« Music is now more important for our sanity than anything else »

By Serge Verschuur

Dear friends & fellow music lovers,

During these days in which COVID-19 spreads rapidly over our planet we at Clone.nl and Clone Records feel we have to take some additional safety measures to protect our employees and customers. We already follow all advice from the National Health Organisation, but we think it is important to do our utter-best and take some extra precautions to get this pandemic under control.

Therefore, we will close our physical store for the coming 2 weeks until the end of March to avoid spreading of the virus through records, cash, headphones and turntables.

This also enables us to keep the Clone.nl mail order and Clone distribution operational as long as reasonable with all extra precautions to ensure safety of everyone involved as much as possible, including our partners and customers. We will keep supplying you with some great music as long as possible!

Since most clubs, venues, and bars temporarily closed down, parties and festivals got cancelled, we know this situation will have a big impact on our community which is a chain of musicians, producers, dj’s, dancers, promoters, recordstore, labels and entrepreneurs all collaborating. We encourage our friends and colleagues everywhere to take extra precautions necessary to safeguard everyone’s health and to lower the impact on our community and the world in general as much as possible and to reach out to each other with kindness and empathy. I think its a time in which we should try to find mutual beneficial long-term solution instead of an egocentric short term one when there is some troubles.

In the 28 years of existence of Clone we have faced several challenges. This always inspired and motivated us to pursue our goals with persistence and passion and to stay true to our values to overcome negative sentiments, changing market situations, financial loss, and be social responsible with our company.

This current situation illustrates that there are more important things in life than excessive financial gains and that art and culture are of greater value then any excessive materialistic possession.

Music, books and art are now more important for our sanity than anything else, and I think we can find great comfort and solace in listening to some of our favourite music or reading a masterfully written book that shares the truth with us.  Art can help us to find strength and hope and it can console us in our sorrows.

Please enjoy those beautiful records that you have collected, listen to your favourites again and again, discover new music, dance in your living room or trip away on the sofa and forget the virus for a little bit. Enjoy the products of dedication and perseverance of the artists who made it.

We at Clone Records will stay strong, dedicated and loyal to our values and our community in this challenging time where we all face the same fears, the same uncertainties and have the same needs. I personally feel inspired to emerge stronger. Right now is a great moment to reconsider a lot of things. To evaluate our priorities and try to get them straight and value what really helps us in these uncertain times and translate this to “normal” life.  When it’s all back to “normal”, the non-essential things hopefully will be lower on the priority list and we all hopefully will take better care of our civilication and our planet.

I feel motivated to contribute and to keep working hard for the music that we love and have more emphasis on what is uniting us. That is the true spirit of House and Techno music. To tell the truth, I often see a lot emphasis on the differences between people, and I am convinced that the power of music and art in general is that it is a universal language understood by everyone. Great art is something that shares common values and morals, it’s an important part of our cultures and civilisation. It speaks the truth. There is maybe too much attention to nihilistic things that are simple entertainment and driven by greed and ego and we often seem to forget what is really important. Especially with some world leaders who despise the truth and therefore also despise art !

For now, I want to thank everyone for their business, their support, trust and loyalty toward Clone.

Peace,
Serge