Labels react to Sony/PIAS warehouse fire

As we reported yesterday, the Enfield distribution warehouse stocked by Sony/PIAS was burnt to the ground late Monday night causing significant loss for Britain’s independent music industry. The Sony warehouse was the main distribution hub for PIAS, the biggest distributor of independent labels in the Britain and Ireland housing large amounts of CDs and LPs. PIAS issued an official statement today on the incident and their progress:

Sony DADC have actioned their Business Continuity Plan and are back up and running from a new control room in Enfield. PIAS continue to work with them to minimise the impact on the business, a number one priority for all labels and clients. SonyDADC have identified a temporary distribution partner and it is envisaged that they will be in a position to pick, pack and ship orders in the course of next week.

This follows an earlier statement regarding a fire last night at the SonyDADC warehouse, which services the physical distribution for PIAS in the UK and Ireland. PIAS’s UK offices in London and all other areas of our business are unaffected. More information will be communicated shortly to all our labels and partners

Further details will follow tomorrow morning.

We wish to thank everyone for the overwhelming messages of support.

As Pitchfork points out, Beggars Group, which includes Matador, XL, Rough Trade, 4AD, True Panther, Young Turks and Too Pure, is one of the organizations that have been affected the most. Chairman Martin Mills states that the label had lost their entire UK stock – 750,000 copies in all – to the fire. It will take the label ten days to replace the CDs and at least three months to replace their vinyl stock.

Sub Pop head Jonathan Poneman issued the following statement:

“First and foremost, we are incredibly thankful that there were no fatalities or injuries in the fire. As information comes in we are assessing the situation and figuring out what comes next.”

In addition, The Guardian reports that the physical release of Arctic Monkeys’ new single, “The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala,” was affected as there are only limited quantities of the single available through the Monkeys’ website now. The band’s label, Domino, has issued the following statement:

“Domino has lost a large quantity of its CD and vinyl stock in the Sony DADC fire, which took place last night. While relieved that no-one was injured in the incident, we’re upset about the loss and destruction of our stock, and thinking of our friends at other independent labels who were also affected by the fire. We are currently working hard with Sony DADC to maintain our release schedule and keep business going as usual.”

So how can we help the independent music industry in the UK? The Association of Independent Music UK is calling to purchase digital copies of albums in order to help labels affected by the fire.

Music fans can show their support for the independent label community, and help them survive this disaster, by buying a digital download of an album from any one of the digital retailers in the UK, as well as going to their local record store whilst stocks last.

This way the labels will be able to remanufacture their CDs and vinyl more quickly, to resupply the record shops who are also affected by the riots.