NOTE: The IPR Encyclopedia contains info from one 1990s era issue of the IPR mail order catalog, plus a handful of entires from the Parasol.com database. My plan was to flush it out with additional information periodically, though I don't know how likely that is anymore. Getting a rough version online gives you a taste of IPR, and lets me get feedback, which is always good.
Independent Project Records (IPR) is based in Arizona, USA. They are one of the most critically respected (revered) labels in the States.
I'm a big fan of IPR and their releases. I loved getting their catalogs in the mail. A great deal of the enjoyment I got from IPR was the thrill of browsing through their catalogs. The catalogs were well designed, and the music within was mysterious and beautiful. Masterful.
Sadly, IPR discontinued their mail order department a couple years ago. Their merchandise is now being sold by Parasol. Parasol's a great company, but they don't yet have an IPR-dedicated section. They have told me they might one day create one, that was six months ago and I'm the impatient DIY type.
It's because I'm an IPR fan that I decided to make this IPR Encyclopedia. It's a combination of all the old IPR catalogs I could get my hands on, plus new IPR merchandise being sold by Parasol. I've also added other IPR-related information I've collected over the years.
By the way, I don't work for IPR, or Parasol. If they want to help sponsor my IPR-related efforts, then that's another story! But for now I am just a fan, and in no way represent them or the artists whose work is discussed herein. Therefore, take everything you see in this document with a grain of salt; it's unofficial, much of it is outdated, and has not gone through the rigors of quality control.
All prices and quantities mentioned herein are included for "flavor" only. They are out of date and unofficial and are to be considered part of the merchandise's description rather than reflective of its actual cost. These are not quotes!
I used a scanner and OCR software to get the IPR catalogs onto my computer. Therefore, there are bound to be typos; if you see something which looks wrong, inconsistent, or just plain suspect, please contact me and I'll add your corrections to the next edition.
One other thing: I originally wanted this document to read more like a book or hard copy catalog than a web page. Therefore, I started developing it in Word instead of HTML.
Due to popular demand and further personal reflection, I've started converting the IPR Encyclopedia back into HTML. This conversion provides several advantages over maintaining the IPR Encyclopedia as a Word document:
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new presentation. Your feedback [on both format and content] is welcome.
Okay, enough exposition and disclaiming and on with the show!
-- Travis
Most of this document's original text and images come from IPR's two mailorder catalogs (ipr94 and ipr95). The rest comes from web sites, books, and individuals.
These are my own comments about material I've either bought, heard, or researched. I've also included numerical scores in some of my recent reviews.
These are from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) and represent the total amount of enjoyment I have derived from the release. There are multiple categories, which I might change in the future (if I decide to keep scores like this).
So, you can think of the two numbers as being "during/after", "implementation/design", or even "background/foreground". I feel it's important to separate the two, because I've noticed that different people tend to value atmosphere and melody much differently from one another. By the way, I almost never pay attention to lyrics, so those don't factor in, unless subconsciously.
The Encyclopedia aims to describe all of the music that has been released by bands that were at some point in their exsitance associated with IPR. It is possible that some of these bands' material was only distributed rather than owned, licensed, or sponsored by IPR [for instance: The Big Takeover magazine is mentioned here though it was only distributed by IPR]. I tend to be lenient, in that I don't discriminate along the lines of contracts and ownership, as long as the artist has some significant connection to IPR.
Please don't regard any of the prices in the Encyclopedia as quotable! Some of them are over a decade old now. I've included them as "flavor," and to give you a ballpark idea of relative prices, but they are by no means official. In fact, since many of the albums have gone out of print [or perhaps been re-released] since the catalogs were printed, all prices and quantities listed in the Encyclopedia are are to be considered descriptive rather than contractual.
If you would like to purchase material mentioned in the Encyclopedia, you can either try Parasol.com or another online store [e.g., CDNow, CDEurope, German Music Express]. You can also try contacting the folks at Independent Project Records itself; see my Links page for contact info.
If you have comments or questions regarding the Encyclopedia, please post your comments to the forum. That way, everyone can read and respond to your ideas and observations. You can also contact me, but I'm unlikely to have any more info about specific bands than what you see on this site.
Enjoy!
-- Trav
There are two formats for the IPR Encyclopedia: a Word document and a set of HTML pages which you can browse online. The Word document is older, but the HTML version lacks a Various Artists section. In the future, I probably won't bother updating the Word version.
| Word | 1999-01-15 | 442 KB, right click to download |
| ZIP of Word | 1999-01-15 | 213 KB |
| HTML | 1999-09-12 | no Various Artists section yet |