Chapter one: the collective as label (2003–2005)
Arts & Crafts was founded by Jeffrey Remedios (the businessman) and Kevin Drew (the musician) with a founding insight: the most valuable thing Broken Social Scene had wasn't a band — it was a network. The label's first release was You Forgot It in People (2002/2003), the record that turned Toronto's loosest collective into international critical royalty, and the label immediately staffed itself from the same family: Feist, Metric, Stars, Apostle of Hustle, Jason Collett. The packaging mattered as much as the music: the label's stark, design-forward aesthetic — a visual identity you could recognize across a record store bin — made Arts & Crafts records feel like a unified movement, which is exactly what they were.
Chapter two: the imperial years (2005–2012)
The label's peak run reads like a Juno ballot. Metric climbed from indie darlings to arena band (Live It Out, Fantasies). Stars wrote wounded Montreal pop for the ages (Set Yourself on Fire, In Our Bedroom After the War). Feist's The Reminder (2007) went platinum on multiple continents behind "1234" — the iPod-ad detonation that made her a household name — and its follow-up, Metals (2011), won the Polaris Music Prize on Arts & Crafts. The Stills and Timber Timbre widened the palette; Dan Mangan and Young Galaxy carried the next wave. For a label without major-label distribution at its start, Arts & Crafts was competing — and winning — at the exact center of the global indie conversation.
Chapter three: the brand as institution
What Arts & Crafts understood before most was that labels in the streaming age sell identity, not just records. It built Field Trip, a Toronto festival that doubled as a brand world; it kept its visual language coherent across a decade of releases; and it stayed genuinely artist-first — Metric's slow build to arenas happened because the label let them build slowly. When the indie-market tide receded in the 2010s, the roster adapted: Feist's experimental late period, Metric's continued scaling, and new signings (Begonia, Tess Roby) kept the label more curatorial than corporate.
The legacy
Arts & Crafts' real product was proof of concept: that a Canadian independent could be the brand of a musical moment — not a farm team for the majors, not a regional curiosity, but the name on the world's best shelves. Royal Mountain, Dine Alone, and the new wave of Canadian indies all pitch artists partly in Arts & Crafts' language: the label as home, the roster as family, the aesthetic as argument. The 2000s indie explosion had many parents. Arts & Crafts was the one that framed the portrait.
Frequently asked questions
Who founded Arts & Crafts Records?
Jeffrey Remedios and Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew, in Toronto in 2003, launching with You Forgot It in People.
What artists were on Arts & Crafts?
Broken Social Scene, Feist, Metric, Stars, Apostle of Hustle, Timber Timbre, Dan Mangan, and Young Galaxy anchor the roster.
Is Arts & Crafts still active?
Yes — still Toronto-based, still releasing music, and still operating its Field Trip festival brand.