HI54LOFI RECORDS is not a record label and it is not not a record label. It is not that we think ‘record label’ a dirty word, we just think that it has too much implied meaning. Which is made even worse by the fact that nobody has the same definition. Here is what I know: what it means to be a record label has changed, what it means to be an artist has changed, what it means to be anything has changed. And the pie with the least amount of fingers in it, well, that is usually the best tasting pie.

At our very core, our aim is to be a community of DIYers, going it alone together. How much ‘together’ is a constantly evolving and revolving relationship that has the freedom to mean different things. There are 1000 different ways to skin a cat and our angle is to approach it from a 1000 different angles (I realize that metaphor is not very vegan friendly and I apologize). The Internet has changed things. There is a crack in the fog. The world is not nearly as scary as the producer of the 6 o’clock news wants you to think it is. Once you realize that you no longer have to listen to, watch or read anything that is shit, that realization starts to shape other areas of your life too. Start doing what you enjoy. Spend time with the people you enjoy. Share the things you enjoy with the people you enjoy. Repeat until dead.

I think it might also be important to address the name. To me, ‘lofi’ is not a certain sound. It is not about tape hiss. Something is ‘lofi’ when it has a certain humanness to it. It’s a hard thing to put into words, but you can tell when something feels slightly off in the ‘genuine’ category. The reason people think ‘shitty production’ when they think ‘lofi’ is because such a high percentage of the music that is lacking in the ‘genuine’ category is the over-produced soulless stuff we've been force fed for so many years. The kind of music that tastes of not only too many fingers, but of fingers that had no right being in that pie in the first place (sorry for all the pie analogies, I haven't eaten lunch yet). 'Lofi' can happen in a studio or in a bedroom; the main ingredient just has to be human.

We hope you will spend hours on the site listening and discovering music / artists and come back often. But if you have to leave to go look at porn or bid on collectable figurines you used to play with when you were a child, it would be sweet if you checked us out / followed / friended us on any of the sites you use below first (we would like to be your friend):

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