Editions JAV was founded in 2023 by Jason Adam Voss, a radio host, archivist, and musician based in Pittsfield Charter Township, Michigan. As a co-host and sound engineer of the long-running Local Music Show on the University of Michigan's freeform radio station WCBN-FM, he has spent the last two decades as a participant in, and cheerleader for, Southeast Michigan underground music. He was also one of the principals of We're Twins Records, an aggressively homemade, CDR-centric label whose releases included early works by Jib Kidder, Kelly Jean Caldwell, Saturday Looks Good To Me, Patrick Elkins, and Voss himself, among many others.
Editons JAV aims to shine a light on some of the forgotten sounds of the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti underground music boom of (roughly speaking) the early 21st century. The confluence of an active house show scene, radical cooperative housing, adventurous college radio, communal events like Punk Week and the annual shopping cart race, the local embrace of experimental groups like Wolf Eyes and His Name Is Alive, the liberal buying policies for the local music section at beloved community hub Encore Recordings (now Encore Records), and easy access to CDR and cassette duplication technology provided a small but dynamic cohort an alternative to both standard campus life and the exploding "garage rock" scene then active in nearby Detroit. This community and time period produced many superlative and fascinating recordings; it is the aim of Editions JAV to preserve these recordings and afford them wider distribution than they received in their time, for current and future generations to enjoy.