Label Profile
Urlyd Audiovisual Recordings is a Danish recording label specializing in releasing electronic music and video.
Urlyd‘s musical profile spans the entire electronic spectrum ranging from lush, ambient landscapes and abstract glitch sounds over vocal driven electronica singer-songwriting to more challenging, danceable breaks and beats.
Urlyd adds a visual dimension to their releases in the sense that all album releases consist of both an audio disc (either vinyl or cd) and also a dvd that contains a full length video version of the album, enabling the Urlyd artist to explore their audiovisual expressions – often in collaboration with one or more established video artists.
Urlyd is a founding member of Labelkollektiv, a informal association of small independent record labels with reference to the city of Aalborg in Denmark.
Creative Commons pioneer label
Urlyd Audiovisual Recordings believe in the strength of sharing and openness, and was the first label in the world to use a Creative Commons license on actual, physical records while supported by a collecting society; namely KODA in Denmark.
The pioneering release was ‘Small Arm of Sea’ (UR001) on cd/dvd and lp/dvd by female electronica artist and KODA-member Tone, which was released in Danish stores on January 21, 2008, just a few days after the announcement by Creative Commons and KODA that commercial revenues on tracks released under CC licenses would now be collected by the society, whereas private sharing were allowed to be given free without restrictions.
This bold move spawned media attention from all over the world and rewarded the label and Tone for their gamble of having sent the records into print with CC logos on the cover a month before it was certain whether CC-licencing would be legal for the society’s members.
Read the official Creative Commons International blog entry here and the official announcement of KODA‘s adoption of CC licenses here.
The people behind the label
Urlyd Audiovisual Recordings were founded by Christian Villum and Sune Petersen in 2007. As of today, the label is run mainly by Villum, with Peterson acting as technical coordinator.
Christian Villum is engaged in a wide range of projects. Alongside Urlyd Audiovisual Recordings, he has since 1998 worked with artist management and music publishing at T.G. Management, taking care of concert booking, promotion, contracting, tour production, registration, synchronization and many other areas – as well as having travelled as tour manager for a wide range of Scandinavian bands in most parts of the world.
He also acts as one of three managers of art- and technology venue Platform4, and function as chairman of label association Labelkollektiv and general manager of Labelkollektiv Distribution and Labelkollektiv Promotion, where he does promotion work for various Danish labels.
He furthermore runs the creative writing entity MindTheDot and its more artistic sub-department Spraengfarlig and constitute one third of the out-of-the-box creative consulting agency Gratis Luft.
He blogs on Freeform101 and Bandbase.com – and dj a little on various occasions under the monikers Vilde V, Christian Villum & DJ Ond Blomst. As a dj, he is affiliated to the now defunkt (but soon to be revived) Aabtek dj-collective and naturally a member of Urlyd dj-team and Aalborg Tærror Crew.
Also currently finishing a university master degree at Aalborg University in culture, communication & globalization Christian focusses on constantly gaining more theoretical knowledge and learning-by-doing experience in fields such as networked communications, tactical media movements, open sharing models, user-centeredness, consumption habits and online development.
Having previously lived in Denmark, New York and Chicago, Christian is now living in Berlin. His real-time portfolio on autofunk.dk.
Sune Petersen is a multifaceted digital artist with a background in producing live visuals, computer mediated graphics and interactive installations in a wide range of contexts. He is known as one half of the MOTORSAW vj team and specializes in photography as well as arranging the successful annual display/ground video festival. Sune even produces tracks every now and then. Past credits include being part of visual group Sea of Tranquility, working at the Copenhagen-based science centre Experimentarium as an exhibition pilot and R&D employee and having previsously worked for Ars Electronica in Linz.
