Gold Standard Laboratories, the US indie label co-owned by The Mars Volta's Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, which released early records from the likes of The Faint, The Rapture and !!!, has closed its doors.
In a posting on their website, the label's owners say: "In recent years, we've experienced the onset of factors that have seriously limited our ability to maintain what we feel is the essence of the label; the experimental attitude and artistic freewheeling of times past are simply no longer sustainable. Rather than compromise our goals and beliefs, or allow our course to be charted by financial constraint and an industry in flux, we've decided the time has come for GSL to cease releasing new music, and to close this chapter of our story".
Further explaining their decision, they continue: "We've spent the better part of the past year considering this decision. The recent passing of Factory Records founder Tony Wilson, whose singular example and influence on GSL cannot be understated, came as something of a cosmic reinforcement of our instinctual belief that GSL's time has come and gone. The fact that the original Factory Records itself lasted just 14 years may only be a coincidence, although we choose to see it differently. If one day the right opportunity presents itself, who knows, GSL may re-emerge. Only time will tell".
Founded by Sonny Kay in Boulder, Colorado in 1993, Gold Standard Laboratories or GSL (the abbreviation preceded the full name, the label originally being named after the student loan - or Guaranteed Stafford Loan - that Kay used to fund it), the label worked with numerous new and alternative artists over the years, with Rodriguez-Lopez getting involved in 2001, and the label subsequently releasing recordings from his various projects.
Those releases, and the rest of the GSL back catalogue, will continue to be available physically and digitally, with mail order handled by Redeye Distribution and http://www.11spot.com.