Release Date: June 30, 2025

Earache Records announced a brand new catalogue wide collaboration with Korean music tech company Muzlive today manufacturer of the hybrid physical/digital KiTalbum format. Popularised by K-Pop, 9m KiT albums have been sold since 2017.

The label is the first label in Europe to adopt the format outside K-Pop, and the first label to offer the format on frontline titles and as a chart reporting format in April 2025 with OCC.

Head of Label at Earache Tim Bailey explains what drove him to champion the format:

“It can be overwhelming with the world of digital music at your fingertips. The endless choice available means I rarely immerse myself in albums the way I used to. I flit between albums. I’m impatient. My attention span is broken. I rarely give new records my full attention. And it means I don’t have that same intense connection to my new favourite music the way I once did. The KiTalbum invites us to go deeper.

Kit is a format for our times. The music lives on the cloud and is accessed by twinning the cartridge with their beautifully designed app (available both on iOS and Android), so is fully portable. Unlike streaming, the act of connecting a KiTalbum to the app before you listen adds an extra layer of intentionality to the listening experience: you have to commit in the same way as you once did putting a tape in a Walkman or a CD in a discman.

Beautifully presented and with a cartridge which brings back the sweet 90s nostalgia of Gameboy cartridges and big box packaging, the team at Muzlive have leant into everything that I find joy in with records – lyrics sheets, exclusive photocards and booklets that invite me into an artist’s world. I get the same rush of teenage feelings opening these albums as I did as I tore the plastic off my new CDs I bought on my weekly Monday trip to the local record store as a teen in the 90s. This isn’t just a format for jaded millennials like me– the success of the format across in Asia in K-Pop shows that its wide appeal transcends generations.

How does it work?

The album’s tracks live are accessed by pairing the fully portable album cartridge with the KiT Player phone app (available to download on iOS and Android). The album lives on the KiT Player app for 24 hours, and can then be accessed again with the KiT cartridge as needed when that 24 hours is up.

The Skindred "Smile" KiT contains the cartridge, plus 5 photocards of the band, a wallet sized artwork card and a round "Smile" sticker.

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