Forthcoming releases

 
What's happening with Virus B-23?

We have ceased all operations with the label. This means all releases have been removed from the stores (for tidiness), our artists have been released back into the wild and there will be no future releases.

We've decided to call it a day for many reasons but mainly as a result of the whole project taking up too much time and energy of all involved and generally becoming more of a chore than the original mission it set out to be.

We would like to thank all involved with the label in whatever capacity over the last few years as you've all been a fantastic help to us and we've genuinely enjoyed everything you've done for us in that time - thanks!

If you have any questions about the end of Virus B-23 please feel free to email us at our contact page. Ta.

What am I? 

An independent netlabel project that is attempting to help get some electronic music into people's heads, CDJs and hard drives. Set up in 2005 by Deadman DJ and Dr I Honey in order to focus on their slightly unhealthy tastes in modern music and to establish a base for people in similar positions. Spurred on by the kind of music that gets second room status in clubs and sometimes causes side effects, the doctor and the Deadman didn't spend too long worrying about the ins and outs of the music industry ... other people can do that. Instead they jumped in with all four feet and built a website to house all the neccesary parts of what was in their heads and with a little help from some friends they set about getting top notch exclusive mixes made and began to seek out unsigned tracks and artists making fresh electronic music.

The site contains full streaming audio of tracks released on the label, links to download stores selling our releases, artist profiles with discography, biogs, exclusive mixes, forum member blogs, feature pages on DJs, producers, designers and other people we like, a forum and some other bits for good measure. The site will change and grow with the label project so keep coming back for updates, new stuff and some time wasting well spent.  

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Add us on MySpace                                Link to us on blogs and websites

                                    

Why digital? 

As most visitors to this site will know we are a digital netlabel. We chose this media for a whole list of reasons, some of them more personal than others. The main plus factor is that a digital file such as a .wav or FLAC will give you a highly versatile piece of music to play with and can be used in so many situations like playing a desired track on a CDJ or in DJ software like Traktor and other performance enhancing programs including Ableton. Then there's vinyl emulation - Serato / Final Scratch - that utilise digital music. Personal MP3 players are part of most people's lives. So for these few reasons alone we have teamed up with some online stores that operate easy to use and popular download sections that offer between them several formats - 192 + 320 kbs MP3 / .wav / FLAC. We hope to work with more stores to offer more choice and service in the future so if you work for an online store and would be interested in offering the Virus B-23 catalogue please get in touch via the Contact Us page. Once you have browsed the website and listened to tracks that are streamed on the Releases page you can visit our online download suppliers at US based electronic music store Addictech and long running UK dance music store Juno Record's new digital outlet Juno Download by clicking on the relevant buttons located near the players.

Aside from the glaring bonuses of digital there are some other factors as to why we chose to release digital only.  Firstly the planet is in a pretty bad way these days and we feel that if there is anything that can be done to reduce the impact of pollution and industry waste it should be jumped on. Obviously a business as massive as the global music market has a lot of waste from advertising campaigns for vinyl and CD releases, stacks of unplayed vinyl and CDs laying in rooms and shops around the world and printed goods including things like millions of flyers being either binned as excess or strewn around the streets each year. There's also the issue of petrolium based goods and vinyl manufacture has undoubtably added to the depletion of the planet's resources. Also the cost of the whole process from pressing through to shop assistants handing you your CD or 12" is a long and energy hungry one.  So without getting into the raging vinyl vs digital debate on too much of a personal level we know that these points alone warrant our outlook and just in case you were wondering ... no! we aren't a bunch of old hippies that have issues with everything we just think that by doing our little bit we may help out in some way whilst embracing new technology for musicians, producers, performers and DJs.

As a label we don't have a huge network of people pulling strings and doing us favours within the Big Bad Music Industry Business Corporation so the only way of spreading Virus B-23 is through people who like what we do telling other people who might like what we do about what it is we do. We appreciate each and every person who downloads tracks on the label, listens to our mixes and passes it onto their peers ... "Tag! You got the lurgee!" We always like to receive demos here at HQ so get something in the post to us if it's the kind of music you reckon we need, it could be anything - hip hop about aliens made in the Outer Hebridees, punk infused dubstep from Japan, a distant cousin of electro from darkest Brixton, techno made on an expedition up a big icey mountain, field recordings from Scandinavia, downtempo noodlings created by bearded organ enthusiasts, breakbeat designed to strip paint off speeding cars - whatever it is we'll listen and contact you with our honest opinion. Go to the Contact Us page for details of how to get your creations into our hands and onto our listening equipment.

The name

Virus B-23 is taken from the writings of William Burroughs and in particular the book The Ticket That Exploded in which he lets loose his cut up technique of writing and splicing tape recordings together to form nonsensical and abstract passages and scenes. In short, Virus B-23 is a virus contained within words and when words are destroyed or rearranged in a random montage the virus can be unleashed ... and it's more powerful that the atom bomb according to Burroughs. He also, as mentioned, used tape recorders and was one of the first to use two tape recorders to mix and remix recorded sounds and speech for artistic purposes. He was acutley aware of the advance of technology and the shape of things to come and is hailed as a hero by many including Coldcut for his pioneering techniques that planted the seed for decades of experimentation. Burroughs is also cited by many as a founding figure for the rise of the punk and hip hop movements through his leftfield outlook and love of electronics, artforms and social commentary. The tagline Mutant Music Project is sometimes included with the label name to give a sense of what the label is about and describes the changing nature of the project as well as the new strains of music being made by our artists.

"Get it out of your head and into the machines."  - The Ticket That Exploded, William Burroughs
 

Label crew 

Deadman DJ - label partner / caretaker / technical stuff / website builder
Mrs Deadman DJ - accounts / paperwork
Dr I Honey - label partner / manager / A+R / graphics stuff / website filler
Neil Evans - Virusbot