A Brief Summary of Philadelphia Ambient, Space, and Psychedelic Music Labels There are six Philly labels specializing in new ambient, spacemusic, and psychedelic flavors: Synkronos, Fuzzybox, Lounge, Doubtful, tbtmo, and Zenapolae. The oldest of them, Synkronos, was founded in 1983 by Peter Gulch. His intent was to make possible the production of his group's recordings, the infamous synthesizer trio, The Nightcrawlers. Chuck Van Zyl (WXPN, Star's End, The Gatherings) recently created a website where most of the catalogue has been indexed and archived. In 1991, Synkronos released a cassette compilation of local Spacemusic artists entitled "Facets". We'd love to hear it. You can visit the Synkronos at http://www.synkronosmusic.com Fuzzybox Since the early '90s, Sean O'Neal has promoted his and other lo-fi electronica works via his connections with Carrotop and Darla records, under the Fuzzybox label name. Fuzzybox's sound has been all over the spectrum of electronica, from blissed out Technicolor to Bochum Welt. I'm pretty sure Fuzzybox didn't release any comps (please correct me), though it is still an active label with a new website http://www.fuzzybox.com Colourful Clouds for Acoustics Run by the Azusa Plane's Jason DiEmilio, Colourful Clouds for Acoustics label had plenty of releases up until Ian Nagoski's Warm Coursing Blood album. I've heard that Jason left for San Francisco so I imagine that his label is gone now too. Please let me know if you know what's up with him. There is no label in Philadelphia with a more beautiful aesthete than Colourful Clouds for Acoustics. Now if only they could get a website without all of those awful advertisement pop-up windows... Lounge The revival of new psychedelic rock in Philadelphia in the mid-90s was intimately connected with the fate of the Lounge label. Lounge promoted such exceptional Philly talents as the early Asteroid #4, the Azusa Plane, Transient Waves, Bent Leg Fatima and others in two important compilations: Sounds from Psychedelphia (1999), and Sounds from the Low Orbit Lounge (1997) co-produced with Low Orbit (aka WKDUs Eric Zimmerman). Lounge seems to have gone into hibernation... their website loungerecords.com is down, and I'm not quite sure if that has anything to do with Asteroid #4 leaving Philly. Doubtful Starting in 1997, Eric Sherman's small but talent heavy Doubtful label has been promoting like minded artists such as Octorock, Fingernail, Blink Blink, and more, releasing Sampler compilations, and collaborating on projects with other local labels tbtmo and fuzzybox. tb(tm)o Around that time, South Jersey spacers Rob Cantagollo and friends were playing around with whatever electronic stuff they could afford, making connections and just releasing cassettes of their efforts. Super collaborators, tb(tm)o short for the blind(tm) organization (but don't call it that openly), has since moved from cassettes to cd-rs and has with Fuzzybox, carved out an evening niche in Philly life called Hologram (at La Tazza) and Galactique (at the Killtime). Zenapolae Finally, Zenas Bellace's Zenapolae label started up in late 1998 and has been scouting around for talent. In 2000 they released a comp called Pegged and eclectic mix of ambient and more techno-industrial sounds. Other Labels There are other collectives to note. Erik Osheim's Plastic Idolatry label features Ed Flis' work and Erik's LTD project among other noise artists. Zakaria von Nemitz's Demonophonic circus has been revealing abominations for the last few years as well. While these groups haven't released any compilation albums yet, they have been collaborating with Brendan Eastman on the bimonthly ULTIMATUM series at the Killtime and their artists frequently show up at Gair Marking's Slipstate evening at the Aqualounge.