When it was announced that Jade Tree Records would be releasing a record from Dark Blue, the band that features members of Clockleaner, Ceremony, Paint It Black, and Purling Hiss, it was touted as a comeback for the label. Starting in 2010 the Delaware label saw its production slow to a crawl, releasing a single record each year, a far cry from its heyday in that started in the mid-’90s and lasted well into the ‘00s. Darren Walters—one of the label’s co-owners—was quick to put the brakes on all that chatter, as he wrote an article for Billboard detailing the label’s struggle as the music industry changed from being focused on physical media to digital services as a means of production and distribution, noting that the label needed to “adapt or die.”
Proving that Walters and co-owner Tim Owen are putting that motto into practice, today the label launched a Bandcamp page and has been adding its entire discography to the streaming service. Though there are options to purchase each release (many of which are a downright steal at $5 or less) the vibrant catalog that defined Jade Tree is now available for streaming, which means such classic albums from bands like The Promise Ring, Jets To Brazil, Lifetime, Kid Dynamite, Pedro The Lion, Paint It Black, Owls, Cap’n Jazz, Milemarker, Challenger, Avail, These Arms Are Snakes, Swiz, Joan Of Arc, Denali, and numerous other bands that helped define punk, emo, hardcore, indie-rock and plenty more are available to be freely streamed on the service. For those just diving into the Jade Tree discography it’s hard to go wrong, but The A.V. Club happily offers five starting points for the un-indoctrinated below.