Sounds Are Active is an independent record label based in Long Beach, CA. It was founded in 1999 by Chris Schlarb. The label has focused on releasing music in the genres of free jazz, avanthop, ambient and other experimental music.
A strong visual aesthetic has helped to define the label image. Sounds Are Active has worked with such visual artists as Tim McMullen, Jonathan Dueck, Paul Goode, Jason Munn, Grady McFerrin, Laura Park, Jeff Madrid, Aaron Tanner and Joel Speasmaker.
In 2005 Sounds Are Active introduced an option to subscribe to all of their releases (digital and physical) for a year. In November 2006 they released their first film, the rockumentary 40 Bands/80 Minutes!.
Famous quotes containing the words sounds and/or active:
“She sang a song that sounds like life; I mean it was sad. Délira knew no other types of songs. She didn’t sing loud, and the song had no words. It was sung with closed lips and it stayed down in one’s throat.... Life is what taught them, these Negresses, to sing as if they were choking back sobs. It is a song that always ends with a beginning anew because this song is the picture of misery, and tell me, does misery ever end?”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice—that is, until we have stopped saying “It got lost,” and say, “I lost it.””
—Sydney J. Harris (b. 1917)