The live gigs, CAT023, and SYRO helped him restock his coffers. 2 kids to put thru college, that's expensive no matter where you live. Pure speculation of course...

Aah, good point. Didn't really pay too much attention to the possibilty of Rich pouring his own money to his own label . Never seen it mentioned anywhere though. Has he actively mentioned Rephlex in interviews in the past? One could think it would be wise to bring it up constantly if he had more money invested in it. Speculation, specualtoin...

  On 10/21/2014 at 12:08 AM, Rubin Farr said:

2 kids to put thru college, that's expensive no matter where you live.

It's free of charge here :)

  On 8/28/2014 at 3:45 PM, Herr Jan said:

 

So for a few months there was speculation about Rephlex slowly fading into obscurity, taking into account the disappearance of rephlex.com, the vague sublabel albums that were only recognisably Rephlex because a symbol on the artwork that was resembling the Rephlex logo + a part of the barcode was the CAT#. Also we had our own messaien confirm Richard said something along the lines of "killing off" Rephlex. Still a lot of us had good hope they were just shapeshifting, taking a new form with the bandcamps, the emailorders of EDM and Aleksi Perala, etc., even though since APMusik - MU3 there were no CAT#'s to be found anymore.

 

Yesterday though, it seemed like it was finally officially confirmed by Richard through an interview with Dutch magazine Oor.nl. Even though it was only a small part of the interview that was published so far, it contained the following about Rephlex:

 

Journalist: "Is that* reason for Rephlex now (since october 2013) being defunct?"

 

Richard: "It* didn't help in any case, no, but there was more going on as well."

 

* = the Analord binder costing between 80-90 pounds each, while selling them for 40 pounds (including Analord 10).

 

http://oor.nl/#!/articles/aphex_bonus_beats_1_de_marketing_van_syro/news

 

Now I assume this wasn't the whole conversation about Rephlex so we have to wait until September 11th, when the full interview is released. But since that post there were already a lot of speculations / dedications / memories being shared in the Syro thread but I thought this would be a better place.

 

 

 

Hi Herr Jan, is the interview out now? And what did it say? I don't speak dutch so a quick English summary would be appreciated.

Cheers

  On 1/8/2015 at 11:04 AM, Bertolt Brechtakt said:

 

  On 8/28/2014 at 3:45 PM, Herr Jan said:

 

So for a few months there was speculation about Rephlex slowly fading into obscurity, taking into account the disappearance of rephlex.com, the vague sublabel albums that were only recognisably Rephlex because a symbol on the artwork that was resembling the Rephlex logo + a part of the barcode was the CAT#. Also we had our own messaien confirm Richard said something along the lines of "killing off" Rephlex. Still a lot of us had good hope they were just shapeshifting, taking a new form with the bandcamps, the emailorders of EDM and Aleksi Perala, etc., even though since APMusik - MU3 there were no CAT#'s to be found anymore.

 

Yesterday though, it seemed like it was finally officially confirmed by Richard through an interview with Dutch magazine Oor.nl. Even though it was only a small part of the interview that was published so far, it contained the following about Rephlex:

 

Journalist: "Is that* reason for Rephlex now (since october 2013) being defunct?"

 

Richard: "It* didn't help in any case, no, but there was more going on as well."

 

* = the Analord binder costing between 80-90 pounds each, while selling them for 40 pounds (including Analord 10).

 

http://oor.nl/#!/articles/aphex_bonus_beats_1_de_marketing_van_syro/news

 

Now I assume this wasn't the whole conversation about Rephlex so we have to wait until September 11th, when the full interview is released. But since that post there were already a lot of speculations / dedications / memories being shared in the Syro thread but I thought this would be a better place.

 

 

 

 

Hi Herr Jan, is the interview out now? And what did it say? I don't speak dutch so a quick English summary would be appreciated.

Cheers

 

Yeah, it's out since September :)! I translated the whole thing as soon as I got it. You can find every Syro related interview with Richard here (the one you mean is the full OOR interview):

http://forum.watmm.com/topic/84679-syro-period-interviews/

But yeah, basically Rephlex has quit since October 2013 :( Richard told more of the backstory in that interview, as well as in the Noyzelab interviews (which, if you haven't yet, are recommended (huge, huge pile of texts and music))

Thanks Herr Jan. Didn't know about the collection of interviews, though I just found the Groove interview where 25 producers asked Aphex silly questions and in one he actually verified quite clearly the end of Rephlex (Marcel Dettmann's). Also had read the Noyzelab interview a while ago but propably missed the part on Rephlex.

Anywys, so that is clarified now, sadly though.

  On 10/21/2014 at 11:51 AM, Squee said:

 

  On 10/21/2014 at 12:08 AM, Rubin Farr said:

2 kids to put thru college, that's expensive no matter where you live.

 

It's free of charge here :)

 

"free of charge" as in "payed by taxes", I guess?

I swear I read somewhere that because Grant had a new-born on the way, Richard gave him the Analord collection to release as a present (in otherwords to produce a shit load of money in the bank). So I don't understand all the loss making stories about Analord. I thought the whole point of it being released was to make a load of guaranteed profit.

Maybe it was a dream

  On 1/10/2015 at 11:21 PM, beerwolf said:

I swear I read somewhere that because Grant had a new-born on the way, Richard gave him the Analord collection to release as a present (in otherwords to produce a shit load of money in the bank). So I don't understand all the loss making stories about Analord. I thought the whole point of it being released was to make a load of guaranteed profit.

 

Maybe it was a dream

I distantly remember hearing the same theory but I most likely read it from WATMM so doesn't mean anything. Nice gesture if true story. Shame it backfired with the whole binder fiasco. It was a cool idea though if it had worked instead of being pricey to make and if it didn't ruin your vinyl when actually using it. It did unearth ABB5 though so not completely useless.

that pricey binder fiasco was blatantly nonsense, just look at the price costs of the syro special edition packaging

90 quid for the binder + the Analord 10 pressing that came with it and the shipping costs, perhaps...

I still can't believe Rephlex is gone :(

Rephlex is immortal.

  On 6/18/2015 at 9:17 PM, peace 7 said:

Rephlex is immortal.

If by immortal you mean a cremated corpse whose ashes have been scattered to the far ends of the earth...

No he means that it is sleeping in it's coffin like a vampire waiting for some foolhardy treasure hunter to break the coffin's seal.

It's proper shit, but summit else will crop up...

Sent from a stolen mobile device

not dead, just transformed

i can hear rephlex everywhere

at least i can finally complete my collection without the worry of anything being added to it.