New Music Distribution Service (or NMDS) was a non-profit record distributor based in New York City.
It was founded in 1972 by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler[1] as a means of distributing artist produced recordings of, primarily, experimental contemporary music.
The biggest selling album in NMDS history was the ECM release of Return to Forever (Chick Corea album), which strained the seams at the service and led to ECM's first US major distribution deal.
Carla Bley remembered being rejected by the gatekeepers at traditional record companies and vowed that NMDS would be non-judgemental for the artists.
[4] Due to the long illness of a manager, and the resultant failure to pay New York state taxes, NMDS suspended operations in 1990.