In 2010, legal downloads of music in Japan increased marginally over 2009, but CD sales were down by 12 percent, and sales by foreign artists, both imports and nihonban (domestically manufactured discs), by 15 percent. It doesn't sound like the best time to start a new record label featuring overseas indie artists.
"Promising is not the word," admits Adam Graham, when asked about the market that this new label, Pachinko Records, is entering. Graham is the label's manager and, for all intents and purposes, its only full-time dedicated employee.
The impetus behind the startup has more to do with corporate prerogatives than anything else. Pachinko distributes in Japan records released by Cooperative Music, an umbrella label for various U.K.-based indies. It is part of Universal Music Group, the biggest record company in the world. Until last December, Co-Op's releases were distributed in Japan by the local independent label Hostess Entertainment, which has a distribution deal with one of Universal's rivals, Sony Music.