Frequently asked questions.
( well, much less since this page exists, actually )

0. What is exactly ini.itu about ?

let's start with what (significant) OTHERS said about us :

Think of field trips to Java or the 1895 Exposition Universelles organised by Colin McPhee, Henry Cowell or Claude Debussy with Harry Parch and Pierre Schaeffer in tow, and you will be somewhere in the ball park of where this unique label is. ( Roger Mills )

ini.itu have redesigned the topography of the small independent label rationale. ( Roger Mills )

les quatre productions de la maison belge (et oui) chroniquées en cette rubrique développent chacune une personnalité propre, tout en maintenant un cap artistique commun. ( Fabrice Vanoverberg, Rif-Raf )

ini.itu : founded 2008 * Jakarta * Schaerbeek

ini.itu means [this,here].[that,there] in indonesian (bahasa).

our initial ecological niche :
electronic, experimental music / drones / sound art - crossing eastern, asian paths 
reshaping traditional instruments / & field recordings /
mixing here and there / alinear rythmic dada collages /
things rather in the spirit of ritornell.

one of the key ideas ( but not lone ) is working at the interface

so hey! we are not only about Indonesia !

well, all of that might seem heterogenous,
i guess we are working more under a schizophrenic than a paranoïac regime ;)
[it's always good to put a Deleuze bit somewhere]

Anyway, one of our motto's :

There are many ways to be here and there.

0.prime What is the way to write and pronounce ini.itu ?

we advise to write it in small caps,
with a dot in the middle.

head nod to o.rang
itself an indonesian word
and a beautiful, inspirational musical project
( why dont they contact us once ? )

the pronounciation is "ini itou" ( french pronounciation)
"eenee eetou" ( english )
"ini itu" ( for indonesian people, it's obvious )

you must not say dot

of course

1. Do you release only vinyls ?

yes.    vinyl only.   limited to 250 pieces.   no reprints.
ever.
maybe some day there will be some kind of promo or gift CDs, but that's for a very far future.
tapes ? hhhm... some say tapes are cool again, some say tapes have always been there. hmm, yes. why not ?
7" also nice, but horribly expensive to produce in small amounts
except.. hmm if we think of a nice generic cover ( Basic Channel or ERS style, you know )

ah, and about mp3 releases, we dont even have to think or do anything about it,
some kind souls with great scope ( state of the music shops world, anyone ? ) feel they have a mission to fulfill there.

still under the influence of our Steve Roden's LP, here's a fragment of Bresson :

"Se forger des lois de fer, ne serait-ce que
pour leur obéir ou désobéir difficilement"

2. why only vinyl ?

pragmatically, because we believe that the 2 medias that will make it past the next 10 years are MP3s and vinyl.

MP3s, well, arent ugly, they totally miss any esthetic quality. So let's forget about them.
rien que le plan, pas de fond, pas de cadre.
Steve Albini always said that CDs were a rip-off and  very fragile - we believed him.
at least at the price they are usually sold.
on the other hand, CDs are quite a good medium : hi-quality, lots of space. respect.

more deeply, well, we simpy like the materiality of a good slice of vinyl.
Vinyl needs time, needs attention, reminds you of things being fragile and not endless.
also, they have flaws. cracks. pops. surface noise.
we dont press audiophile or 300g, so our release have those unwanted things.
that makes one think sometimes.

Bresson again :

"Moque-toi d'une mauvaise réputation.
Crains une bonne que tu ne pourrais pas
soutenir."

3. Why only 250 ?  Are you creating an organized scarcity on purpose ?

Not exactly.   This is not based on a capitalist consideration.
250 is actually the smallest amount our press will allow us to make
and actually it's not that small. ( you have no idea how saturated and small our niche is )

We are very busy people and we dont want to be stuck forever with some releases and the business of re-releases and delayed orders, etc.
So when it's gone it's gone.    Finitude is a part of the human experience.

Sometime you have to be there at the right moment.

Bresson once more :

"Dans ta passion du vrai, on peut ne voir que de la maniaquerie."

3 bis. What if i'm broke ?

If you're broke, want to get some of our records and you have stuff to sell on discogs,
just send us a link to your discogs shop
maybe we can find a satisfying trade !

Another nice opportunity was our 5th birthday sale on Norman Records, where everything was at 5£ for 2 weeks,
inclusive the very last copies of López and Dave Phillips we could find.
now if that's not a nice gesture, with discogs going up to 50€ for the first one at that time...

4. Do you accept trades ?

Yes, we do.   We just need to be interested in the trader's offer.
We are favorising small and independent distribution networks.

We are not interested in speculators, but well, what can you do to it once you've sold your stuff ? rule of the game.

also, you will understand there are moments where we prefer selling, since we need to prepare future releases.

5. Who's doing the artwork for your releases ?

subtly cyphered S/ is responsible for most of the pictures and the design.
there is a lot of dialogue going on with the artists though.
We all have kids who made fantastic first drawings or friends who just graduated from art schools,
please dont ask us to use those things for artwork. We know where we're heading. (well...)

