Sony Warehouse Burned in London Riots, Destorying Independent-Label Inventory

After the third straight night of riots in which angry mobs in London looted and set buildings ablaze, a Sony warehouse was burned to the ground around 4AM GMT Tuesday (Aug. 9) morning.

The building was home to XL/Beggars, Warp, Rough Trade, Domino, 4AD, Sub Pop, Secretly Canadian, Jagjaguwar, Drag City, Thrill Jockey, FatCat, Kompakt, Mute, Ninja Tune, Vice, and Soul Jazz among others. The entire inventory is feared to be lost.

An employee of the building recounted to the BBC (via Pitchfork), "As I was standing there watching them running away, [a man] punched me, and then they all left ... Five minutes after that the whole building was ablaze."

Though no injuries were reported, the 200,000-square-foot complex was completely destroyed. The building housed the full inventory of PIAS UK, the main distributor to over 150 independent record labels.

Insurance will likely cover much of the losses, but many labels and shops will be forced to wait for months without a lot of the income. "Nothing's going to be sold for months, and I don't know what will happen," Nathaniel Cramp of Sonic Cathedral records told NME. "There's no way of distributing records. My back catalogues are all gone. I can't afford to get another run done for older releases. Everyone's going to have to think about the next few months. It's a reminder of how on a knife edge these things are -- some labels and shops are going to be really affected by it. It just shows how precarious the indie thing is."

Watch the BBC's Report on the London Riots

Follow @Spinner on Twitter | Like Us on Facebook | Sign Up for Our Newsletter