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Release Date: 19 December 2025
Label: Independent Project Records
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 2
Barcode: 761971509175
Description
When he launched Independent Project Records in 1980, Bruce Licher saw the label as an opportunity to get his own music out. Housed in striking, instantly recognisable letterpress-printed sleeves, IPR releases soon started to include works by friends, fellow art students at UCLA and new underground musicians Licher admired. If he wanted to hear a band's music and couldn't find it anywhere, he'd release it himself. Through the years, IPR went on to give a platform to voices that didn't quite fit into the stiff boxes of the music industry. The results may not have involved six-figure returns, but, instead, could count on perceptive intuitions (Camper Van Beethoven, of whom a rare early demo is included here, got their start on IPR), fruitful artistic alliances and lifelong friendships. Jeffrey Runnings, a young Savage Republic fan from Nebraska who in 1984 wrote a letter to Licher wanting to increase communication, would three years later release his band's debut album on IPR. That was, of course, For Against, an all-time favourite to many long-standing IPR devotees. The album, Echelons, launched a lasting partnership and brought Licher a Grammy nomination for Best Album Package. In late 2024 Runnings sent a tape-worth of new songs to Bishop, California, where Licher now resides and operates. A few months later, that old-fashioned cassette tape had become Piqued, a stunning album released by IPR shortly after Runnings passed away due to stage 4 cancer. The single 'Heretofore' appears here: a timeless post-punk gem brimming with the warmth and the passion of a gentle soul sharing his lifelong love of music, and his last creations, with longtime friends.
The Well speaks to and of Independent Project Records' past, present and future at once. There's a rare track by Neef, the first group Bruce Licher ever joined. The bands that made IPR a cult favourite among tasteful record collectors across the globe: Savage Republic, Scenic, Kommunity FK, Deception Bay, Woo, Fourwaycross. Their side adventures, the ones even the most attentive of fans have not heard of, make a most welcome appearance: Spadra Moods witnessed the first steps of future Savage Republic bassist Thom Fuhrmann and future Scenic drummer Brock Wirtz, Snuffy was Fourwaycross bassist Steve Gerdes' solo project in the late 90s. There are highlights from recent releases: East Coast purveyors of dreamy melodies Springhouse wearing their UK folk heart on their sleeve, The Ophelias leader Leslie Medford turning psychedelia timely political on IPR's first ever digital-only single. Previously unreleased recordings from the likes of Scenic and Barry Craig (trance music pioneer A Produce and guitarist from Afterimage) make sure the compilation never runs short of surprises. Mike White, who in the early 80s played guitar with San Francisco punk trailblazers The Sleepers, makes his IPR debut with an instrumental reverie that seems to have originated from space. A self-released, cassette-only gem from The Sunflower Conspiracy, an Indiana group who in the mid 90s were among those drawing a connection between dream pop and shoegaze, awaits much deserved discovery now that the two genres are witnessing a renaissance. There's the unexpected reunion of Shiva Burlesque: frontman Jeffrey Clark joining forces again with his old accomplice Grant-Lee Phillips to deliver one of the finest songs the two have ever recorded together (with Bauhaus and Love and Rockets founder David J lending contemplative bass). There is no shortage of firsts, either: the label's first foray into the world of movie soundtracks - represented by an instrumental original piece from the award-winning documentary Louder Than You Think: a Lo-Fi History of Gary Young & Pavement - and its first flirtation with jazz, in the form of a track by Jazz Bedouins, an ensemble encountered in the 90s when IPR had its headquarters in Sedona, Arizona. Recordings from label heads Bruce Licher and Jeffrey Clark remind us that IPR is a place for artists run by artists - priorities have never been up for discussion. There are previews of the releases to come: retrospective reissues of Southern California underground essentials BPeople and Middle Class, David J revisiting favourites from his recent three-album compilation Tracks from the Attic with a full band. There is also IPR's latest signing: Driveway Ceiling, a band of college students moving back and forth between 60s psych, 90s indie and modern bedroom pop.
Tracklisting
Springhouse
WOO
Various Artists
Jeffrey Runnings
Greg Lisher
Afterimage
David J
Woo
Various Artists
Various Artists
Various Artists
Various Artists
Various Artists
Various Artists
Various Artists
