Owned by our artists, for our artists.
Adhyâropa Records is a 100% artist-owned record label founded in 2021 by the members of 9 Horses. We wanted to create a home for artists to release music that defied genre or description, and to give them not only the freedom to make and release music the way they want, but to have artistic and financial agency over their music. All Adhyâropa artists own their own masters, and receive far greater percentages of their profits. Contact Adhyâropa if you think we might be a good home for you.
The Adhyâropa Story…
Started in 2021 as the “boutique” label for 9 Horses, Adhyâropa started releasing records for friends and – purely through word of mouth – quickly attracted a large family of artists who believe in a set of core philosophies:
^The music industry has become financially untenable for middle-class working artists. Streaming has gutted musicians’ main revenue source, touring has become equally onerous, and corporations are conspiring to remove the last opportunities for artists to make a living, with AI waiting around the corner to finish the job.
^Musicians are not organized the way other artists are. Remember when writers and actors went on strike? They got a lot of what they wanted because their organization is industry-wide. When a corporation like Spotify creates unendurable conditions for participating in the streaming economy, they succeed because musicians are ill-equipped to fight back. But labels are, and should.
Adhyâropa is an artist-owned, artist-forward label that is dedicated to creating a sustainable financial system and to fostering a community of musicians that organize together to be the rising tide that lifts us all. We feel like we’ve just started, but in that short time our growth has been exponential; we’ve released hundreds of albums already and are now releasing more than an album per week, with a catalog featuring artists such as:
Darol Anger ^
Lenny Pickett ^
Jane Ira Bloom ^
Vienna Teng ^
Billy Martin ^
Rachel Eckroth ^
9 Horses ^
Mr Sun ^
Joe K. Walsh ^
John Hadfield ^
Bahar Movahed ^
Wes Corbett ^
Jacob Jolliff ^
Ofri Nehemya ^
Ian Coury ^
Greg Garrison ^
Meg Okura ^
Brandon Ridenour ^
Hilary Hawke ^
Brian Shankar Adler ^
Ethan Setiawan ^
Yotam Ben-Or ^
Darol Anger ^ Lenny Pickett ^ Jane Ira Bloom ^ Vienna Teng ^ Billy Martin ^ Rachel Eckroth ^ 9 Horses ^ Mr Sun ^ Joe K. Walsh ^ John Hadfield ^ Bahar Movahed ^ Wes Corbett ^ Jacob Jolliff ^ Ofri Nehemya ^ Ian Coury ^ Greg Garrison ^ Meg Okura ^ Brandon Ridenour ^ Hilary Hawke ^ Brian Shankar Adler ^ Ethan Setiawan ^ Yotam Ben-Or ^
So… what does “Adhyâropa” mean, and how do you say it?
Adhyâropa is Sanskrit for “superimposition.” Guru Swami Sivananda demonstrated that the world is a mere superimposition upon Brahman through the parable of the coil of rope in the road. You see a coil of rope, but because you are afraid of snakes, your mind imagines that the rope might be a snake, and you feel fear (hence the logo, designed by Emily Hope Price). But superimposition does not inherently carry a negative connotation; we superimpose a fair and sustainable artist-label relationship upon a music industry that has become neither fair nor sustainable. And as for the pronunciation, your best try is always good enough for us, but we say it as:
