As much as one tries to distance themselves from being just another mp3 blog, one has to realize that one is operating in a gray territory. For as much as I’d love everyone to discover rare albums like Flüght’s Flüght, one from a fascinating Mexican band that debuted with a sound that experimented with ambient, progressive electronica, and new age, not all people and (most importantly) not all artists share the same idea that I, or we, do of what constitutes “fair use.” Case in point: Victor Ruiz guitarist, of Mexican band Flüght. I stumbled upon this thread, on some old Blogger site, when I was researching this release. In this thread Victor confronts the original sharer of this album. It’s an enlightening exchange, one that adds some worthwhile rumination to chew on. This is my translation below.
Victor Ruiz, responding as [anonymous] on Mar. 19, 2014: Do me the dumbass favor of removing my album from your fucking page. Attentively, Victor Ruiz composer and producer of this album.
Then some troll, responding as [Futuro Presidente do Brasil] on Apr. 24, 2014: Victor Ruiz, Stop being egotistical and go rim your mother!
Then another one joins in, responding as [schonclo] on Feb. 21, 2015: You’re doing him a favor by bringing to light his fucking band and if this disturbs him, if I was you I’d remove it so that only people who would know it would be in his house. Truthfully, I don’t think that in this world it makes sense to be waiting to live off music.
Someone, going by the name [Madxa], on Oct. 14, 2015, counterpoints with a great argument: I’d like to express that this group like its members and many other national groups, made the effort to share their music through a record…This effort has to have some reward in the way of earnings. They love what they do…but they have to eat, dress, and live…And let’s be frank, piracy is killing artists…we live in a third world country and we are of low buying power…so it’s not as easy to download secretly as it is to just buy. Just my opinion. Cordial greetings. 9:15 Salesiano Coacalco.
An exchange occurs between a couple posters asking where they can buy the album. Madxa says he found it at Mixup, but he knows it can be extremely hard to find – just to keep at it, it’s well worth your time.
Then…
Two Years later, on Sep. 13, 2016, Victor rejoins/ends the conversation: I apologize last night I was very angry…You won’t even imagine what I have to do to pay my bills…I only stated in a link if you can do me the favor of taking down my music from your blog…Because there is a link for a site that allows you to download the album for free.
I’m happy to see that my music has left some positive impact on a lot of people. The original production run of this LP was only of 2000 copies coming only to light in 1982 but it only began to be recorded near the end of 1980. At that time, there weren’t any means to sell a record with independent production at music stores, and even less like it occurs now in the Internet where one can download music totally free. The band Flüght sacrificed countless hours of work to make music without any commercial intention but with the desire to reach a larger audience, it was extremely frustrating having to struggle to find a way to sell the 2000 copies that were produced. The band broke up without recording the best from its repertoire, the band had enough to record around 5 more records of equal or better quality as the first but that difficulties finding distributors and record labels whose only interest was the commercial market extinguished the possibility that Flüght would be able to record more records with the best of their repertoire. In the end, it is gratifying that at least this record has transcended in spite of time and that new generations are still enjoying this one. This record was distributed near the end of the 90s in the CD format. I believe there were something around 5000 copies, but lamentably that company went broke and since then there have been no more copies produced. I don’t believe it’s good to download music for free on the Internet, it’s a little ironic that some sites charge you for downloading this music and that the creators of this music never get sent royalties for legal rights. In the end, the music industry went to shit with all of this technology and now musicians are at the end of the line, in terms of economic income. Enjoy the album, at least.
What do I think? I think it is beyond ridiculous we have no outlet where to legally reward Flüght’s work. Buying from Discogs is great, but nothing will ever truly beat doing our part to get Victor Ruiz (the person responsible for those ruminative floating guitar parts), Sergio de Labra (who plays some gorgeous wandering piano and synthesizer parts, sans sequencers), and Armando González (whose intricate bass work comes in exactly at all the right moments), the proper compensation they earned – especially in these hard times. For now, I’ll share this special album, one that combines Mexican ambient, Schulze-like electronics, with European second-wave progressive rock like Le Orme, B.M.S., and more plus many other largely unheard of influences from Mexican bands like Iconoclasta, Triángulo, or The High Fidelity Orchestra who’d toil in the same obscurity, doing their own brilliant thing. Once, and when, someone reissues this album, I’ll gladly be the first to take down these links.