A D.I.Y. record label with a problem focusing. Releasing CDRs when we're stable, and cassettes, floppies, micro cassettes, minidiscs, and whatever else is in these boxes when we're not, our founders share a conjoined taste for the strange and broken, the lost, the dusty, the noisy and bizarre, though on Wednesdays we'll admit to liking a good hook as much as the next guy. Styles range from damaged acoustic folk to chunky and loud, from glitchy somethingcore to mellow, from noise to ambient, from found sounds to field recordings. Our packaging is as inconsistent as our tastes, but we strive to deliver something you'll want to keep. Most of all, we want you to hear.
In 2006, a couple or few friends and sometime musical collaborators decided that what the world needed more than anything else (that they could possibly give it) was a record label called Pile Records. So they registered the domain and setup a simple web page.
Sometime later one of them had to pay to keep the domain registration. "We need to do something with Pile Records," that one said.
"Yes, we do," said another.
Sometime later someone decided that maybe, just maybe, since all of the friends who were loosely affiliated with this thing had music sitting around that wasn't doing anything but gathering the digital equivalent of dust, they should actually release something on Pile Records.
That, of course, was part of the intention all along. When Halaka, part of whose members are founders, finished yet another album that'd otherwise never see the light of day, we thought we'd go ahead and "release" that one on CDR. But it'd be so unlike these guys, we guys, to do anything simple, that we just had to wodge up the works by packaging multiple albums at once, and asking some acquaintances whose music we enjoy if they had anything laying around that they wouldn't mind our releasing, also as CDRs. We thought it'd also be a good idea to package up (co-founder) Apertome's Elements on CDR, and release that one, too.
So you get to this part and wonder, are you any closer to knowing what Pile Records is at? Is at Pile Records anything at all? Is there a simple answer to that question? Maybe there should be a FAQ here?
The founders of pile records are the kind of people that have boxes of broken guitars sitting in their basements, many without vital parts, just because one fine day they will be useful for something. One day they might provide the perfect accompaniment to whatever the hell we're trying to do.
The founders of pile records could be considered collectors. It's just that their collections might not make sense to the casual observer. Some of us have been known to keep empty Altoid tins in the hopes that one day we'll be able to put something in them. This must be important. Some of us have piles, literally piles, of hardly functional, out-dated audio equipment. Some of us like to keep the little "inspected by..." stickers that can often be found inside new clothing. Some of us keep receipts, receipts for everything. One of us might find a receipt from the Delaware Turnpike in 1993 that was left as a bookmark in a used book we picked up somewhere. While most "normal" people would trash this, Pile Records wonders, why were these people in Delaware, what made them pick up this book, did they know it'd somehow eventually reach one of us? Some of us will go to the used book store, the new book store, the slightly irregular book store, and purchase mounds of books, like a DIY home repair book originally published in 1945, just because they know it will somehow fit into the puzzle of our existence. We don't know why, but we are somehow incomplete without these things.
The folks at pile records are also they type of people that will download music, lots of music, and then go out and buy the actual, physical, album anyway, just to have something to hold, something tangible to be part of the puzzle, part of the pile. You might say it's part of our chemical make up. At pile records we like to think Goodwill was specifically created and designed for us. We are constantly adding to the pile - much to the chagrin of our loved ones. If there is space it must be filled. Fill it with us.