About
A label run like a print shop.
Hollow Press started in 2016 in a railway arch in Glasgow, with one lathe, a borrowed compressor and no plan beyond the first record.
- 01
Five hundred, then never again
Every release is pressed once, in an edition of five hundred, and when it is gone it stays gone. Repressing is how a small label ends up as a warehouse with a mailing list.
- 02
The artist keeps the masters
We licence for five years. After that the recording goes back where it came from, whatever it has done in the meantime. Nobody has ever had to ask us for it twice.
- 03
Split before costs
Fifty-fifty on net, and the costs are on a shared spreadsheet from day one. You can see the plant invoice, the mastering invoice and what the sleeves cost.
- 04
No singles first
Records are sequenced for a reason. We will not chop one up to feed a playlist six weeks ahead of the release.
Practical
We press nine records a year, which is roughly what two people can do properly alongside other work. Mastering is done in the arch; plating and pressing go to a plant in the Czech Republic that has never once missed a date.
Sleeves are screen-printed by hand, which is why they are never quite identical and why the ink sometimes comes off on your fingers for the first week.