Sam Rosenthal

Sam Rosenthal
Sam Rosenthal (founder of Projekt Records and Black Tape for a Blue Girl).
Residence	Portland
Occupation	Musician
Organization	Projekt Records

Sam Rosenthal (born November 1971) is an American musician, composer, artist, and novelist. He is the founder and leader of the band Black Tape for a Blue Girl and the Projekt Records record label. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his son and cat. Rosenthal was interviewed in August 2016 for an NPR piece about the DMCA. "It's a really unreasonable expectation," he says, "that I would have the time to chase (illegal downloads) all day when I should be running a business and making music."

Begun by Sam Rosenthal in 1983 as a way to release his own solo electronic music, Projekt Records spent its first three years as a cassette-only label with a series of titles that are now long out-of-print. While most of the cassettes were solo electronic music from Rosenthal, a few were compilations of Florida-based electronic artists.

In 1985, Projekt released its first vinyl, Tanzmusik by Sam Rosenthal. The second vinyl release Black Tape For a Blue Girl's The Rope came in the summer of 1986.

In 1989, Projekt released its first compact disc, Black Tape For a Blue Girl's Ashes in the Brittle Air. Although the label began as a way to release his own art, Rosenthal began to see his label taking shape as a vehicle for exposing other artists whose passionate work impressed him. His first discovery was Arizona's Lycia, which signed with Projekt in 1990. Soon thereafter, Rosenthal was impressed with other young bands, Love Spirals Downwards, Soul Whirling Somewhere, and Lovesliescrushing whose debut releases soon followed.

In 1993, Sam began Projekt: Darkwave, a mail-order company that carried the music of Projekt as well as labels with a similar outlook, including Santa Barbara's Tess Records, Germany's Hyperium Records, and Sweden's Cold Meat Industry.

Moving to Chicago in 1996, Rosenthal's label grew in both number of releases and number of employees. Now with full-time marketing, distribution and promotion managers, Projekt became better able to meet the challenge of making people aware of the label. In 1996 Projekt celebrated their success by staging a two-day Projekt Festival at the historic Vic Theatre in Chicago, with over 1000 people in attendance.