The CD crisis does not exist
Interview with Patrik Landolt
Could you please start by giving us a brief outline of the history of Intakt Records get?
Patrik Landolt: You can start like this: in 1984, I co-organized the Taktlos Festival together with Bern. There was a focus on Irène Schweizer with international guests such as Joëlle Léandre, Maggie Nicols, George Lewis from New York, Günter "Baby" Sommer from Dresden. It was a free festival, and Radio DRS recorded everything for three days. So we had the tapes from the festival. We thought it would be best to make a record around Irène. Because Irène was very under-documented back then. She had released stuff on FMP, but some of it wasn't even available in Switzerland. So we made the record, Irène live at Taktlosmore because nobody else wanted the tapes. That was the beginning. The second record came relatively quickly. That was also an international affair with the entire London Jazz Composers Orchestra with Anthony Braxton.
Why did such people have their record published by an amateur in Zurich?
It was always the case that the free creative music world was not published by the big multinationals. One multinational documented the loft scene in New York with a series in the 1970s. It was called Wild Flowers. They thought it would be big business and it was THE flop. They didn't sell more than a few hundred of the boxes. That was one of the historic moments when big business said goodbye to jazz. They realized they couldn't make any money with it. Today it's clear that the three remaining majors have largely said goodbye to this music. What they don't do at all is develop new artists. This task has always fallen to small independents. Maybe that's why we looked particularly trustworthy! It was amazing, first album Irène, second album with LJCO with Braxton and so on, it was a great thing.
You weren't a rock fan?
That was me too. It wasn't mutually exclusive. I was a total fan of King Crimson. But I was already intensively involved with jazz at grammar school. Miles, Coltrane, Roland Kirk. I was 15, 16 years old then. The Roland Kirk album with Beatles covers - incredible!
If I remember correctly, you ran Intakt as a hobby for a long time, didn't you?
Exactly, as a hobby that became more and more widespread. In the early days, I worked as a freelance journalist for the Tagi, radio and various newspapers. Then I was editor at the WoZ for 20 years, also on the management board. That took a bit of energy away from organizing festivals. After 10 years at Taktlos, I left there.
Everything was at your house for a long time. All those records were sitting around in your apartment.
Intakt was in the basement for the first few years. I was young, had no money and therefore no stock. You had to learn and discover everything yourself first. Everything was trial and error. We took a very Swiss approach - not getting into debt, very small steps, a slow but steady build-up. Slowly, we developed a back catalog, and a certain aesthetic direction emerged. The diversity and richness came about through a long process, not through a business plan. Today, you would learn how to design a business plan at a university. For us, it all started from a huge passion. That has remained to this day. Everything else had to be worked out with Swiss solidity. We took accounting courses and so on at the Migros evening school so that we could understand and read a balance sheet. We also had a very good accountant right from the start, who worked at the highest level. That is also one of our strengths. The whole back office is very solid. Musicians' accounts have to be transparent. That's an important criterion. It's very unusual in the business.
If you've worked all this out yourself, you've certainly had to learn the hard way. Can you remember any early mistakes?
The very first panel is upside down in the frame. We glued it incorrectly. Of course, you always have to learn the hard way. Most of the mistakes were made out of euphoria, sometimes because you made too many copies out of the feeling that "this board is so incredibly good, everyone wants to buy it". But you learn that you can't always transfer euphoria to market conditions.
Is it even possible to plan a reception?
You can't plan a lot of things. That was also an important experience. Especially in the music business, there is a lot of contingency and randomness. Which I think is a positive thing. You can't plan success. Even the big ones can't - almost not.
How big were the constraints at the beginning?
I think we made 2000 of the first one at the beginning, which was still vinyl. It's easier with CD. You usually make between 1,000 and 2,000 copies and then print more. Then you can reprint in installments. With the printed matter you can do it in increments of 1000, with CDs in increments of 300. That way you can keep reprinting. In the city, storage is unaffordable.
Irène Schweizer is the strong backbone of Intakt?
She was there from the very beginning, yes. We have followed her biography and her life over the years. We also live in the same city. I also think it's important that all three of us are rooted here. That's why we often work with artists from here. Pierre Favre. Lucas Niggli joined us even earlier than Pierre. We also try to be in contact with young people. That's something very important, a huge challenge. You're constantly on the move. You have to deal with new things all the time.
To what extent is this challenge linked to the rapid development of technology?
It's definitely the case that the technology alone forces you to stay on the ball. If you think about what has happened in music in the last 30 years! From vinyl to CD to downloads, then downloads in MP3 quality, followed by CD quality and now even hi-fi quality. The technological development alone forces you to be incredibly alert and to engage with things.
How big is the share of streaming in Intakt's sales? I could imagine that the Intakt audience is a classic case of an audience that still wants to have something in their hands.
Yes, but it all runs in parallel. In America alone, I think we have 70,000 to 80,000 sales contacts, and that includes streams. In the USA, our distribution runs via Naxos and Naxos Archive. You can use this if you pay a monthly fee. If someone listens to something of ours, it is also registered as a contact. On the other hand, we have also undergone a generational change in terms of our catalog in recent years. We now publish many much younger artists, including those from border-crossing areas on the fringes of rock and electronic music.
