One of Scotland’s longest-standing indies, The Creeping Bent Organisation, are to reject streaming sites like Spotify and instead adopt the increasingly popular Patreon system.

The label, which has been releasing music since 1994, are to move to a subscription model, via Patreon – although they will continue to sell physical product via their Bandcamp site (www.creepingbent.net) and selected record shops.

The subscription model will see ‘Bent Patrons’ pay a monthly subscription charge of £5 per month, which will give exclusive access to new digital albums from the likes of Port Sulphur, Monica Queen, and The Secret Goldfish, online mini-concerts, and rare/unreleased downloads by artists on the label including Adventures in Stereo, Future Pilot AKA, Vic Godard, The Nectarine No9, The Leopards, Sexual Objects, Alan Vega & Revolutionary Corps of Teenage Jesus, Fire Engines, Gareth Sager, and others.

Other subscriber-only items will include upload unpublished photographs and videos from the Bent archives, and writing from our FRETS Words literary outlet.

Also planned is a series of monthly, themed acoustic mini-concerts.

Citing rising costs – with shipping and administration “going through the roof with Brexit” – Douglas Macintyre believes that the subscriber setup will benefit the label, as well as its fans and its artists.

The label’s founder – who is also a member of The Secret Goldfish as well as the prime mover behind the Port Sulphur project – has also decided to cease using streaming services such as Spotify and YouTube, explaining that these “don’t work for us anymore, in truth they never did.”

“We felt in order to compete we should engage with these sites,” Macintyre recalls, “but from now on new videos and releases will only be available to our monthly subscribers.

“We don’t dig the ethos or aesthetic of Spotify, no we’re out,” he added.

One of the final releases under the label’s old model, Spacehopper’s ‘Sonic Switchblade‘, can still be viewed (below) via Youtube, but future tracks – including the Grant McPhee-directed video accompanying the deluxe vinyl reissue of ‘Righteous Lite’ by Alan Vega and Revolutionary Corps of Teenage Jesus – will only be available to subscribers, at www.patreon.com/creepingbent.

More at creepingbent.net.