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Constellation Records is an influential Montreal independent record label known for its contributions to
post-rock and its strong anti-capitalist stance. It is most famous for producing the albums of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
The label was founded in 1997, operating out of a loft in the Montreal's inner city. Its founders had intended to begin by
providing a live performance space for the musicians of Montreal's thriving underground music world, with the label to follow,
but bureaucratic difficulties put an end to this plan, and the stage was skipped. Instead, the label and the live performance
series -- entitled Musique fragile -- began concurrently. The label later moved to larger quarters in Montreal's
Mile End district where it resides as
of 2004.
Constellation is fiercely anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, and anti-globalist; its mission, according to its founders, was to "enact a mode of cultural
production that critiques the worst tendencies of the music industry, artistic commodification, and perhaps in some tiny way, the
world at large." It also hoped to recover and rebuild an independent music ethic that it saw as commodified and corporatized. To
this end, Constellation tries to avoid selling its music through large corporate chains such as HMV and Virgin Records, preferring instead to deal directly
with small and local businesses.
The packaging of Constellation's music also reflects this ethos; they eschew the ubiquitous jewel cases and ship their albums in unique hand-designed cardboard packages, which are made, as far as is
possible, by local artists and artisans. The package of the Godspeed You! Black Emperor album Yanqui U.X.O was
especially noteworthy, containing an extensive chart which demonstrated the linkages between four major record labels -- AOL
Time-Warner, BMG, Sony, Vivendi Universal -- and various arms manufacturers. This chart accompanied a photograph of falling bombs.
The music on the label is usually categorized as post-rock (a label which
Constellation abhors, regarding it as an invention of "hipper-than-now taste-makers"). Artists include:
External links
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