Is Intakt's roots in Zurich also responsible for its strength?
Yes, this music has perhaps been cultivated a little more here. That also has a disadvantage. Others think they don't have to do anything anymore because we do it.
Does the scene have its regulars?
The Rote Fabrik did this for years. The Unerhört Festival, in which Intakt is involved, takes place in various locations, such as the Theater am Neumarkt or the Rietberg. We also organize concerts in retirement homes and various schools. Some of the older students are very well informed, they have high expectations, so you can't just send a student from the jazz school! It's the same at grammar schools. We bring the best there. They notice immediately if something is wrong.
How many young music fans attend these events?
At Stadelhofen, 300 to 500 people come, depending on the teachers. It's up to them, but sometimes whole classes come. For example, a history teacher told the pupils before Oliver Lake and William Parker's performance that they were free to attend and that she could also give them an assignment. She herself would definitely attend the concert because she learned more about American history from these men than from any book.
Today, Intakt is extremely well networked internationally between New York and London and Germany. Wasn't it incredibly difficult to establish useful relationships from Zurich?
In 1988 I took a sabbatical from the WoZ, five months in New York. Of course I went to all the concerts. I simply rang the doorbell of the distributors. I tried to have a conversation with my rudimentary English and then went to see them.
Can you do this on your own?
It is certainly a lifelong passion that you can only do as a team. The important thing about this team is that it outlasts you, so to speak. If you look at this wall with all the CDs, there are incredible artistic values on it. The copyrights. All the recordings. Now we have 280 titles. That's 280 works that never existed before. We are helping to create music and create reality. And then it's there. The aim, of course, is to create distribution as a publisher and carry it into the future. An Irène Schweizer turned 75 last year and has published a large part of her work with Intakt. This entails a huge responsibility. What happens when an artist dies? Like with Werner Lüdi, who also has a wonderful CD that is still in our catalog. This is a huge responsibility that often overwhelms a single publisher, which may at some point require the help of the public or foundations so that the maintenance of aesthetic values and the dissemination of music can continue to be guaranteed.
I think you've won prizes? What kind of prizes?
The first was from Suisse Culture, the umbrella organization for all cultural professionals, a very big prize, an honorable prize. Because this association honors cultural mediators. Traditionally, there is always friction between artists and intermediaries. Especially with labels, when you hear the stories of how black people were exploited in the past. They signed a contract and gave up all rights and maybe got 50 dollars for it. Or a bottle of whisky.
In Switzerland, the promotion of music in the manner of Intakt is pretty well organized, or am I mistaken? I have the impression that the English are rather envious in this respect?
It may look like that from the outside. In my eyes, infrastructure funding is not good. The federal government has recognized this in the book sector: We have to promote book production, otherwise a culture that has grown over several centuries will suddenly come to an end. In the field of music production, we haven't got that far yet. It has just become known that Migros has now also discontinued its labels. This attitude is based on wrong thinking. Everyone is always talking about a CD crisis. But there is no such thing. There is only a crisis in the volume business. More CDs are being produced and sold today than ever before. But today you no longer have 100,000 copies. The variety has increased massively. What's more, the CD is just one form of sound carrier, alongside vinyl, downloads in various qualities and streams. The importance is massive. However, the type of distribution has differentiated into very different forms. As much music is listened to today as in the 1990s, when the CD business was booming. Anyone who says that CDs have lost their importance today doesn't understand the business. And there are many funding bodies that say we're cutting CD support because it's in crisis. This is a complete misunderstanding of music production. Musicians still have to go into the studio to record, cut and master, and even if you distribute the results as downloads, you still need marketing and advertising.
Almost all the albums you have released are still in the catalog. Are there any records that you regret and have therefore taken out?
No, even if I might not listen to it myself anymore. It's still a contemporary document anyway. Or it's part of the artist's biography. And that's very important, that you always look at the work and the value of an artist's work in the context of their oeuvre as a whole. You can only understand Irène Schweizer if you look at her oeuvre as a whole. If you only take one solo album, especially one of the very early ones, where she plays completely freely, you don't understand the artistic value of later works. You have to look at the context and see the individual production in the context of the work. That's more important today than ever.
What is the international reception of Irène Schweizer today?
Last year she performed live in Schaffhausen on the occasion of her 75th birthday, which made the news. She would probably fill large rooms in America, but she doesn't like traveling. And then you have to have work visas. It's not easy for Swiss and European artists to perform in the USA. What Trump is programming today by closing off the market has always been the case.
What is the relationship between Swiss and international artists who appear on Intakt?
Between a third and a half are Swiss artists. That reflects the strength of the scene. But we strive for a balance. Gender and race are also a criterion. We want to have black African-Americans, because that's the basis of the music. Especially this new record here from Trio 3, you can hear the music on their faces. The history is written all over their faces. It is also important for us to have many female musicians in the program. You can also see that in the London festival program.
How has your taste and the taste of the scene changed over the 33 years of Intakt? Can you differentiate between phases with different selection criteria?
