Nihilist Records is a record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

 that releases noise music

Noise music

Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...

 albums, and is similar to labels like Load Records

Load Records

Load Records is an American noise/experimental independent record label based out of Providence, Rhode Island. "Load Records might possibly be in possession of the world's most challenging record roster," writes Mark Hensch of Thrash Pit...

 and Hanson Records

Hanson Records

Hanson Records is an American independent record label founded in Brighton, Michigan and now based in Oberlin, Ohio. It is operated by the musician Aaron Dilloway, formerly of the band Wolf Eyes.-History:...

, though it tends to release bands that are more controversial or offensive in a sensational manner. Nihilist manages to separate itself from these labels due to its eclectic roster which spans the genres of neo-folk, acoustic, absurdist, musique concrete and dark disco.
Founded in 1992 with the release of a two cassettes (Pound Of Flesh and Panicsville), though these are not featured in any official discographies making them all the more rare.

The label was founded by Andy Ortmann in St.Louis initially to release music by his own band, Panicsville

Panicsville

Panicsville is a Chicago noise music group founded in 1992 by Andy Ortmann with David Forquer and Ryan Kohler. It has become an ongoing project for Ortmann to work with other musicians. Early shows consisted of pelting the audience with items like dry ice, meat, blood and insects...

. It has since released albums by major and minor noise artists like Costes, Cock E.S.P.

Cock E.S.P.

Cock E.S.P. is a US-American band based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The group draws on the most extreme, subversive and absurdist elements of both popular and experimental Twentieth century music and performance art, creating abstract high-energy entertainment. Influences include noise music, punk...

, Pound of Flesh, The Broken Penis Orchestra, Mlehst, John Wiese

John Wiese

-Biography:Born April 18, 1977, John Wiese is an artist and composer residing in Los Angeles, California. In the late 1990s, Wiese moved from St. Louis, Missouri to the west coast in order to study graphic design at the California Institute of the Arts...

, Andy Ortmann, Brain Transplant, Inflatable Alterboys, Strangulated Beatoffs, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, Mammal

Mammal

Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

, Death Squad

Death squad

A death squad is an armed military, police, insurgent, or terrorist squad that conducts extrajudicial killings, assassinations, and forced disappearances of persons as part of a war, insurgency or terror campaign...

, Wolf Eyes

Wolf Eyes

Wolf Eyes is a post-industrial/noise band from Detroit, Michigan, United States.-History:Wolf Eyes began as a solo project of former Nautical Almanac member Nate Young, with Aaron Dilloway joining in 1998, and John Olson in 2000...

, Thurston Moore

Thurston Moore

Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...

, Nondor Nevai, Fashion Dictator, Schimpfluch Commune and Zipper Spy

Zipper Spy

Zipper Spy is a project by the American multimedia artist Maria Moran which incorporates a variety ofsound and visual sources, especially zippers...

.

Nihilist has also released a trilogy of tribute albums to pop music groups ABBA

ABBA

ABBA was a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1970 which consisted of Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog...

, Madonna

Madonna (entertainer)

Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...

 and the B-52's. Incidentally this was the first Madonna tribute (1996) and the only B-52's tribute to date, ironically most of these tracks were by underground noise artists.
Today Nihilist continues to release challenging and difficult music from around the world.