Music Distribution
Following some hiccups, our physical CD distribution is gradually getting back to normal: click on the album links on our Albums page and hit the Amazon buying links to check. Download sales continue to be available via the usual services and you can also still stream our music as usual.
News
Waltzes Into Winter
We’re upgrading…
Some of you will remember our site from the early days of the 1990s; others of you may have discovered us more recently. Whichever, what worked well back in the day is not so good now. Music technology changes, viewing devices change, browsing habits change. Our upgraded site is now mostly complete. (You might still come across a few of the original pages when you browse the site and page links, though not for much longer…)
Welcome to
the club that burned the velvet ropes
- Producing and releasing highly individual, totally different but honest and uncompromising albums
- Browse our extensive archives to find out about your favorite artists
- Read about producer Mike Thorne’s activities, haunts, and artist friends.
We have grown far beyond the typical record company shop window: almost a multimedia magazine, showcasing original writing, offering free downloads of other types of media such as graphics, text files and QuickTimeVR panoramas, and vast archive resources for our family of artists. You can E-mail any artist or participant from here.
Browse our selection of FREE downloads for an overview of our music.
And here are some tasters to get you started…
The Stereo Society’s musical mission
At the Stereo Society, we continue to produce different and exciting new music, to the highest level. You can check out our music from the CD covers above, even download large free chunks. There are also whole song downloads for sale, and a few for free.
Once upon a time, you listened to music with open ears. You looked for something different and stimulating. Labels and categories and marketing didn’t matter so much as if something unusual grabbed at your ears. Not so much ‘if you like this, then you might like…’
The world changes. Used to be, you could make new and different music. If it worked, you’d have a hit, pretty smooth in the old big music business structure. No longer.
We think that music shouldn’t respect restricting categories and definitions. Fresh, honest music should just be required to fit Pandora and Spotify (for example). It should just move and rattle us. That’s why what we make and sell is all over the place, stylistically.
Carefully adjusting some curious sound. Maybe someone might notice.
At the Stereo Society studio console, early 1999.
photo: Jonnie Miles
Mike Thorne, artist, producer, Stereo Society president
This website and ‘cyber-record company’ started because record producer Mike Thorne wanted to create a publishing vehicle for his own recording and writing. But there were other artists and records he cared about, who did not always fit the established mould, and his former commercial record production career was intertwined with such people. He didn’t want these new musical trees to fall silently in the forest. There was a chance to have fun making music again.
Studio
The Stereo Society began as a recording studio in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1987, and is now celebrating almost thirty years making digital, acoustical and analog noises. With its wide-ranging combination of computers and audio equipment, it is one of the most powerful music rooms in the world. Now exclusively dedicated to the Stereo Society label, it has expanded to include graphics, video, photography, internet and website production. Read Mike Thorne’s notes about the development of the studio.
April 1999
We have had our heads down working most of the time, but we did enjoy a good launch party all those years ago on April 15, 1999. A gallery page: the pix that are fit to print from lots of disposable cameras, and more from our album cover designer JR Rost, who never seems to go off-duty.