One cover that caught my eye looked like a grainy photo of fog over a mountain landscape, but Jørgensen further explained the image: “I converted the image into an audio file and then ran it and turned it back into an image—this was what came out. Most of the covers are just layers,” he says, pointing out that many of the covers featured a geometric shape simply sitting dead center over an image. What interested me about the label was to find out that not only did it feature a wide variety of musicians but graphic artists as well. From hand-drawn covers to scan manipulation, Jørgensen works hard to find art that represents the label visually just as much as musically. “I did the first four or so [album covers]. Allan Ludwig is an art teacher at BYU—he’s an old friend [who does some of the artwork],” he says. “Some are photos, and some are hand-drawn. I’ll use Photoshop a lot, but there’s a lot of different methods.”

Jørgensen doesn’t just sit on his computer all day, lurking Soundcloud for interesting or obscure, new artists. How he finds Hel Audio artists ranges, depending on how well-connected to others in the music community he is at the time. “[How I find new artists is] a bit of a mix,” he says. “Theta/Metatag was in an online music community with me, and he sent me some demos, and I liked them. Matt Nida I actually reached out to because I was a fan of his stuff. Corduroi happened, I think, because of Andrew Aguilera, [who goes by] Mooninite.” There are many artists I can think of who claim that social media and a strong Internet presence is the way to find success in an ever-growing and ever-changing industry. I wanted to know Jørgensen’s opinion about using social media as one’s only marketing tool. “It’s a lot easier for people who are interested to keep up with what I’m doing,” he says, “but as far as [social media making it] easier to reach new people that don’t know about me—I have no idea. Probably a tiny bit.” After pausing to think, he continues, “There’s just so much content out there—I think it’s hard to get any sort of attention just in doing that.”

I was curious as to what the day-to-day process behind having a record label was and what tasks Jørgensen was in charge of that made it different from simply branding himself as an artist. “It actually makes doing my own stuff a little bit easier because I think people take you much more seriously when you have a brand behind you, even if it’s one that you’ve made up,” he says. “When you have an anonymous shell of the label to do business behind, it can change things.”

Locally, Diabolical Records has helped Hel Audio showcase the talents on the label by having a monthly show at their shop on 238 S. Edison Street in downtown Salt Lake. “To have a venue that’s so friendly to the experimental types of music in the local scene is a huge help,” Jørgensen says. “Those styles generally are not profitable, so to have a free show . You kind of need that to grow any sort of different scene.” The show happens on the third Saturday of each month and is an all-ages, free show, open to anyone interested in Hel Audio.

For future releases, Jørgensen was excited to share that there’s a lot coming up. “My band [Blade] is playing Localized [on March 13],” he says. “We’re working on recording something. I do have a lot of projects in the mix, but I guess nothing that has a set date at this moment, but there’s always a lot of stuff in the works. … Ben Best has a solo release that we’re trying to finalize the art for. I’m going to do another Industry compilation this year that’s probably just going to come from live sets at Diabolical. I’ll just pick a song from each set [and create an album with it].”

Information on Hel Audio as well as a more complete list of artists and cover art contributors can be found on helaudio.org. Cassettes can be purchased locally at Diabolical and Squarwave Sound. Members of the label Mooninite, RS2090 and Blade will be playing at SLUG’s monthly showcase, Localized, at Urban Lounge on March 13, and the Hel Audio Industry showcase at Diabolical Records happens on the third Saturday of each month.