Dance Music Crisis

Some of you may have heard about Amato distribution going bust, but unless you understand the music industry you may have not quite understood the negative affect that this will have on dance music, and on the music you love.

Distributors are the link between record labels and music fans.

Record labels give vinyl and CDs to distribution companies like Amato, who then take care of the transportion and distribution of the music.

Distribution companies are the ones who ensure that the music gets delivered to record shops and digital download stores.

Amato organised international distribution, so it’s pretty much guaranteed that wherever you may be, your local record store stocked music distributed by Amato.

Now that the company has gone bust, the music that was formerly distributed by Amato will no longer be available to buy.

But worst of all, for the record labels that were signed to Amato, they’ve lost the stock that was legally theirs.

Part of the liquidation process is that all assets get frozen, both physical and monetary.

So that means most of the labels have lost money for previous outstanding sales of their music too.


For example, Bpitch Control will not receive a single penny for the UK sales of Modeselektor’s new album ‘Happy Birthday’.

Some labels that were solely distributed by Amato may never be able to recover from the loss of their stock and sales.

Dance music labels are always on a tightrope so the loss of a few thousand dollars is enough to severely cripple a label, maybe even close a few of them.

That means less music for you.

Update
Ben Watt, label owner of Buzzin’ Fly got in touch to give us an update on the Amato situation.

The good news is that labels will be able to get back most of their stock.

He said: “Some labels will have full legal rights to warehouse stock and are simply waiting for the receiver to give them a date to collect, once ownership is proven through a rights of title questionnaire.

“For some like us at Buzzin’ Fly that amounts to over 10,000 units.

“Only stock out on consignment is out of their hands.”

What can I do to help?

Below is a list of some of the dance labels that were distributed by Amato.

Most of the labels sell music on their own website - so purchasing music from these labels directly will help them out.

2020 Vision
Anjuna Beats
Audio Therapy
Audiomatique
Axtone
Balance Series
Big Love
Border Community
Bpitch Control
Buzzin’ Fly
Citizen Records
Cr2 Records
Crosstown Rebels
Dewolfe Music Library
Distinctive
Dubsided
EQ Grey
Eskimo
Essential Platinum
Evolution Records
Fat!
Freerange Records
Goodlooking Records
Hope Recordings
Kill The DJ
Kompakt
Lo Recordings
Marine Parade
Milk N 2 Sugars
Music Man
Nukleuz
Pack Up And Dance
Platipus
Poker Flat
Rekids
Riot! Recordings
Secretsundaze
Soul Heaven Records
Stealth Records
Tidy Trax
Toolroom Records
Underwater Records

Source [Beatportal]