When he launched Independent Project Records in 1980, Bruce Licher saw the label as an opportunity to get his own music out. Housed in striking, instantly recognisable letterpress-printed sleeves, IPR releases soon started to include works by friends, fellow art students at UCLA and new underground musicians Licher admired. If he wanted to hear a band's music and couldn't find it anywhere, he'd release it himself. Through the years, IPR went on to give a platform to voices that didn't quite fit into the stiff boxes of the music industry. The results may not have involved six-figure returns, but, instead, could count on perceptive intuitions (Camper Van Beethoven, of whom a rare early demo is included here, got their start on IPR), fruitful artistic alliances and lifelong friendships. Jeffrey Runnings, a young Savage Republic fan from Nebraska who in 1984 wrote a letter to Licher wanting to increase communication, would three years later release his band's debut album on IPR. That was, of course, For Against, an all-time favourite to many long-standing IPR devotees. The album, Echelons, launched a lasting partnership and brought Licher a Grammy nomination for Best Album Package. In late 2024 Runnings sent a tape-worth of new songs to Bishop, California, where Licher now resides and operates. A few months later, that old-fashioned cassette tape had become Piqued, a stunning album released by IPR shortly after Runnings passed away due to stage 4 cancer. The single 'Heretofore' appears here: a timeless post-punk gem brimming with the warmth and the passion of a gentle soul sharing his lifelong love of music, and his last creations, with longtime friends.