Sad news for fans of independent and alternative music - among the worst hit in last night’s large scale rioting in London were the very popular independent distributor PIAS (né Play It Again Sam) who look to have lost all their stock when the Sony warehouse in Enfield was burnt down. If you are a fan or collector of independent music you probably have a couple of releases brought to you by the company already - they distribute labels like Mute, Rough Trade, One Little Indian, Warp, Ninja Tune, Kompakt, Domino, FatCat, Soul Jazz, Rock Action, Chemikal Undergroud, and lots lots more. It’s estimated that PIAS handle around 30% of independent music in Europe.

PIAS have issued this statement via their website:

There was a fire last night at the SonyDADC warehouse which services the physical distribution for [PIAS] in the UK and Ireland. [PIAS] is working closely with SonyDADC who are implementing their emergency plans. [PIAS]‘s UK offices in London and all other areas of our business are unaffected.
More information will be communicated shortly to all our labels and partners.

A campaign has already begun to help the company, with suggestions that records or downloads from PIAS distributed labels be bought today in solidarity. A Paypal account is also being set up by Twitter user fionchadd (hashtag #labellove) for people to donate money through, which will be distributed among the labels affected by the loss of stock.

Via Drowned in Sound