It’s easy to underestimate the impact you can make on your own. Even if you’re realistic with what you can achieve, it can feel like there are too many barriers or too much noise to go through with your passion projects. The desire to persevere past that makes labels like Ingrown Records vital resources for local music and entire genres.
The label started in 2011 to “provide a home for experimental and ambient artists” who were being overlooked in an industry being turned around by streaming. Founder Raw Ryan took it upon himself to operate entirely DIY, from his dorm room at UNC Asheville to his home in Cleveland, NC.
Now in its 15th year, Ingrown Records continues to be an outlet of musical passion and preservation. I talked with Ryan about his experiences running a label to “keep the weird alive” and what exactly his process for putting out cassette tape releases is. In the process, I felt more affirmed in interviewing local musicians and adjacent boosters, whether it’s a label like Ingrown or a venue like Huron Stage.
What kind of stuff have you been listening to lately?
Ryan: I have a radio show that I’ve been doing since the pandemic called Ingrown Radio and people have been sending me stuff. There’s a lot of ambient, new age, and techno house-y stuff in there so I listen to a lot of that. I’ve been listening to our new releases that are coming up, which is more drone, ambient, and experimental electronic and I’m really excited for.
Honestly, I haven’t been following new music too much lately and I need to make more time for that. It’s a very special time for me to just relax and zone out; I haven’t really been giving myself the permission to do that most of the time. Sometimes I like to go on YouTube and listen to some anime OSTs, something to try to get my hype levels up. The original Sailor Moon soundtrack is something I really enjoy. I like old anime and music from that time period, stuff that would be considered future funk or city pop. That helps me be happier and have more energy for sure.
How did you get your start as Ingrown Records?
I’m from the northern Virginia area, but I moved to North Carolina 20 years ago. It was tough because I didn’t know anyone down here and we were living in the middle of nowhere. I was in 10th grade and was like, “How am I gonna connect with people?” I eventually found folks that were like-minded and listened to indie rock, experimental rock, and stuff like that. I was kind of a hippie at the time and that’s what veered me into indie and then ambient and experimental.
When I was a senior in high school I started jamming with a couple of my really good friends. We would make weird noise stuff, just fiddling around with synthesizers, samplers, and vocals. All of us really liked Animal Collective and Black Dice, so we were trying to sound like them but in our own way and some cool experiments came out of that. Our first ever live show was actually in Chapel Hill, either in 2009 or 2010, at the Nightlight. That was my first time ever performing anything live other than school band and the people there were so welcoming. It was like discovering a place that supported our music because where I live there’s nothing like that
I went to college in UNC Asheville and that’s around the time the label started to come together. It started with a music festival called Ingrown Fest, which I mark as where the label started and we’re coming up on 15 years of that. We did this small gathering in my very small town’s park, just inviting a few friends, performing music, and hanging out. It was really nice, so I decided we should do this every year. Then I was like, “We really need a home for the weird music we’re making, even if it’s just a one run of a CD that nobody’s gonna buy.” And then Ingrown Fest turned into Ingrown Records.
I hosted a lot of shows in Asheville, including a few Ingrown Fests, and just built up my own experience performing and booking shows. I tried to get the label going while still living in my dorm. I’d buy these old tape decks to make tapes but they’d never worked or I couldn’t figure out how to get them to work. But that was part of the trial and error, and part of the fun, honestly. Eventually it led me to start getting our stuff professionally duplicated and released. I would say it took three or four years before I got a handle on how to even release anything. Once I did it became really fun and I wanted to keep doing it as long as I could.
It wasn’t just music for my friends anymore; it was like me reaching out to ambient and experimental artists that I really liked and trying to put out as much stuff as possible. I haven’t really stopped ever since, except for a year break last year when I just couldn’t find any work. But then last year somebody messaged me saying, “I really love your label and I want to be on it,” and that got me back for our 15th year. We’ve been going again for a year now and hopefully we’ll go for at least one more. I’m sure we’ll go longer, but at least as far as physical releases go, I want to see out the next year and finish in style, so to speak.
What have been some of the best parts of running the label?
I’ve met so many amazing people. I’ve been keeping my radio show going off and on since college. That turned into a public access TV show a few years ago. I had a bunch of artists that I really loved, like Larry Wish and David Lieberhardt, who came on my show, performed, and did interviews. A whole bunch of bands came on from New York to California and that was really nice. We even did an Ingrown Fest through the TV show, which was the last one we did.
I feel blessed to get to do this. One of the things I’m proudest of in life is how I’ve built this up to be where it’s at now and helped artists put stuff out. There are so many artists out there who deserve a home and to have their stuff on tape, CD, or vinyl. The fact that I’ve been able to help some people, at least a lot of my own favorite artists, put stuff out is a dream come true.
Could you explain the process of finding an artist, reaching out, and then getting to a point where you’re physically distributing their music?
In the beginning when I was still in college it was a lot of reaching out to people that I already owned cassette tapes. Just cold emailing people saying, “My name is Ryan. I have this label called Ingrown Records. We’re very small but extremely passionate and I’d love to do like a tape run, CD run, or vinyl run of your music.
