The heavy underground wouldn’t be attainable if it weren’t for the people who give the bands and their music a chance, a format, a home. Independent, small-run, labels are a very important staple to bands and fans. By no means is it a profitable endeavor, but the most passionate of music appreciators are beckoned to heed the call and get the music out there. Our Ancient Future is such label bringing us “Metal, Noise, Punk, and other curiosities.”

The Pittsburgh-based label was created in 2015 in signing their first release (a re-release) of Evil Army’s debut LP on cassette. Strong start! Proprietor Jason Head tells us he started the label because he is a music fanatic and realized he was at the age at which he’d never be in a band himself and felt it was a way he could at least contribute. It offers him a way to meet like-minded people and trade emails, hang out at shows, and supplement his day job with something he is passionate about. He has a mission to just keep realizing stuff, helping out bands, and turning people on to new music.

Last year, Our Ancient Future had 4 releases:

“I released a new 7" by Evil Army, which these days is just Rob Evil doing everything. Rob's been clean a number of years now and left some band members behind who unfortunately gave the band a not-so-good reputation. This is one of my favorite releases I put out. Rob has a pure love for thrash and has a talent for writing some great metal riffs.

I also released a cassette from a great band in Toronto called "Ixaxaar Nexia" which may also be one of the top things I've released on the label. It's one of those times that I wished the label was a bit more popular or had more reach because these guys deserved to be heard - and if they can keep it up, I think we'll be hearing a lot more from them.

Mortuaire is an interesting black metal project from France consisting of some teenagers that is impressive as well. It's been well-received. Although they are not very good at English, and when I sent them their royalty copies, they got returned to me as undeliverable, so I'll need to try again.

Also of note was a compilation from Hulder in very late 2019 that I was excited to get out. It's awesome seeing the response she has been getting to her music, and her new full-length on Iron Bonehead is highly recommended.”

A personal reason that Blackseed respects Our Ancient Future’s endeavors is that they support some most-excellent, gnarly bands and aren’t afraid of the unpopularity. Dark metal and noise bands aren’t top 10. They aren’t even top 10,000. These aren’t bands that are shooting for generic hooks or repeating, easy-to-remember lyrics to sing along to, and their fan base wouldn’t have it any other way.

You can check out Our Ancient Future’s favorite release, Taphos Nomos / Urðun split 12", and other goodies at OUR ANCIENT FUTURE.