This is very sad news. I have only known about Anomalous Records for the past couple of years, but know that Eric's business is and has been a very important resource for adventurous music listeners worldwide. I admire his reasons and respect him for knowing when to stop. That said, Anomalous needs your help in selling all of their remaining stock as quickly as possible. They will close permanently on the 25th of this month. There is no clearance or going-out-of-business sale, just the remaining stock that needs unloading.
As for the upcoming(?) AMM disc and project-related sister discs that was to be released on the Anomalous label, I don't know. Please visit their site and make a few purchases here:
The original e-mail from Eric and Anomalous is below:
ANOMALOUS IS CLOSING
At the end of August 2003, Anomalous Records will CLOSE.
No more mail order.
No more wholesale.
No 'going-out-of-business' sale - if you want it, buy it now before we run out.
Please get any orders in before August 25th, as we will likely spend the last week of August packing everything up to put in storage.
Obviously, everything is limited to the stock on hand, once it is gone, it's gone.
Why are we closing? Well, there are a lot of reasons. Probably most importantly is that Anomalous Records is kept alive by me, Eric Lanzillotta, putting in a lot of unpaid overtime. Anomalous Records is the result of a lot of passion and drive. I have a lot of passion for the sounds we sell, and a lot of drive to do things the best I can. I pushed myself very hard because I believe very much in what I do with Anomalous Records. I am very proud of what I have accomplished, and it is a great part of my life. In fact, it has been most of my life for the last 12 and a half years. Therein lies the problem. In pushing myself forward to make this work, I have pushed myself too far. In fact, I probably past my limits several years ago. Recently I have begun to notice the negative side effects of pushing myself so hard for so long. Basically the stress of doing this has taken its toll. I have realized that I need to stop now while I can, and not just completely burn myself out.
Aside from this, Anomalous is not all of my life. As a few of you will know, I have a son who will be turning 13 in a few months. If there is one thing that I regret about Anomalous, it is not having more time to spend with him.
For those have of you who have been around long enough, you will know that through a lot of periods of Anomalous' history, the business has been run entirely by me. I have had occasional helpers over the years who I could not have gotten by without (Danielle, Daniel, Damion, Sara, Jessica, Davey, Drew, Jeph, AJ, Rachael, Isaac, Jefferson, Matt, Monica, and another Daniel). Most important of these is Rachael Jackson, who has been helping me for over 4 years now and has become the public face of Anomalous Records for most people. To her especially, I am indebted for all the time and effort and without whom Anomalous might have collapsed a while ago.
We did put forward the idea of Rachael continue to run Anomalous without me, but it became apparent that she could not handle running the business (let alone how the numbers were looking). Getting someone outside to take over what was so personal is also unappealing.
I owe many people thanks for help in making this dream work for so long. To make a list would be impossibly long, and I would fear leaving out someone important in taking on such a long task. But I would like to single out a few people that I have especially high gratitude for:
KENT RANDOLPH
NORIYASU NOGAI
ROBERT MARZANO
The support and faith these people have had in me over years has been instrumental.
Likewise, the creative force of JEPH JERMAN has been an important inspiration through the entire history of Anomalous Records.
Most of all, without TANITH LANZILLOTTA, I probably could have not kept going through it all. I thank him for all his patience for dad having to work late.
But as I allude to above, there are hundreds more people that helped make this what it was. Everyone that bought anything and all the wonderfully talented and underappreciated artists that have made up the catalog over the years. Anomalous has mainly been about a bringing together of people and sounds, and I hope I've helped you on this journey.
Last, PLEASE do help us sell off the remaining stock by buying. I would very much like to keep the label side of Anomalous Records alive, but that depends on selling off a lot of the stock we have on hand. I am going to make one last push to sell things over the next two weeks, then I must call it quits. We have a lot of wonderful things in the works such as releases by:
AMM
Mnemonists / Biota
Andrew Deutsch
Ellen Fullman
RLW
Robert Millis' recordings from SE Asia
and more....
Please help me save at least this part of my dream, and thank again for all your support over the years!
This is actually a shortened version of everything going through my head lately. Maybe at some future point, I will put something more extended on the web site. Yes, the web site will stay up on the internet, but the catalog will disappear. Also, the PO Box will remain a valid address.
Eric Lanzillotta
Posted by al on August 15, 2003 1:53 PMMan, that's really bad news. They have a terrific catalog. The email is kind of scary too. I hope everything is (or gets to be OK).
Posted by: walto at August 15, 2003 6:11 PMI say good riddance. That guy always rubbed me the wrong way and really gave avant-garde that pretentious air that people always cast with their stones. When he had an open shop briefly, he was the most paranoid and unthankful shopkeeper I ever met. I avoided his business like the plague. Sorry that artists are losing a place to sell their wares but he always seemed to be part of some club that you needed the right credentials to get in. To me it sounds like karma finally caught up.
Posted by: Ted at August 25, 2003 12:24 PMnoted.
Posted by: al at August 26, 2003 7:17 AMFunny to read Ted's comments. He was one of the more pretentious and shallow scensters around. He actually came to one of the evenings that Carl Farrow and I DJed, and stood right next to us blabbering on to a friend through the whole proceedings. Amazingly self-centered to come to an event just to socialize, but do it in such proximity to the people doing the actual event that they can't even hear what they are doing takes ego to a new level. In any case, I think karma did catch up with me, I got an incredible number of supportive messages upon closing (Ted's is one of the only negative ones I got, and not surprising considering his personality). Thanks again to everyone for their support over the years.
Posted by: Eric Lanzillotta at March 24, 2004 10:32 AMAlthough I can't place the evening you mention, Eric, I'm sure every spin of the turntable was worth all of me. To go out and socialize seems such a preposterous idea that I completely understand your dissatisfaction with my presence. I guess I was having a good time. I'm sure I took every moment of the evening from you and I can only apologize. And, by the way, I sent no message to you about this. I only placed it here. I hate confrontation. I know I am shallow and pretentious but had no idea I raised the idea of the ego to a new level. Someone call Freud! Id, the ego, the Super Ego, and Ted's Ego. No need to worry about me, Eric. Just one guy, one ex-customer. Take care. Say hi to Carl for me. I miss that guy.
Posted by: Ted at March 24, 2004 12:34 PMEric, you ran a fine mailorder business, and I appreciated your catalogue and your service. Give my best to Rachel. She was great to deal with. And at some point in your life, I hope you'll do this again or help somebody else who will.
Posted by: Bill Ashline at March 25, 2004 3:30 AM>>I say good riddance.
>>He was one of the more pretentious and shallow >>scensters around.
Hmmm..acting like kids here, aren`t we ?
All I`m hoping is that someone else starts a distribution service and hopefully they will be gay, fat and ugly, with no kids, so they will have nothing else to ever care for but their shop.
Maybe that should be me ?
Cheers,
Cedric
Posted by: Cedric Caspesyan at June 27, 2004 2:00 PM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................