The Jagjaguwar record label
Indie music has become very popular in the last years due to the music lovers searching for something different. This is also because of the variety of music genres that indie music has, from punk, to emo, to noise rock, goth and many more. But indie music started out as something totally different.
A few decades ago indie artists were those bands and solo artists with a nonconformist sound, who recorded their music at low-budget record labels. If it wasn’t do-it-yourself music recorded in a garage or at home, these musicians turned to record labels they could afford, which also had a reputation of letting the artist delve completely in their creativity, with no interference. The term ‘indie’ referred to independent recording studios or labels and the music produced by these.
Indie rock label Jagjaguwar formed in 1996, but still kept the stereotype of earlier years, responsible for unique and commercially untainted music. The record label was founded in Bloomington, Indiana by Darius Van Arman. A few friends of Van Arman who formed the band The Curious Digit had just completed their second album, but were without a label. The band had released their first under Sentimental, a record label run by Van Arman along with Dawson Prater, but when the latter left to form another label out of Chicago, Sentimental died.
In order to help The Curious Digit, Mr. Van Arman decided to create Jagjaguwar so the band could enjoy better success. A short while after the band’s album dropped, Darius found another indie rock band that went under the moniker Drunk. He liked them very much and convinced the band to release music through his label.
A few years later, the founder of Jagjaguwar started a partnership with Chris Swanson, co-partner to the Secretly Canadian record label. Over time, the other members of Secretly Canadian became a part of Jagjaguwar, contributing effort as well as offering advice. The two label still collaborate, while Van Arman has full decision-making powers over the music released.