Elkhorn, Wisconsin-based Keep It Together Records is totally global. This feisty, independent music-publishing house is amassing an impressive portfolio of post-rock, emo, and indie groups that intrepidly tromp out their own musical paths. The American-Idol-repeat-play-mainstream doesn’t want ‘em (but the feeling is likely reciprocal). Keep It Together has recorded groups from Siberia (Russia), Rockford, Long Island, Washington D.C., Ireland, Michigan, and Japan (see their tapes on display in a Japanese record shop). The preferred, counterintuitive format is cassette (with fun color cases and different-colored tape,) although a couple of their 14 releases are available on 7” vinyl. Even if you’re not fortunate enough, like me, to be driving a 2004 car equipped with a radio-CD-cassette deck, it’s still worth purchasing at least one Keep It Together cassette to support the defiance associated with an against-the-grain musical art production used on passionately independent music groups. For four measly bucks it wouldn’t even dimple your budget to buy one cassette—like my current favorite, “We’ve Been Talking,” by the Irish band Enemies—if only to place it in your sock drawer to remind you that your feet could be walking you in a different direction.
Nice write-up. Sounds like a cool company!!
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