Indie Label Spotlight: Anxiety Blanket Records
Anxiety Blanket Records is an artist-run independent label based in Los Angeles. Founded in 2018, it is home to a diverse roster of independent artists, but as Jeremy and Jake explain below, the label's real mission extends far beyond releasing records.
UpToHear: Was there a particular artist, label, or scene that influenced the way you run things today?
Jeremy: Too many to name really, but Jake and I both grew up in the greater Los Angeles area, so growing up I was deeply inspired by the DIY scenes of the area. There were many scenes that would form around venues and bookers like The Smell (LA), Pehrspace (LA), VLHS (Pomona), Acrobatics Everyday (Irvine), Bridgetown DIY (La Puente), etc. These were scenes that were art forward and much less focused on the commerce aspect of music and the industry surrounding it.
As far as labels that might be more widely known, I’m personally influenced by K Records, Drag City, MOONE Record, Dischord, Thrill Jockey, Constellation, and many more. Any label that has the ability to contain their ambition in service of authenticity really.
Jake: I first wanted to start a label after watching Spend an Evening with Saddle Creek, a documentary about the label Saddle Creek and the Omaha scene at the time. I was really inspired by the idea of creating your own path instead of trying to fit into the music industry. I also love the idea of a label as documenting a particular scene. Some labels I’m inspired by are MOONE Records, Den Tapes, Fire Talk, Orindal Records, Northern Spy, Merge, and Drag City.
UpToHear: What do you value more in an artist: originality, consistency, or ambition?
Jeremy: Building off of my last answer; as nice as it would be to have an artist with big goals who is consistently working and bringing in money for the label, that’s ultimately not something I care much about. I view our label more as a way to document a scene. Our catalog is filled with artists that Jake and I see in our daily lives. We run into them at our local coffee shops, bars, movie theaters, grocery stores, etc. Our goal with the label is really to try and capture a certain type of artist who is following their artistic vision, over an artist who might just see us as a stepping stone towards bigger things (though there is nothing wrong if an ABR artist goes on to bigger things).
Los Angeles is such an industry town and it's shocking how many unsavory capitalist ideas seep into the independent music world. I’m just as happy to release an album from an artist who will never play a show, as I am a band that does full US tours regularly, as long as they’re following their muse. There are financial considerations that come with that mindset, but for every artist that sells out of their run of vinyl, cassettes, CDs, etc we might be able to fund another artist who may never make back the money from their release. Which to me feels like how a healthy artistic community should operate.
Jake: It really depends on the release and what the artist's goal is. For each release, we try to support the artist with whatever their hope for it is. Having said that, I think Jeremy and I are both drawn to originality when we hear it and I love when a band already has an idea of how to tell the visual story of their release when they come to us.
UpToHear: How involved do you like to be once an artist begins shaping a release?
Jeremy: Jake and I have only signed deals for one release at a time, so we would never ask for an artist to change something about their art. We would rather pass on a release than ask an artist to compromise their vision for our sake. The only area we really try to “shape” a release would be in the best practices that come with releasing music in 2026. It’s a constantly evolving process, and a lot of artists don’t know or maybe even don’t want to engage with that side of releasing music. So I mostly try to be helpful to the artists in whatever way they need, which can be drastically different from artist to artist.
Jake: We don’t get involved in a release until the record is being mixed or completely done. Jeremy is a graphic designer, so he’s involved in almost all of the art as we work toward getting the music out. We do our best to guide artists through ‘best practice’ when it comes to singles, timing, and all the things we have learned over the years through trial and error. I think our involvement also consists of the community we’ve curated and how when you have something coming out, you’ve got the support of this group of musicians and fans.
UpToHear: What’s something about streaming culture that frustrates you?
Jeremy: I mean the most obvious is how it’s gutted the ability for working class artists to have sustainable music practices. Unfair streaming royalties are wage theft in my opinion, and it’s sad to see all the ramifications that come as a result of that.
A personal pet peeve though, is that I love full length records, and truly despise that streaming is built around singles.
Algorithms are built to reward a never ending succession of singles, and the second you stop releasing new tracks, the streamers start pushing whatever’s next. I miss when people had the attention span for long records and could potentially be rewarded for creating them.
Jake: So much... I feel like streaming is curated toward passive listening and I think that as a culture we’ve gotten so far away from music listening being the main event. I think streaming companies are greedy and it’s much harder than it used to be to get paid for music, but as a community we have to do our best to change that by buying CDs and records at shows, getting a streaming service that pays artists better, or just buying records online.
UpToHear: Which ABR releases are you most excited for people to hear?
Jeremy: The Bay-area artist Marika Christine’s new record Enjoy the Clouds was out May 29th, and the Los Angeles-based Young Lovers’ sophomore record The Circle’s End was out June 26th.
Enjoy the Clouds is a special record that feels like it captured all the small but impactful moments in Marika’s life since her last album Soft Like an Apricot in 2023. Every song is bursting with contemplative joy and is instantly hummable. I’ve been shocked with how many times I’ve caught myself singing one of the melodies without realizing where it came from.
While The Circle’s End is a decade-in-the-making song cycle from Young Lovers that feels like a culmination of everything they’ve been working on since they formed. We’ve been friends since the early 2010s and it's incredible to finally hear their vision come to life. There’s a full string quartet and multiple brass players that helped bring this record to fruition. It’s beautiful to hear these songs I’ve heard live many times in their full grandeur.
Finally, both Jake and I are musicians as well, and we both have releases planned for later in the year. My band New Balance is currently wrapping up our third full-length record, and Jake has multiple irons in the fire with different projects. Neither are announced but will probably see the light of day at some point this year!
Jake: In addition to what Jeremy said, we’ve got a few unannounced records I’m really excited about! One DIY legend that I’m most excited about but you’ll have to check back on that!
UpToHear: If the world was ending, which three albums absolutely cannot disappear with civilization?
Jeremy: Wow, this is so tough!
Just so I don’t overthink it, these are the first three that come to mind:
Arthur Russell - Calling Out Of Context
Julee Cruise - Floating Into The Night
Miles Davis -Get Up with It
Jake: An impossible question that I will answer poorly haha.
I’d like to preface my answer by saying these are some of my favorites, but mostly the three records that I think humankind should be remembered by:
Courtney Marie Andrews - Valentine
50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin
Rubblebucket - Sun Machine
A huge thanks to Jeremy and Jake for the conversation. If you appreciate artist-first independent music, Anxiety Blanket Records is a label well worth following.
-TM