In January, 2024 Every Move A Picture regained control of their original recordings after a fourteen-year fight with multiple record labels. The bio on this page tells the story of how one of the hottest unsigned indie bands of the early aughts signed a contract with the most successful indie label in the United States and was almost wiped out as a result.

Signs Of Life - Demo

Every Move A Picture has regained control of their original recordings after a fourteen-year fight with multiple record labels. This is the story of how one of the hottest unsigned indie bands of the early aughts signed a contract with the most successful indie label in the United States and was almost wiped out as a result. 
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If you were a DJ, a record label executive, or an indie clubgoer in San Francisco, LA, New York, or London in 2004-2005— frequenting the spots that launched artists like Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys, LCD Soundsystem, and The Killers—you probably heard Every Move A Picture. And if you believed the buzz swirling around the San Francisco four-piece, you might have even thought they were about to be famous. 

Few unsigned artists are lucky enough to experience a run like Every Move A Picture had over that period of time. On the strength of several self-recorded demos and an endless string of sold-out shows up and down the West Coast, the unsigned post-punk outfit had amassed an army of influential supporters. 

Well before Every Move A Picture signed a contract with V2 Records in late 2005, their demos—and in particular the song "Signs Of Life"— had earned airplay on commercial radio stations KROQ in LA and Live105 in San Francisco, KEXP in Seattle, and BBC 6 Music in the UK. Their gritty home recording, full of audio artifacts, angular guitars, and pulsing analog synths, had led to a breakout set at SXSW; scored fawning coverage in the notoriously acerbic UK music mag, NME; yielded a high-visibility slot at the iconic Leeds & Reading Festivals in the UK; and got them invited to perform a live prime-time set in the John Peel Studio at BBC Radio 1 as the guest of another iconic DJ—Steve Lemacq.

Amid the frenzy, a limited pressing vinyl 7"  of "Signs Of Life" even landed on the UK Independent Singles chart and sold out the same week. It's no wonder the band's eventual contract with V2 Records only granted the label temporary control of the demo recordings, requiring that all rights be returned to the band after five years—a contractual agreement that would be violated repeatedly by numerous record labels over a 14-year period ending in January of 2024.

So how could a band with so much momentum in 2005 all but disappear by the end of 2006? The first clue lies with their label, V2 Records, which was on the brink of a financial collapse even as they signed the band to a multi-record contract.

Every Move Picture was on tour supporting the official release of their debut full-length in June of 2006 when the phones at V2 Records North America headquarters stopped working, leaving the band stuck on the road with no support and mounting tour expenses.

By mid-2006, barely a year after signing Every Move A Picture, V2 Records North America, the largest and most successful independent record label in the United States, was gone. And their catalog—including Every Move A Picture, The White Stripes, Grandaddy, Moby, Bloc Party, and others—sold to the highest bidder. 

The new owners, essentially a holding company, merged some of the music into their catalog, sold what they didn't want, and seemingly gave away the rest. Miraculously, the ever-powerful Universal Music Group emerged from the morass holding the Every Move A Picture recordings in late 2007. However, UMG quickly sold them to a Belgian company called PIAS, only to reacquire them at a deep discount several years later.

Across the yearslong shell game, Every Move A Picture's recordings were trapped in distribution purgatory, never making their way to the insurgent digital streaming services that were rapidly remaking the industry. The labels and various legal entities controlling the music had no interest in promoting it, and the band could not share, license, or otherwise market their original demos without being subject to takedown orders and threats of legal action—despite their contractual right to the recordings beginning in 2010.

For over a decade, Every Move A Picture's attempts to regain control of their original recordings were stonewalled by record labels and companies who had no knowledge of the contract they bought, no interest in the music they controlled, no curiosity about the band's potential, and no consideration for the creators on the other side— who had been robbed of their intellectual property, saddled with debt, and virtually erased from the music industry in the process.
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X (formerly Twitter), September 2023:
@fasc1nate: What song do you think is 10/10,  but hardly anyone has heard of it?
@Kadabar_VIM Signs of Life by Every Move A Picture
https://twitter.com/fasc1nate/status/1704614946016051629
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In January of 2024, Every Move A Picture's original demos cleared the music industry's copyright detection algorithms for the first time—without fanfare, explanation, or apology—giving Every Move A Picture fans their first chance to own the original recordings since they were released on hand-burned CDs in 2005. 

The EP Signs Of Life (Original Demos) was released to streaming services on February 9, 2024