Some of it is just looking around for music that I like online. If there’s somebody I really like and think will fit our sound or our vibe, then I’ll reach out to them about releasing music on cassette tape. Or if it’s someone who’s already released on tape, it’s usually more of a “Hey, let me know if you ever want to do a tape run” and I’ll leave it at that. I’ve mostly tried to plant seeds with a lot of artists over the years.
The one vinyl release we ever did was this artist in Russia called XYR and he’s pretty popular, in terms of all the other artists we’ve ever released. He has thousands of listeners and a solid base of fans, so I didn’t think he would ever respond to my message. Most times people don’t respond and that’s fine, you just move on. But he was down right away. So we did a vinyl release with someone on Not Not Fun Records who works with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra and does all kinds of crazy stuff.
Once someone agrees to work together, it starts the whole process of collaborating with them. Do you want to make the packaging art? Do you have an artist in mind? Do you need me to find someone or try to come up with something myself? Are we going to do a tape for this? Is it going to be a CD? I’d love to make more vinyl but it’s so expensive and not feasible in today’s economy.
Once that’s set, I send it off to our duplicators. We use a company in Canada called Duplication and they’re excellent. They have a whole team, a giant warehouse, all this machinery where they dub stuff. They’re keeping all these old formats alive, not just cassettes but vinyl and Blu-ray. Working with an outside company has helped tremendously for me to have that peace of mind and not work myself to death over every single release that we do, especially if we’re doing a run of 40 to 50 tapes. I get to collaborate with their designers, making sure it prints right for them and fits the template. They’re always just super helpful, which makes things so much easier.
Then it’s promo mode: reaching out to as many blogs and radio shows as possible, sending them free download codes, and just trying to hype up all these releases. I tell them how much the music means to me or what it makes me feel, that I hope it will resonate with them, and that they’ll listen to this stuff and love it as much as I do. It’s a little more stressful than that, but it’s become so much easier over the years. It feels like a natural thing to do.
How have you seen the music industry change the most over the last 14+ years?
The elephant in the room is Spotify and all these streaming services. A lot of people aren’t paying for music anymore. It’s hard to convince people to even find time to listen to your work nowadays. Everyone’s attention spans are all over the place; nobody can really sit and listen to something for very long.
When we started, the DIY music scene was pretty big. I’m a little biased because I was in Asheville in college at the time, but the DIY scene in Asheville even now is beautiful. There are so many house shows and smaller venues like tea shops and coffee shops putting on ambient experimental concerts. I have a few friends who work at the record stores there and it’s just such a beautiful scene and I know Chapel Hill is similar. It’s a lot easier to run a record label if there’s already a musical community.
With the rise of Bandcamp, it’s been a lot easier to try to get your stuff out there. But you can’t just put your stuff up there and expect people to find it; you have to reach out to blogs, press, and radio people to help spread the word. I think a lot of people get discouraged nowadays because nobody’s listening to their music, but are they making the effort? You can’t expect people to stumble upon it. There are websites like SubmitHub where you can send stuff to reviewers and get your stuff out there. So it’s both worse and better at the same time, in certain aspects.
Spotify and other streaming services have hurt the industry all around. They also don’t really facilitate music discovery in a way that actually helps artists get more money. It’s great that people can listen to stuff in their pocket, but that’s not really helping the artist on any individual level. If people want to see independent music continue, whether it’s experimental or indie rock or whatever kind of genre, they have to start supporting these artists. If you love them, let them know with money, review it on Bandcamp, share it with your friends. How else are we going to keep discovering cool music?
The other issue is that 10-15 years ago, there were so many amazing music blogs like Tiny Mixtapes and Secret Decoder that were constantly sharing and talking about really cool music. Pitchfork did Altered Zones back then and so many of my favorite artists were found through them. None of that exists anymore. There’s no reliable curation to discover new stuff anymore and we need that. It could be the most obscure blog in the world with one reader. But if someone reviews my music and likes to put nice words in there, I’m moved to tears because they thought it was good enough to talk about.
That’s so well said. It’s important for folks who want to be more involved to look around, see where there are needs, and direct their time and passion in a way that benefits the community.
Heck yeah. That’s one thing I miss about living in Asheville: there was always something happening almost every night. And all kinds of music playing, whether there’s a punk band or a noise band playing or some solo ambient guy playing. We have to be proactive in supporting this stuff and opening our minds to other genres or artists to benefit our music scenes.
Fortunately, I think we’re finally reaching that point rejecting gatekeeping and pigeonholing ourselves to only one genre. Country is probably my least favorite genre, but I’ve heard stuff that I even like. My friend Clint Frost does this cool alt country music where he plays piano, guitar, and sings. There’s so much amazing music out there and you’re doing yourself a disservice to miss out on it.
What advice would you give someone who wants to start releasing records they love?
I would say just do it but don’t don’t go into poverty over it. That’s something I’ve struggled with a little bit. Do it the best way you can and have fun with it. Start as small as you possibly can if that’s what you’re worried about.
Don’t necessarily try to just put out artists that are already popular because a lot of those people will want contracts and compensation you might struggle to provide. Release music from your friends or your own music, but think big. Try to put on shows where you can sell your music because that’s where a lot of music gets sold.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Leave a Reply