Who makes Open Reel, and how
Open Reel is the independent reference at buffalo-records.com for the artists, genres, releases and small-label ecosystem of world, folk and jam music.
The small label scene, spool by spool
Where this domain comes from
Open Reel continues the theme this domain carried from 2002 to 2023: independent world, folk and jam music and the small-label scene that releases and distributes it.
From 2002 to 2023 this domain was the home of "Buffalo Records", run by its original owner. The domain was acquired in 2026 and Open Reel is now an independent publication on the same theme, with no relation to the previous owner.
Open Reel did not exist before 2026; the years above belong to the former site, not to this one.
What this domain was
For twenty-two years, from 2002 to 2023, this address carried a working site on independent world, folk and jam music, the artists who played it, the CDs they issued and the small labels that released and distributed the records. The archive holds 3535 captures across 400 distinct paths, and a wide web of backlinks still points here from the scene. The current project takes up the same ground as a new and independent reference, built in 2026.
- Era
- 2002 to 2023
- Former title
- Buffalo Records
- Archive
- 3535 captures and 400 addresses
- Links
- 897 referring domains
- Inherited addresses still answering
- 21 addresses
Why this subject, and why here
The small-label scene keeps moving because the music lives outside the major channels. Independent world, folk and jam releases still reach listeners through a tight circuit of labels, circuits, formats and word of mouth, and the artists, genres and recordings keep multiplying. A reference built around that scene, rather than around the big outlets, is where the work actually accumulates.
Open Reel is a new and independent publication launched in 2026 at buffalo-records.com. It is not the former owner of this domain; it is a separate project that continues the topic this site long carried. Its purpose is simple: to be a reference on independent world, folk and jam music, covering the artists, their releases, the genres and the small-label ecosystem that sustains them.
This site will not sell records, because commerce in records at large serves a different intent and a different audience. It will not teach technique or host education, which sits under general music rather than this scene. And it will not cover other sub-classes of music that belong outside independent world, folk and jam. It stays a reference on the artists, the releases and the small-label ecosystem, and nothing that crosses that border.
Sources, method and corrections
The facts come from the era record for this domain, the link dossier and sourced figures held for the publication. A number earns a place on a page only when it sits in one of those files and can be checked there. Counts of captures, paths, referring domains and links are quoted from the record, and the current project is dated from its own build, not from the older site.
Each page is drafted against the same fact base, then checked so that every date, count and name traces back to a source. A correction is received as it arrives and folded into the next edition, where it takes effect in the next pass. Corrections land in the next edition.
Corrections are applied in the next build.
What you find now, and what comes next
These sections cover the artists, the releases and the small-label ecosystem the reference is built around.
The plan spans 38 pages, 15 core and 23 outer. Fifteen are published now and the remaining twenty-three run out over six months, from September 2026 to March 2027, against a figures file with sourced numbers.