ALKU
jiggerypokery audio para chinchillas desde 1997
http://personal.ilimit.es/principio

Alku is a Barcelona-based home label that burn off limited runs of CD releases by artists like Team Doyobi, Pita, Powerbooks For Peace, Pepito, JLIAT, Wobbly, Beige, Yasunao Tone or Opopop. For their very first releases they burnt no more than 50. Now their editions run up to 300.

Enterview with Alku:

Description of what you do:
having fun and releasing stuff we love in our home label

How long have you been doing it: since late 97

How / why did you take the DIY route? Total control over the product + really insignificant amount of money to invest

How easy / difficult did you find this?
Difficult: Posting the stuff, having things done, respecting deadlines, getting paid, dealing with digital technology standards, finding money and, in general, fighting Murph's law.
Easy: Having fun, devoloping concepts, loosing incredible amounts of money, meeting people and obviously, not getting paid.

With hindsight, what would you have changed / done differently?
nothing

Where do you master / manufacture your releases?
At home.

Why there?
It's where we live

What other places have you tried & with what results?
Former CD burner: Philips audio CDR. Dont buy it: they have some hidden surprises (secret pro-copyright weapon that forbids burning copies out of a copy).You should never trust HP CDRs. Total crap with life inside them (interesting AI experience but). Windows-based applications are also very helpful to get heart attacks.

What about distribution / shops / other useful resources / outlets (any useful resources you can list will be a great help)?
We dont usually sell our stuff. It is sent for free to a huge list of friends/ contacts/ people all over the globe. We only sell a small amount of copies at MDOS (mego1s online distribution company) in order to get some money back. Not for any particular reason, just because we don't have time enough to make alku a typically distributed label, and also because we live in Barcelona and Spain is different, you know. Anyway, we've just started to think about increasing the selling point list in the near future.