We are an underground Dark Electro, Electro-Industrial, Goth record label – established in 2010.
Halotan Records is a hobby, not a business. Making money is not our objective. Our goal is to help bands to reach more fans and to promote music we ourselves like.
We do this embracing the spirit of creativity and DIY – things that are inseparable parts of our scene.
Currently we focus on compilations. Individual artists may be released but it is low on our list of priorities.
Why? Let us be honest: what you really need as an artist is help with getting more fans, not a label. You just hope that the label can somehow pull this off for you.
And once this happens, you will wave your label a goodbye – because you do not want to share your earnings with them.
Guess what – labels know this too. And they won’t invest in you because they know they won’t get any long term return.
Such relationship has conflict of interests built in and can’t last. We learned it the hard way.
By releasing compilations instead of individual artists we avoid the above conflict and the drama it inevitably causes. With us you get your promotion and fans with no strings attached.
We believe that we can have a relationship that lasts and creates no conflicts of interest. Because there is no such thing as too much exposure, especially if it is free – and we want nothing in exchange.
We are in it for relationships and to connect with like-minded people. We want you to be and stay independent.
We don’t want to own your music or take a cut off any of your revenue streams.
We do not have a Bandcamp profile. We do not publish on streaming services (Spotify etc.). We believe you as a musician should own and manage these things yourself.
We cannot take any of your earnings, because we are not on the platforms that generate them.
Thus, we do not create a conflict of interest with bands and other labels. We operate in our own space, trying to stay outside of the standard corporate-owned ecosystem.
We are based in Poland and operate worldwide.
How we work
We have always worked with bands that were not “signed” to us. Now it is our standard way of dealing with bands.
Our main focus is compilations, not individual releases. This is where we can make the biggest impact.
We want to be music promoters, not glorified merch manufacturers or Bandcamp/Streaming managers. We do not want to be accountants. We are just some guys with spare time, skills and interest in music.
We manufacture and sell physical CDs (DIY CD-R to be precise) while offering free downloads and we send those willing to pay to your Bandcamp.
We think that physical releases still have value for fans and musicians – even if this value is just the photos of the CD. In the digitalized world physical releases tend to stand out.
We have in-house capability of preparing, mastering, and releasing your music including cover artwork design and print aspects of it. We are probably the last guys on the scene who master whole compilations.
We have released over 50 physical CDs so far.
Can my band get signed with you?
At the moment we do not “sign” any new artists. There is no artists “signed” to Halotan Records at the moment. There is no point given how we work.
Halotan Records’ history
Halotan Records was started in 2010 by Andrzej and Kroghul – two guys interested in dark electronic music. With combined experience in graphic design, music production, programming, mastering etc we hit the ground running and innovated since the day one.
From the very beginning we understood and accepted that there is and not going to be any money in it. We organised the label as a hobby rather than business, making difference for artists and fans being our only reward.
Our very first 2010 release was “Halotan Sounds 1.0“, vastly popular compilation of Polish dark electronic scene. Other releases, signed bands and co-operations followed.
Back in the day there still were labels and bands who could not accept that the pre-internet business model is gone. Since our humble beginnings we have been trying to adapt to the new market reality rather than fight it.
This allowed us to progress quicker than many around us and gain trust of bands and fans alike – all over the world.
To many, our free download policy was a blasphemy against their imaginary stardom.
But time proved us dead right – today all music is effectively free, and good will of fans is what makes them support the artists. By limiting access to your music you don’t make more cash – you just don’t get as many fans as you could.
Around 2016 Halotan Records was effectively discontinued due to the usual mixture of personal reasons and commitments.
In Summer 2023 work has begun to make Halotan Records’ revival possible. The website has been restored and updated. Releases were put back online.
In 2024 we had our first release after hiatus – Halotan Sounds 3 compilation. We partnered with Castle Party Festival who manufactured physical CDs and handled their distribution during festival and outside, while we focused on digital part, artwork and mastering.
In fall of 2024 major work was accomplished that resulted in rebuilt website, store and music sharing system.
Credits & thanks
Hobby projects like ours can’t exist without good will of people and businesses willing to give us for free things we simply cannot afford to pay for.
There are some people and companies who help us along the way and we feel we should mention them.
Countless hours of graphic design have been donated by Marcin “Kroghul” Górecki from www.kroghul.pl who co-founded Halotan Records. Now he is pursuing his passion as a painter and box art designer for military models.
All our digital print solutions and print-related know-how (CD covers, posters, leaflets etc) kindly provided by the owners of memorialprint.ie – Irish printing business who mainly print Memorial Cards so they fit perfectly our gothic style.