ABOUT US

Little Universe was established in April 2005. Originally the idea came about after many years of listening to electronic music and my facsination with deep space and galaxies.While at the time many other online retailers out there were selling the music, there wasn't a store selling space images and I wanted to tie in both Space Music and the imagery,which I'll come onto in a mo. The name came about because I couldn't at the time get everything I wanted to stock  so "The Universe" ,as in everything became, "Little Unverse", a kind of parody if you like. It seemed to fit what I had  and went  down well with everyone I knew so I stuck with the name.

I have always been interested in Space,not from a scientific point of view, just from the point of view of what was up there in the heavens. Galaxies, Nebula, Stars and the Planets. I have always liked Planetariums but felt a little let down when I left them as if there was something else missing.

Some of the ambient music that we carry is classed as "Space Music" and I felt at the time that the two things I was interested in were not available to buy in a Planetarium or anywhere else come to that,at least not in this part of the world. So I created a mini space gallery - come ambient music shop. Also I had an original Star Chronicles DVD which blended both of the things I was looking for in a space experience so it had to be stocked in the store. After tracking down the sources for music, getting all the permissions, images and copyright info. from a few select astrophotographers & the Space Telescope, I was ready to launch.

The 1st year they say is always the toughest to get going in any buisness and this was no exception. I was trading fairly successfully,but after the 1st year I made the descision to shut up the retail shop mainly because of the overheads that were just costing the earth even in the small unit I was in. In that time I set up the original online website which was to support the store,as I couldn't fit all of the images and music I was getting in so it seemed like a good idea to get some of the music and images online. This way I could get everything I wanted on the web, without no relative cost.

Well after a time the music side of the site began to increase so this expanded within the confines of the site,but it soon came to my attention that the site was not originally constructed to handle the amount of infomation I was now expecting it to handle.Due to the amount of info and the out of date interface it was becoming hard to navigate and find what you wanted. The space images did not do so well online, unlike in the store, maybe because the effect wasn't as good or some other reason..who knows, so I had to concede that this wasn't going to work online, at least not at this moment in time.

After a great response with Charlie Case's "Star Chronicles" in the original retail store, and the further releases in the Star Chronicles range I decided to approach Charlie in getting my initial idea back to where I wanted it to be,mainly because a run of the mill web designer wouldn't have a clue what I was trying to achieve.

I wanted the new site to reflect the ever expanding ambient music scene, but due to my other musical tastes I wanted to incorparate other elements of music. The "Darker Side" of ambient and also some great "Chill out" music that was tucked away in the original site. I still wanted a space theme in there so with the release of Star Chronicles 4, it was the perfect vehicle to carry on in essence my space element to the store, without the space image side, at least for the time being, but watch this space for future updates.

For the most part I deal directly with independant artists and labels where I can. Many of the releases issued are Limited Edition and not the mass market music you will find in your local music shop. This is a niche market that even in large superstores you will not find this kind of genre. They are from all corners of the globe, some well established names you may know , others you may not have heard of at all until you came here. You may notice that we do not stock some of the well established names like Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre and Klaus Shultz to name afew. These are some original pioneers of the electronic music scene, but there are already plenty of e-tailers out there selling their music already and I wanted to add a few names that are not so familiar. I have tried to support the indie market in my own way and give the other artists some exposure they most deserve.

So what's for the future??? Well, Space Images will be available at some point in the future online. If you feel that you missed out first time around then contact me and I will see what I can do for you. We will continue to add new music and also titles from a few select artists I have admired over the years. The music is still alternative enough to warrant inclusion but is a little more mainstream.

I would also like to take this moment to thank you for visiting the site or if you were a past customer " A Big Thank You" for supporting the idea and the indie artist.

Little Universe is commited to selling music in it's original hard copy format as they were intended to be heard by the artist. We now offer selected MP3 downloads through iTunes.