Everything I've had to say has pretty much already been said, with a few exceptions.

I really liked ELP's stance before Prime went down. It was a focused little group of friends with like-minded ideas and sounds. Now it seems Carola and Corrado are just bailing out their extended family from the Prime scandal. While they did pick up some good labels that fit with their previous concept, they picked up some really generic and quick selling labels that don't seem to fit their style at all. I guess most distros are gonna have some good labels and some crap ones too.

Pure Plastic has potential, but it seems a tad too small and focused on their own camp...which may prohibit it from becoming a bigger distribution company. That may not be what they're looking for. At least they're taking their music that they enjoy, and releasing it on their own labels, with their own distribution. If they succeed, they can feel extra good, if they fail...all they can blame is themselves, gotta respect that.

Possible has potential but I think they are focused more on electro rather than techno. I've done some stuff for Possible labels and it never even reached the states. They have some great labels, if they get better coverage they could be in real good shape.

I pretty much agree with everything everybody said about N.E.W.S. They have some decent labels that are harder to sell to the masses, and then they have the really crappy cannon fodder that will keep them in business. What I like about this is that they're not being too narrow-minded.

I really thought Intergroove was going to pick up a lot of Prime's fallout, but it seems Neuton and Triple Vision were first in line. Fortunately, they seem to be picking the labels the quality labels from Prime's old roster and I think this will help them a lot. I notice I am playing a lot of Neuton and Triple Vision records these days.

Rhythmic NYC is probably the U.S.'s best bet for distribution right now. They're kind of the in the middle of an overhaul, but I have heard some releases from new U.S. labels that are just as good as any of the quality European labels. It will be interesting to see how things work out for them if they get all their kinks worked out.

Complete Distribution is another U.S. company from Dietrich Schonneman (sp?)...some of the stuff they put out isn't really my bag. But, Tony Rohr is really turning Remains around, and Gene LeFosse's Convulte label has some goodies from time to time as well. Dietrich will need some bigger labels and artists to help push the company some more...but they definetely have something going with that unique and weird NYC sound.

On the minimal side of things, I guess Kompakt Distribution has really become a staple of the genre. They have some labels that tread extremely dangerous waters experimenting with a lot of different things. Sometimes they are releases should never have been made, but sometimes the distribution puts out records that are some of the freshest and most innovative tracks I've heard in recent times.

As for the other smaller distributors, it's not to say that they don't have good releases or good rosters...but obviously they'll just need to work more on establishing themselves in other territories to grow larger.