Org Music is an American independent record label based in Los Angeles. The label releases vinyl reissues and new recordings across multiple genres, including jazz, rock, soul, funk, country and hip-hop.
Founded in 2010, Org Music's early releases included vinyl reissues from artists such as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Nirvana and Sonic Youth. The label has also issued and partnered on projects with artists including Mike Watt (Minutemen / fIREHOSE / The Stooges), Chuck Dukowski (Black Flag), Josh Klinghoffer (Red Hot Chili Peppers / Pearl Jam), Tav Falco, and free jazz drummer William Hooker. Org Music has mounted multi-title reissue campaigns for the punk rock bands Bad Brains and Descendents, including alternate “Punk Note” editions with album artwork styled after classic jazz LP designs.
Org Music has partnered with legacy labels and archives such as Black Lion Records, Freedom Records, Sun Records, Brunswick Records, Westbound Records, Delicious Vinyl, and the George H. Buck Jr. (GHB) Jazz Foundation to restore and reissue catalog titles. A significant portion of the label's output is associated with Record Store Day, for which it has released numerous limited-edition titles. Org Music signed a worldwide distribution deal with Secretly Distribution in 2025.
Background Org Music is a Los Angeles-based independent record label known for high-quality vinyl reissues and other releases. The label began in 2010 as an offshoot of Original Recordings Group, and was handled largely by former Warner Music Group consultant Jeff Bowers. Org Music was formed to expand into rock, pop and alternative rock reissues, whereas its parent Original Recordings Group focused primarily on jazz and classical reissues.
While still a newly formed label, Org Music brought in Andrew Rossiter as general manager to oversee the label's day-to-day operations. Rossiter later became a partner in the label. Rossiter has described Eric Astor as one of the label partners. Astor is also the founder and partner of Furnace Record Pressing, a vinyl pressing plant in Alexandria, Virginia.
Among Org Music's earliest releases was a deluxe vinyl LP reissue of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' Damn the Torpedoes. The edition was released on two 180-gram LPs and included bonus tracks, including previously unreleased material. It was mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering and pressed at Pallas in Germany. Other early offerings included vinyl reissues from the Nirvana and Sonic Youth catalogs.
Partnerships and custodianship
Partnerships
Artist partnerships
Although Org Music was launched as a vinyl reissue label, it began engaging in artist partnerships early in its history.
In late 2010, the label approached Black Flag bassist Chuck Dukowski about working with the musician on his current projects. In 2012, Org Music released the Chuck Dukowski Sextet album Haunted, as well as the split 7-inch single "Sweet Honey Pie" b/w "My War," which paired the Sextet with Mike Watt and The Missingmen. The label later issued Exhumed, a double-LP compilation of Dukowski's pre-Black Flag sludge metal band Würm, as a Record Store Day Black Friday exclusive in 2018, followed in 2020 by the 7-inch single "Poison" b/w "Zero Sum," which featured Würm's first new studio recordings in nearly four decades.
In 2011 Org Music also began partnering with Minutemen / fIREHOSE / The Stooges bassist Mike Watt and his clenchedwrench imprint. Org released Watt's solo album hyphenated-man—described as "the third installment of his punk opera" and the first release on clenchedwrench—as a clenchedwrench / Org Music release in March 2011. This was followed in July by dos y dos, the fourth album by the two-bass duo Dos featuring Watt and ex-Black flag bassist Kira Roessler. Subsequent Org Music releases included Watt projects such as Spielgusher, with Japanese musicians Hirotaka Shimizu and Yuko Araki and spoken word by music critic Richard Meltzer; numerous releases by Il Sogno del Marinaio with Italian musicians Stefano Pilia, Andrea Belfi and later Paolo Mongardi; EPs and split singles credited to Mike Watt and The Missingmen, Mike Watt and the Secondmen and Mike Watt and The Bobblymen; albums by SST Records alumni group Unknown Instructors and supergroup FITTED (the latter featuring members of post-punk band Wire); Stooges-themed singles recorded with fellow Stooges alumnus Larry Mullins (aka Toby Dammit); and a fifteen-part opera by the duo Pelicanman featuring violinist Petra Haden (that dog. / The Rentals). Org Music has also reissued Watt's 1990s solo albums Ball-Hog or Tugboat? and Contemplating the Engine Room on 180-gram vinyl.
In May 2012, Org Music released the album Inhibition by Dot Hacker, an experimental rock band fronted by guitarist Josh Klinghoffer. The album was initially completed in October 2009, the same month that Klinghoffer joined Red Hot Chili Peppers. Org went on to issue Dot Hacker's subsequent studio releases How's Your Process? (Work) (2014), How's Your Process? (Play) (2014) and Nº3 (2017). Org Music has also released Klinghoffer's solo albums under the Pluralone moniker—To Be One with You (2019), I Don't Feel Well (2020) and This Is the Show (2022). Kilnghoffer's single releases on Org Music include 2019's "Jeepster" b/w "Monolith," two T. Rex covers recorded with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, and Pluralball, a Pluralone release featuring covers of songs from the Merkin Ball single by Pearl Jam (whom Klinghoffer works with as touring and session musician).
