Fin Records, voted Seattle Weekly’s Best Local Label of 2012, announced today in a press release that it will close. We have a call out to the company—recently relocated from Ballard to Wallingford and home to artists like Kairos, Seacats, Tangerine, and many others—for more details, but the news looks pretty cut-and-dry: it’s not easy making a living in music these days (i.e., that sweet marbled wax doesn’t grow on trees). We’ll keep you posted with updates as we hear of them. In the meantime, RIP, Fin Records. Full release follows.

FIN RECORDS HAS ANNOUNCED THAT IT WILL SUSPEND OPERATIONS FOR AN INDEFINITE PERIOD OF TIME

(Seattle) – Founder Christian Fulghum attributed this to the difficulties involved in the current music industry environment: “It has never been easier to record, release, and distribute a record, but it has also never been more difficult to make money doing so.”

Founded in 2010, Fin has released more than one hundred vinyl LPs, EPs, CDs, and digital releases by a wide variety of artists including KAIROS, Low Hums, Lures, Tangerine, SEACATS, Gavin Guss, Red Jacket Mine, J. Pinder, Pigeonhed, The Young Evils, Jack Endino, Long Distance Poison, STAG, and dozens more, covering styles ranging from Hip Hop to Punk Rock, Electronic to Country, and Folk to Avant-Garde.

Seattle Weekly named Fin Records “Local Label of the Year” in 2012. “We could not be more proud of the artists we work with, and the records we have helped them to put out. The music wasn’t the problem. The economic models of the past have been thoroughly disrupted, and all of us, from the majors to the smallest independent labels, are struggling to create a viable new model.”