Electronic Dispatch accepts artist and release submissions for consideration. The application fee is $10 and pays for the editor's commitment to listen and respond — not for coverage.

Submit here → [STRIPE_LINK]

What you get for the fee

We commit to:

  1. Listening to your submission — your record, EP, mix, or pitch — within 14 days
  2. A direct response by email, one of:
    • "We'd like to cover this." → A staff writer will be in touch about a review, feature, or mix placement.
    • "Not a fit, here's a one-line reason why." → No coverage. The reason will be specific (e.g. "Too festival-pop for our beat" or "Strong but already covered by RA last week").

That is the whole transaction.

What the fee does not buy

This is the most important part of this page. Please read it carefully.

  • ❌ It does not buy coverage. Most submissions are rejected. Our acceptance rate is currently around 2%.
  • ❌ It does not buy a positive review. If we accept your submission and assign it for review, the reviewer scores it on its merits. Reviews can land anywhere on our 0–10 scale, including the negative end. Paying the fee does not raise the floor on your score.
  • ❌ It does not buy faster handling than free pitches. Editorial pitches from working journalists and music industry contacts via /pitch/ are evaluated on the same merits and timeline.
  • ❌ It does not buy influence over editorial direction. If your record is reviewed, the angle and verdict are the writer's, not yours.
  • ❌ It does not buy removal of negative coverage that we've already published or might publish about you.

If anyone — including us — implies that paying this fee increases your chances of a favorable verdict, that's a violation of our Editorial Policy and grounds for a refund and public correction.

Why we charge a fee at all

Without a filter, the submission queue fills with low-effort pitches, label spam, and pure bot submissions that take editor time and produce no value for readers. The fee is set high enough that pitching is a deliberate decision and low enough that a serious independent artist or small label can submit.

The fee pays for the editor's listening and response time, not for coverage. If we charged nothing, we couldn't promise a real response within a reasonable window. With a small fee in place, every paid submission gets human attention.

What we cover

Match your submission to what we actually publish (see /about/ for the full list):

  • House, techno, deep house, ambient, bass, broken beat, electro — our core
  • Underground releases on independent labels — the deeper the cut, the better
  • Scene reports and venue stories — we cover the West Coast warehouse circuit closely
  • Mixes by DJs we'd actually go see — not promo-mix recycling
  • Events — we list underground shows; we don't list press-release-driven festival promos

We are unlikely to cover:

  • Commercial-festival main-stage acts unless there's a genuine underground angle
  • Hype releases without depth
  • Crypto / NFT music projects
  • Anything that's already saturated in mainstream coverage

What to send

Submit one of:

  • A release — a Bandcamp link, SoundCloud private link, or download. Include label, release date, and one paragraph of context.
  • A mix — a SoundCloud or Mixcloud link with the venue/date/concept and a track list if possible.
  • An artist pitch — a paragraph on who you are, what you're working on, and why we should care.
  • A scene story — a venue, label, promoter, or scene worth covering, with the specific angle.

One submission per fee. Don't paste five albums in. We will respond to the first one and ignore the rest.

How long it takes

We commit to a response within 14 days of the fee being paid. If we miss that window, your fee is refunded automatically — email submissions@electronicdispatch.com if you don't see the refund within a week of the SLA expiring.

Refund policy

We refund the fee in three cases:

  1. We miss our response SLA (automatic refund after the window).
  2. Our editorial decision is influenced by the existence of the fee (we don't expect this to happen, but if it does, we refund and publish a correction).
  3. The submission was a duplicate of one we'd already received and were processing.

We do not refund in any other case. Specifically: we do not refund when the editorial decision is "not a fit." That's exactly what the fee paid for — a response.

Submit now

[STRIPE_LINK]

After payment you'll be redirected to a short form (~2 minutes) to provide the release/mix/pitch link and any context. The clock on our response SLA starts when the form is submitted.

Questions: submissions@electronicdispatch.com.

The full mechanics and disclosure of this program live in our Editorial Policy §5 and Ethics & Funding. Last updated: May 19, 2026.