Yes, of course. We love demos. Except the really awful ones.

to be honest, most of the planning for 2012 and 2013 is already sketched up,
and recently we've been mostly working from proposals we made ourselves to artists we like.
still, if you think we have to hear something, get in touch.
like someone said in some electronic forum recently, newcoming artists are not worse than established ones
and surprises are a good thing in life.

so : here is the plain truth : we just listen properly to CD-R, not to MP3s.
YouTube, Soundclouds, Mixclouds, or whatever-clouds links will be arrogantly ignored.
Should i mention MyS... no, i'd rather not.

so, again, rephrased : WE WILL ONLY LISTEN TO CD-R !
( caps mean that it's useless to try to convince us not to )

which part of the previous sentence dont you understand ?

if you do send us a DEMO CD-R, dont expect an answer before a few months
yes, that's the amount of time it takes to listen to an unsollicited demo,
between daily life activities, sleeping, sickness, preparations for the label and our regular releases listenings.
maybe we're a bit lazy too. sometimes.
( but you dont think we would spend all our evenings listening to demos only with such a beautiful record colllection just calling for multiple plays ?
if you think yes, get in touch and you might be humbled )

now you can either try to find our postal adress somewhere on this website ( good luck )
or send us a polite mail describing your intentions and asking for it.

7. what are the next releases ?

in the past we said too much too early,
and that made everyone ( ok, someone ) waiting for it.
no more anticipation, no more expectations now, no more deadlines.
we are free.

8.  Do you always use the same design for your sleeves ?

yes.  just check the main page.  
front : picture with a black rectangle featuring the name and the title
back : continuation of the front picture on the right.  
on the left, black area featuring info on the release at bottom and ini.itu logo , eventual drawings or additional pictures on top.
That's something we learned from labels like Touch, ECM, Mystery Sea, Extreme, etc
Of course, the interesting thing with rules is when you break the rules. Let's see when that happens.

9. How much does shipping cost for vinyl ?  

a lot ! no... A LOT !   

it's about 6€ for Europe, and 9€ for UK and 16€ in the rest of the world.  ( UPDATE : MORE ! ) That's for 1 to 3 vinyls i guess.
That's why we recommend you to buy our products from one of the mail-orders where it's available

If someone in Europe feels like starting a special mail delivery system for vinyl, cheap and not especially fast, we would be eternally grateful.
now, you dont even have to pay us royalties for this idea. Just do it, for christ's sake.

10. Now, after these business questions, a bit of education :

What are those strange instruments ?   What is a shakuhachi ?   a buchla lightning ?   an eventide ?  a tremoloa hang ? foogers ?  a kecapi ?

sarode ? http://davidtrasoff.com/pages/instruments.html

meru bars ? http://www.anaphoria.com/musinst.html

11. Nature. What is a tokae ? What's a boto ?

a tokae ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokay_gecko

geez, do i have to explain everything ?

13. Back to the business of giving ( and most certainly receiving ) away for free. How do I get promotional copies of new releases for my fanzine / magazine / website / radio show ?

like everything else in life : you have to ask.
Our rule is quite simple : no review  and you can call it goodbye for the next episodes.
non-profit doesnt mean charity ( or stupidity )

also we are totally fed up with some copy/paste reviews we read recently.
if we spend some money to get you a vinyl LP, we hope you realize we expect something in return
if you dont, you're probably not a critic anyway.

Send us an email, we'll forward.   We aint no booking agency.

Send us an email, we'll forward.    Due to budget restrictions our marketing departement (ahum..) is euh. well.

18. Linguistics now. How do you pronounce the name of Blindhæð ?  Twinkle³ ?

Blindhæð
/blind-hythe/

Schaerbeek is the 7th city of Belgium by its size.
It's located right next to the centrum of Bruxelles.
it's sometimes referred to as "the city of cherries" or "the city of donkeys".
if you want to know why, send us a mail !

or come visit. we recommend Hotel 322, i was walking past it yesterday under the full moon and it looked superb.

20. turned into 10.

how ? ...

divide in 2

Sulawesi, Indonesia, slightly north of Makassar

25. can i have a map of Indonesia ?

- look out yourself ! -

25. bis : i heard you didnt pay high regards to mp3 pirates ? is that so ?

yeah.

and here's a piece of my mind about them, in full french glory :

plusieurs hypothèses : génération dématérialisée qui ne comprend vraiment pas à quoi nous sommes attachés ; geeks qui en sont restés à l'idée d'un big business musical et qui n'ont pas accès à la transcendance de l'investissement personnel des micro-labels ; narcissisme mal placé qui les amènent à vouloir être populaire de par leur générosité ; impossibilité à tolérer la frustration et génération du tout, tout-de-suite ; idéologues du "free" qui n'en saisissent ni les tenants ni les aboutissants ; .... hum, et toi tu en penses quoi ?

let's compile a few sparks of inspiration down here :

Dusted: What was the rationale for using the 7" format and having the box set, rather than just putting out a less-expensive CD or LP compilation, or a series of separate 7" releases?

Ackerie: Pure fetishism! Because there is nothing like the feeling of handling vinyl. No other format allows for design to be so playfully implemented. The sound is superior and has a warmth that I adore. All of the work covered was originally released on vinyl. All I have seen recently in London is record shops closing down. So many have gone over the past 18 months. I wanted to redress this and pay tribute to a format that I love. Yes, CD and LP comps would have been a hell of a lot cheaper, but that was not the point. Recovery had to be special for me. I wanted to produce something I could be proud of. I also wanted it to be unique

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/833

Enflammer l'imaginaire en empruntant un terme à la sphère du métaphysique ou du stellaire - et simultanément l'éteindre en l'immergeant dans le prosaïque : telle est la formule énoncée par Dionnet.   Les Humanoïdes / Asssociés .   Métro Châtelet, direction / Cassiopée.   La Foire aux / immortels.

Serge Lehman in Enki Bilal "La trilogie Nikopol"