When I began Joyful Noise Recordings in 2003 I was a freshman in college. The label was created solely for the purpose of putting a pseudo-label name on the back of my then-bands CD (Melk The G6-49). I had very little aspirations for growing the label into something legitimate. The name was chosen mostly because I thought it would be a funny name for a noise label, and seemed to embody the idea of making noise that was passionate and enlightened. The music of my bass & drum duo was meditative, noisy, spiritual, and impulse driven. We attempted to make noise beautiful – a stark contrast to the many musically nihilistic noise bands that Melk often played with. And Joyful Noise seemed an appropriate name for our perspective on music.
As the label has grown, so have the “humm, is that some sort of Christian thing?” comments.
So, here is the deal: we are not a Christian label. To my knowledge none of the bands currently on the label are comprised entirely of Christians. Some bands may have religious believers among their members, but this is not something we are particularly aware of. Religion is not something we factor in when deciding to work with a band.
However, I do love confusing people and challenging their ideas about religion and culture/art. We are also particularly liberal in our thinking about how religion and art should interact. I try to acknowledge that religion (or more accurately, faith) can be a valuable catalyst for honest and sincere art. I would not shy away from working with a religious band, provided that they were artistically honest and aesthetically on par. Religious belief can often provide otherworldly inspiration which can benefit art (think Danielson). True that religion has been responsible for more bad music than good, but there are many bands which offset this trend, and I think that this is a positive movement.
For those who were raised in the evangelical Christian traditions, “Joyful Noise” seems to revive memories of choir practice. This is because of a phrase in Psalms (which is ahem, a JEWISH text – why doesn’t everyone think we are a Jewish label?). As bothersome as it is at times, we have come to see it as our “calling” to try and combat this religious stigma. It is an unfortunate religious connotation (wha.. wha..) but it is also an unfair stigma which deserves to be investigated and overcome.
We simply strive to be honest with our religious beliefs (which means we are basically agnostic), and we would be happy releasing an inventive Christan group alongside of Montreal’s genital draining fuckfests.
Love, Karl
