It still exists, the much-vaunted "independent scene": In Germany, the independent Hamburg company Hypertension Music has stood for it since the late 80s. Behind this is not only an in-house label, but also a concert and artist agency.
Flashback to the year 1988: Christian Thiel from Hamburg and his (life) partner Irene Bodschwinna are big fans of singer-songwriter sounds, but have trouble getting discs by Paul Brady, Rick Vito or The Bacon Brothers in Germany. In those days, that works almost exclusively via foreign orders. "Irene and I assumed that other local fans of this style of music had similar problems getting hold of the material of their musical heroes," recalls Thiel, now 64. "So we started an import service for US and UK folk." Thus Hypertension was born
