Here's to the lasting kiss of Smooch Records

Smooch alumni: Slim Cessna's Auto Club

​After over a decade of Colorado-centric album releases, Smooch Records has called it quits. The California-based label released music from over a dozen Mile High City bands with a dark country twinge, putting out music by the likes of Slim Cessna's Auto Club, 16 Horsepower and Woven Hand.

During its ten-plus years of existence, Smooch, an imprint run by Andrew Murphy, extended a hand into Denver's music history, issuing previously unreleased work by influential goth-fathers, Soul Merchants. When we spoke with Murphy a few years back on the reason behind starting the label, the Texas transplant and early Local Shakedown host, expressed a desire to cultivate the only thing he liked about Colorado at the time -- the music. Although Smooch Records is calling it a day, the legacy of the label and the handpicked bands involved will live on, serving as a detailed piece of Denver music community's evolving sound.