Mass MoCA, the giant contemporary art museum in North Adams, Massachusetts, has a history of doing things museums don’t typically do. It was among the first art institutions to open in a disused industrial space; it innovated the leasing of its abundant space to commercial tenants; and it truly integrates performing arts into its programming, rather than treating them as an add-on.

Now it’s launching a record label. (The museum joins a select fellowship of art businesses and institutions that have put out records, including Chicago art gallery Corbett vs. Dempsey, the Dia Art Foundation, JUBG Gallery in Cologne, and White Columns in New York.) Records will result not only from in-studio recordings of musicians, but also from museum residencies, spoken word performances, and even sound art that appears at the museum.

Mass MoCA Records will be in collaboration with Hen House Studios, which was founded in 2001 in Venice, California and is head up by Harlan Steinberger. An accomplished producer and engineer, Steinberger is known for his work with a variety of recording artists, including Grammy-nominated Ghanaian American reggae star Rocky Dawuni, country legend Willie Nelson, folk-rocker Particle Kid (aka Micah Nelson, Willie Nelson’s son), and folk-punk singer-songwriter Sunny War.

Steinberger got acquainted with Mass MoCA director Kristy Edmunds in her previous job as executive and artistic director of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance. “Mass MoCA is so supportive of visual artists,” he recalled telling her. “It would be great if we could do something similar for musicians.”

“When he and I had this conversation, I thought, ‘I have no idea how to make a record label,’” Edmunds told me over the phone. “But when I started to think about it more deeply, I realized we do massive visual arts commissions and projects and we collaborate with great publishers to publish catalogues.” While not financially lucrative, she said, the publications are about “advancing the mission and creating another touchpoint. It’s not all together different to do this in relation to music, sound art, and storytellers.”

The Kasambwe Brothers perform at the Hunter Center as part of their residency at MASS MoCA on November 16, 2024. Photo: Ryan Harper.

The debut release will be by Malawi trio the Kasambwe Brothers, who recorded an LP across the street from the museum at recording facility Studio 9 when they had a residency at Mass MoCA in 2024; Steinberger was at the mixing board. The performance and recording sessions were captured in a short documentary video. The first three songs from their self-titled album, slated for release October 24, are available now. Two are love songs, sung in Chichewa, Malawi’s national language; the third treats the subject of schoolteachers who abuse women.

“I spent about five months in North Adams,” Steinberger told me. “I felt like I was there long enough to get some understanding of the culture of North Adams and the museum. I’ve never been to a place like that, where you have a town of 12,000 people with the largest contemporary art museum smack in the middle of it.”

The album cover of The Kasambwe Brothers, the first release on MASS MoCA’s newly created record label MASS MoCA Records, to be relased on October 24, 2025.

And there’s more to come in 2026, mostly music recorded in the Berkshires with Steinberger. Next up is a platter from Los Angeles jazz duo Black Nile (Aaron and Lawrence Shaw), with the release date to be announced. The band completed a residency this year at Mass MoCA, including a live show and a recording session at Studio 9. 

“I’ve made plenty of records where you never get up,” Steinberger joked, referring to all-digital recordings, but now his passion is putting musicians together in the same room, recording live, without extensive multitracking and overdubs, as the Kasambwe Brothers’ album was recorded.

“That’s how we used to make records,” he said. “It gives you a different experience, both making the recording and for the listener. The humanity and human flaws make it more expressive.”

But as Edmunds alluded to, it won’t be just music releases. The museum also hosts sound art projects, which could be immortalized on vinyl, and spoken word performances, which could be given another life in recorded form. “I used to love mix tapes,” said Edmunds, adding that if a visual artist has an alternate life as, say, a jazz drummer, maybe one tune from that project could be part of a record.

“We’re trying to take the dimensionality of artists’ visions,” she said, “and put them out in the world in another channel.”