In 2016, Org Music released two singles by cult rock and roll/psychedelic rock/avant-roots artist Tav Falco and his long-running band Tav Falco Panther Burns. Both singles, "Me & My Chauffeur Blues" b/w "Whistle Blower Blues" and "Sway" b/w "Where the Rio de Rosa Flows," feature Mike Watt and Larry Mullins (Toby Dammit) as band members. The label has since released Falco-fronted projects that include the studio albums A Tav Falco Christmas (2017) and Cabaret of Daggers (2018), the Club Car Zodiac EP (2021), the live-in-the-studio band set Nashville Sessions: Live at Bridgestone Arena Studios (2023), and the guest-heavy solo album Desire on Ice (2025).
On Record Store Day 2019, Org Music reissued Mindfulness by free jazz and avant-garde jazz drummer William Hooker, marking the album's first release on vinyl. Originally issued in 1997, the album features Glenn Spearman on tenor saxophone and DJ Olive on turntables. The double-LP reissue included two previously unreleased bonus tracks and was pressed on clear vinyl in a limited run of 800 copies. The label followed this with Symphonie of Flowers (also 2019), Big Moon (2021), Flesh and Bones (2023) and Jubilation (2025), as well as a 2023 Record Store Day double-LP reissue of Shamballa (1993), which features Hooker with Thurston Moore and Elliott Sharp. Hooker has been called "one of the most absorbing drummers on the planet" and "one of the few artists with a jazz sensibility to captivate the alternative-rock audience."
Band catalogue partnerships
In 2020, Org Music announced a partnership with the hardcore punk band Bad Brains to reissue the band's catalogue under the Bad Brains Records imprint, with remastering by engineer Dave Gardner. Org Music and Gardner spent more than a year locating the best available audio sources for each title, including master tapes believed to have been lost. Full-length studio albums in the series were also released in "Punk Note" editions with alternate covers designed to resemble Blue Note Records jazz LPs. In addition, a sixteen-page, newsprint-style fanzine—featuring previously unseen band photos and articles from contemporaries such as Henry Rollins and Jesse Malin—was offered as a free-with-purchase gift at select independent record stores. Releases in the series began in 2021 with the "Pay to Cum!" b/w "Stay Close to Me" 7-inch single, Bad Brains, the I and I Survive EP, and the original mix of Rock for Light. Later releases included The Youth Are Getting Restless and The Omega Sessions EP (2023), followed by I Against I (2024).
In 2025, Org Music and pop-punk progenitors Descendents launched a reissue campaign of the band's discography in multiple editions and formats, including "Punk Note" editions with alternate Blue Note–style album art as featured in the Bad Brains reissue series. Initial reissues released that year included Milo Goes to College and I Don't Want to Grow Up.
Aquarium Drunkard partnership
On Record Store Day 2020, Org Music released Lagniappe Sessions, Vol. 2 in conjunction with the music blog Aquarium Drunkard, which was founded by Justin Gage in 2005. The Lagniappe Sessions LPs compile tracks from Aquarium Drunkard's Lagniappe Sessions recording series, launched by Gage in 2011. Featured on its weekly SiriusXMU radio show, the Lagniappe series features artists recording cover versions of songs by musicians who have influenced them or whose work they admire. The resulting tracks are made available on the Aquarium Drunkard site as MP3s. Aquarium Drunkard released a previous installment, Lagniappe Sessions, Vol. 1, in conjunction with Light in the Attic Records in 2016.
Also in 2020, for Record Store Day Black Friday, Aquarium Drunkard and Org Music released the compilation Jesus People Music, Vol. 1: The End Is at Hand, which collected obscure and private-press Jesus music recordings from the 1960s–1970s psychedelic rock era.
Org Music and Aquarium Drunkard released three album co-productions in 2022. One, Atenção!: Novos Sons do Brasil, highlights a loose scene of contemporary singer-songwriters from Brazil. The other two were debut albums by contemporary Los Angeles–based acts Sagittaire and Color Green. 2023 co-productions included a new album by Austin-based musician Cactus Lee, as well as the compilations Jesus People Music, Vol. 2: The Reckoning and Sonhos Secretos: Brazilian Private Press & Independent Productions on 7" 1980–1985.
Label custodianship
One facet of Org Music's work involves relaunching largely inactive record labels and reintroducing their catalogues to the marketplace, highlighting overlooked titles along the way.
In 2012, Org Music began a reissue series with the British jazz imprint Black Lion Records, reintroducing the label's long out-of-print catalogue on vinyl. Label partner Eric Astor brought the Black Lion catalogue to Org Music's attention, as DA Music, a connection of his based in Germany, owned the catalogue. The first two releases in Org Music's "Black Lion Essential Reissue Series" were Thelonious Monk's The London Collection, Volume 1, a 1971 solo piano session recorded at Chappell Studios in London, and Miles Davis's Bopping the Blues, a 1946 studio session recorded at Radio Recorders in Hollywood that has been described as "the very first known instance of the famed trumpeter playing in an 'open' style." Both albums were issued in 45 rpm double-LP and 33 rpm single-LP editions. Stereophile magazine used the two-disc 45 rpm Monk release in 2015 to evaluate a Sperling Audio L-1 high-end turntable, reporting that it produced "a three-dimensional image of a piano floating in space: Monk in my room, playing for me." Further releases in the series included Duke Ellington's The Feeling of Jazz (2012), drawn from a set of 1962 sessions recorded for Ellington's private "stockpile" at Bell Sound Studios in New York; Billie Holiday's At Storyville (2014), compiled from early-1950s performances at the Storyville nightclub in Boston; and Dexter Gordon titles such as Both Sides of Midnight (2016) and Take the 'A' Train (2017), both sourced from 1967 live recordings at Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen.