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Label Lookout – Spring ’24

Label Lookout, a semi-regular series at KRUI highlighting a few exciting contemporary record labels and what they have to offer. Here we feature six of the station’s favorite labels in this Spring ’24 Edition.

News
Interview: Laura Bergus on Authoritarianism in Iowa

Lawyer and Iowa City city council member Laura Bergus talks about the alarming recent trend of authoritarianism in Iowa. She also elaborates on why the government is targeting trans people, and the purpose of the Back the Blue laws.

What the Lab Means to Us (And Should Mean to You)

As we all make our way through our lives, blindly groping for meaning and purpose amidst a confusing world, harsh, unjust, full of arbitrariness and randomness, struggling and yearning and fighting to win even a sliver of relief or a modicum of dignity, we are, to a man (and woman), left with only one truth, one intrinsic reality, one universal condition: life fucking sucks sometimes.

Moreover, life fucking sucks a lot of the time.  Seldom will things go the way you want to, and even if you get on a roll, good luck following you like a brainless and doe-eyed Weiner dog for years and years- ultimately you will die: death is the great leveler of odds and wrecker of point spreads.

And the worse part is that we’ve got it pretty good.  The only way to feel worse about yourself about feeling bad for yourself is to remember that your petty, privileged, ‘first-world’ problems are so petty, privileged, and ‘first-world’ as to be non-existent in the Grand Scale of Bullshit.  When you think about the amount of unmitigated suffering in the world, lives that begin in misery and end in agony, it puts your aforementioned cosmic malaise into perspective- and makes you feel like an asshole.  There’s just no relief!

But there is!  For here is The Lab: modern, hip, a safe haven for expression, for experimentation, for open and honest artistic endeavor.  For as long as you care to imbibe in its splendor, an hour, three, several, our beautiful Lab is here, blasting its braggadocio and earnestness for any who care to reap its benefits.  And benefits there are a-plenty; if you just dig on the vibes we give.

And so we, the DJs, enthusiasts, and creative entities of the Lab pledge thus:  we will not be bound by stupid fashions or expectations but those which we set for ourselves; we will not settle for anything that yields to destructive negativity; we will always strive to do what has not been done, with the goal of fostering an atmosphere and sound that is groovy and personal.  We are the alternative to The Alternative.

And failing all that, we’ll at least have some fun.  Or just make random noises for an hour.

This guy knows what we’re talking about.

Floreat Lab!