Dead Oceans

On June 30, 2006, Phil Waldorf founded Dead Oceans with Chris Swanson. Swanson suggested the name Dead Oceans, which came from the lyrics of Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" (1963). Chris' brother Ben Swanson, Darius Van Arman, and Jonathan Cargill of Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar also helped to found the label. The label was officially launched in 2007, and is part of Secretly Group. During its early years, Dead Oceans released albums by artists such as Phosphorescent, Dirty Projectors, Akron/Family, Califone and Bowerbirds. Over time, the label's roster expanded to include Mitski, Japanese Breakfast, Destroyer, and Phoebe Bridgers. The label also serves as the parent imprint for Saddest Factory Records, founded by Bridgers in 2020. In 2012, Dead Oceans released Bill Fay's album Life Is People, his first in over forty years. In 2017, the label released shoegaze band Slowdive's first album in 22 years. In 2018, Dead Oceans was ranked No. 7 on Paste magazine's top-10 record labels and won the Libera Award for Label of the Year. In 2020, the label released the Bright Eyes album Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was. The following year, the band transferred its earlier recordings, previously released through Saddle Creek Records, to Dead Oceans.