We naturally follow the artists. They are our ambassadors and also our relatives. They are on the road a lot, someone always comes along and says: Did you hear that? And then we are a team. The influence of Anja and Flo can be heard in the catalog. And we are also children of the zeitgeist. We're not fashionable, but there are moods that we absorb. I don't think I'd like to simply release a free jazz concert on CD like we did in the 60s and 70s. Because that no longer fits in with today's aesthetic and intellectual constitution.
Can you explain this in more detail? What has changed?
In the 60s and 70s, everything in Zurich closed at eleven o'clock. You weren't allowed to swim in the lake. Everything was so regimented and bourgeois and uptight. So factors such as provocation, breaking taboos, collage and finding the new were very important elements in the avant-garde at the time. Lucas Niggli is completely different. Someone like him can do that too, provocation, noise, new things and everything. But unlike his predecessors, he no longer has to destroy the old in order to reach a new level. What's more, the extreme right now uses design techniques that were used by the aesthetics of the avant-garde back then. A Trump does nothing other than shock and provocation. Köppel. The nationalists, the SVP, they live from provocation, from breaking taboos. Aesthetics already reflected this 15 years ago, that this is no longer the way to spread the new. Today, non-violent discourse and friendly interaction are perhaps more important on stage than provocation.
How many CDs do you release per year?
There were 18 last year, this year 19 or 20.
Are all artists exclusively bound to Intakt?
There are also artists with whom we have an agreement that we will pursue certain projects with them. Artists today are very productive, they have to be. Concert artists need four or five parallel projects to survive. So we share many artists with other labels and other projects. Exclusivity is no longer like it used to be.
Which projects are you particularly proud of?
Many! It would be easier to talk about vintages. Last year it was certainly the German saxophonist Angelika Niescier with her New York band. Or Barry Guy with Blue Shroud, an attempt to make a political reflection, an anti-war production in fact, but not striking, but at the highest aesthetic level. And the complete works of Irène Schweizer, of course. The eight or nine albums we made for the London Jazz Composers Orchestra. And here is a CD that we are also very proud of. It's by the Heinz Herbert Trio. They're the youngest members of our trio and they've done a really great job. You can tell that they are incredibly good jazz musicians, but they also have an aesthetic of sound and electronics. They won the big one in Willisau!
Back to the many parallel projects that an artist needs - isn't there a danger that the contours get lost due to the sheer quantity?
That certainly has to do with the aesthetics of the time. There used to be a clear linear progression in jazz. Coltrane, then Miles Davis, then fusion, then free jazz. Today there is more of a parallel diversity. We have six jazz schools at university level in Switzerland. Every year this results in 150 Masters degrees, 150 professional jazz musicians. In ten years, 1500, which means that the level has risen enormously. There is an incredible variety of good musicians. It's clear that they want to produce. We have more than 1000 requests for publications every year! There are hardly any publishers with an international network anymore because the market doesn't support them. It's interesting that we Europeans also produce the best American music. There are far too few opportunities in the USA. In the USA, everything is so strongly geared towards the market that if the market doesn't support it, nobody will do it.
What is the ratio of sales, CD, vinyl, download today?
Julian Sartorius has made a small vinyl edition of his album on his own initiative. Digital sales are increasing massively. I would say in the last 3 or 4 years it has grown from 3% to 10%. The problem is that sales are going too cheaply. Downloads are too cheap. The middlemen, who are just machines, get too much. Ultimately, too little remains with the publisher and the artist. This is even more the case with streaming. It's legalized theft.
Isn't it imperative for the music world in general to find a way to monetize streaming in a way that is fair for artists, producers and labels?
That is the hope. I'm not so sure about that. Perhaps it will be similar to the print media, where we are experiencing an incredible thinning out. A lot is disappearing and with it a huge amount of knowledge. A cultural destruction is taking place that may force completely new forms of financing in the future. Society needs to think about this: Do we still want music productions at all? An opera would not take place either. If an opera had to pay for itself, there would perhaps still be an opera in America and even that would not be financed by the market, but by sponsors and patrons. The market principle, which is always proclaimed, is a big lie and doesn't work at all in these matters. It is also our job as publishers, artists, teachers, schools and funding institutions to think: What do we want from music productions? How can we finance it? How can we afford it? In my opinion, Pro Helvetia has also given this too little thought. First and foremost, the artist is supported. I actually think that's right, but it's the aristocratic model. The prince strokes the artist's head, says you're the greatest and gives him money. Then the artist comes to us and says I should make a record now. Wonderful, but how do you pay for it?
Would the use of crowd-funding be a solution?
That works for individual projects. We offer a subscription, which is also a form of crowd-funding. Customers pay a certain amount and receive six CDs a year in return. At the moment we have several hundred subscribers. That forms an important financial basis for us.
How did you choose the program for the Vortex Festival?
On the one hand, we have tried to bring together Swiss and English artists. On the other hand, the dramaturgy is designed so that younger acts perform alongside better-known artists. So there are always two acts per evening. The mediation aspect was very important to us. That musicians get to know each other. Julian Sartorius playing with Steve Beresford is really great. Or Omri Ziegele with Louis Moholo - great!
