ABOUT X-MIST:

X-Mist started as a tape-label back in those days (called ExtremMist then - but almost noone got the pun within the double-M...) when it was popular doing home-tapeing and annoying other people with the weird shit you recorded on cassettes. Naturally not too many people outside of the hometaping-world would have bought that crap anyway, so cassettes were mostly traded. That's how our mailorder started...

Sometime in the mid-80ies I found out that it was not impossible to manufacture vinyl-releases for a small label. And from that point on the empire of X-MIST grew into what it is now.

Speaking of "growth", I must admit that along the way we've made a few mistakes (releasing records that we're not that proud of anymore...). And I've learned my lessons and realized that success is most often spelled s-u-c-k-c-e-s-s. But I'll cut this short, and just want to let you know that our motivation and inspiration is pretty much the same like it's always been right from the beginning!

Also I feel like mentioning that I don't like our label and mailorder to be filed under "Punk and Hardcore". Simply coz "my definition of punk" could be pretty different from yours or anyone elses. While I can still esteem the importance of a band like (just for example) DISCHARGE back in the early 80ies, I'm completely bored to death by all those DIS-clones (or 77-style-retards, Oi-Punk-traditonalists, Hardcore-conservatives, etc. etc. ...)

So what are we into and what is X-MIST about? I don't feel like writing an endless rant here, so here's just some rough ideas right now:
  • We're trying to find challenge and excitement in music, not commodified entertainment. So if you're music does not "fit in", then probably it's exactly what we're looking for.
  • We don't define music by standards like punk, hardcore, post-rock, emo, ambient, pop, electronic, whatever... "styles" are irrelevant to us!
  • We don't care about popularity. it's not about units sold. the music bizniz sucks anyway!
  • What's the meaning of success? The risk of taking a chance and releasing a record we're completely happy about (but not too many people will probably end up buying it), means more to us than opting for sales-figures with a record that we personally think it's just "so-so-la-la, an o.k. thing". This does not only apply to our label-policy, but to our mailorder as well. I had already written some rantings about the subject which got printed in HEARTATTACK #20 - so if you feel like, check it out.

That's all for now, yours truly

Armin

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS???

- Can I send you a CD for consideration to be offered in your mailorder?

ANSWER: We are MOSTLY interested in VINYL, and not too much into CDs!

X-Mist Mailorder & Distribution is more focussed on vinyl, and during the last few years, the sales of CD-releases have been going constantly DOWN here with us!
And we think that there are good reasons for this development:
The CD has become a copyable format already years ago, while vinyl still remains to be the one and only format that can not be copied!
With the increase of music being downloaded via various sources on the internet,
more and more people are no longer into collecting soundcarriers and paying for these – but instead all of this music will go onto their computer-files, ipods, etc...

We do NOT think that there’s a decline in finding out about all this new music coming from all over the globe and being interested in it. But for sure we have to realize a decline in wanting to pay for it!
And pretty obviously most people only feel the need of really owning a record, instead of having it just virtually, if it means something really SPECIAL to them...

But with all the technological progress of the last few years, the CD somehow lost its “special” value. Sooner or later the CD will have the same value and standard as the cassette-tape used to have in the previous century – and more than ever before vinyl is the only soundcarrier that people really have to buy if they want to own it...
An absolutely typical remark we get to hear is like “I have downloaded this and that great stuff from the internet, do you know if it’s also available on vinyl, and can you get it for me?” And if we have to say “There’s no vinyl, but we got the CD”, you can imagine that this person does not exactly feel the need of paying 5, 10 or 15 Euro for something she/he got already on the computer/ipod.

So as far as we can see, this is not at all being nostalgic or anything like that.
After all, if you take a look at some of the recent developments, you will have to agree that CDs are a dying species:
- A lot of labels offer their music only for download and as limited edition vinyls
- More and more releases are being offered as vinyl, with a free(!) coupon included for downloading the complete album as well, or with the complete CD being enclosed with the vinyl

All we can say is, if your releases were on vinyl, we could see chances of selling it through our mailorder. But as long as it is just a CD, chances are really small, and they’re getting even smaller with every day.