What and why?
Webbed Hand is primarily a netlabel, offering over 100 complete albums free for download. Netlabel music is creative expression shared freely. The works released here are selected so you can experience them and be improved in some way for having done so. Download them, make copies for yourself, make copies for your friends. Add them to your podcast, radio show, video or short film (open permission for non-commercial use; if commercial, contact us).
Webbed Hand Records sees itself as a “flavor” label. There is a certain taste, a refined aesthetic, behind this operation, and albums released on WHR reflect that. In general, the works here are aimed at the ears of introverted mystics, dreamers, and lateral thinkers. We’d like the music here to serve as vehicles for the mind. Empowering and uplifting, rather than plaintive and devitalizing, this is sound in the service of enchantment. Sorcerers and psychonaut-savants take note.
Webbed Hand Records is operated by and for artists who wish to bring their work to the public without a profit motive. Artists who make a higher priority of inspiring and entertaining. All of the artists here produce and promote their own work, and help spread the Webbed Hand reputation, to the best of their ability.
As this label was created and is run by a small group of visionaries, the work produced and selected for release, regardless of genre, is bound to end up trippy, loaded with subtlety and richness and no shortage of strangeness. Go to the release pages, download or stream a few things, and judge for yourself.
Who?
Webbed Hand Records was created and is led by the brothers Chris and Dan McDill. They are recording artists and producers with plenty of experience on the creative end. Chris handles day-to-day operation of the label, does most of the cover art, and updates this website as needed. Dan is a recording artist and studio man who also helps us plot the future of the label. Aria Nadii contributes website design and her aesthetic prowess, and is additionally a member of the recording project Djinnestan.
How?
It is foremost a labor of love. We enjoy making and listening to this music, and we want to share it with you. The time and expense involved in keeping this label operating is out-of-pocket, and thus subject to the vicissitudes of fortune. Part of the reason Webbed Hand went dormant through 2006-07 was because of diminished resources, and although things are still rather tough for us (starving artists), we’re trying to get the label rolling again. Over the past year we’ve gotten inquiries from concerned fans about how they can help, so we’ve given in and set up a way to donate toward the upkeep and improved operation of the label (there is a Paypal button on the upper right side of the pages). We are also trying to think of some other ways to meet expenses, such as maybe an occasional limited edition CD release, or perhaps some kind of merchandise. If you have ideas, feel free to share them with us.
A Webbed Hand?
It is a multi-layered play on words. The original logo for the label is from a vintage magazine picture of an archaeological find, which included a statue fragment of Buddha’s hand, very distinctly webbed. In ancient lore, Buddha is represented with webbed hands, regarded as a symbol of his profound wisdom and divine nature. Yet in this day and age, if you’ve got hands like that, it would just freak people out. So, next to the divine Buddha connotation we have this B-Movie horror aspect. Beyond those factors, this is a record label that has primarily utilized the world wide web to spread its music. And maybe there are more meanings. Meanings within meanings within meanings, ad infinitum.
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