As the major record labels collapse, local, independent labels are rising to fill the void.

Dover resident Michael Gene Dionne, better known by his stage name of Eyenine, stood in an enclosed room uttering rapid rhymes into a microphone. On the other side of the window that separated him from the rest of Studio 1.1D, the Dover recording studio of Flyrock Records, sound engineer Matthew Gilbert sat in front of a computer with a panel of dials and knobs. The two communicated over microphones, pausing to repeat certain verses as they worked on Eyenine’s new album, due out in a couple of months.

At the same time, members of Portsmouth-based rock band The If in Life marched in and out of the studio, loading equipment into a vehicle as they prepared for a show that night at Gunstock Mountain Resort. Other members of the Flyrock team milled about the room, including owner Jake Johnson, artist Jesse Comeau, and photographer Joseph Giusti.

Eyenine and The If in Life are two of eight acts currently signed to Flyrock, a growing indie label headquartered beneath Smoke Signals on Main Street. The studio serves not only as a recording space, but also as a bustling hangout for constituents of the local music scene.

Flyrock is one of several small, independent record labels operating out of the Seacoast, providing myriad services to local bands. As the muscle of major labels continues to wane, indie outfits are stepping in to fill the void and give artists the support they need.    

Dionne is at work on his second full-length album with Flyrock. He said the label helps with a variety of tasks that would be difficult to handle on his own.

“Studio, distribution, replication of the album, booking shows, getting the artwork done with Jesse, having a place to come to think and create,” he said. “Pretty much everything.”

That’s exactly what Jake Johnson had in mind when he founded Flyrock early in 2009. The idea is not only to cut an album, but also to get the finished disc as much exposure as possible, working with local radio stations like WXGR and venues like Fury’s Publick House in Dover. Flyrock helps artists develop a regional following.

“They come in with their ideas and we realize them,” Johnson said. “Everything from getting the albums recorded to getting the artwork together for the albums and booking some shows to promote the albums and giving them funding.”

Other local labels to crop up in recent years include Lost Sailor Records, founded by Eric Ott and Chris Magruder in 2008, and Burst & Bloom, founded by Guy Capecelatro III and Dylan Metrano late in 2009. There’s also Phlume Artist Management, focusing largely on jam bands, and the Green Lion Crew, producing dub and reggae records.

Some labels start out as self-serving entities for the founders. Ott, a solo performer and front man of long-time local band Mercuryhat, originally started Lost Sailor in order to produce his second Mercuryhat album, “Blinding Blues, Stinging Bees.”

“We were done recording it and wanted to try and push it in ways that I couldn’t as an independent musician,” Ott said. “Then there were a bunch of artists that we really admired and wanted to give that same exposure to.”

Last year, Lost Sailor released Martin England’s debut solo album “Razed and Reconstructed,” which quickly leapt to the top of the regional Bull Moose sales charts. The label is close to signing other area acts, Ott said, although the details have not been finalized. He’s also at work on his own new solo album.

Ott said his goal, like Johnson, is to help fellow artists achieve their creative visions with a professional approach. Magruder owns Thundering Sky Recording studio in South Berwick, Maine, and the pair is prepared to dump $10,000 to $20,000 into an album.

“Essentially, we want to run the band like a business so that the band does make money and gets their return on investment,” Ott said. “We put a lot of money into it, but we have low overhead, too, so we can get those monies back pretty quickly with a fairly modest sale of the album.”

Burst & Bloom, by contrast, offers limited releases of CDs, printing only as many as they expect to sell (the label also produces books, films and other creative projects). Capecelatro and Metrano strive to make each release unique, offering hand-made CD sleeves, cover art and other personal touches.

“To be able to publish as few books as you want, 10 to 20 books, you’re able to keep the costs down,” Capecelatro said. “We want to do limited runs but make it special.”

Burst & Bloom currently works with about nine acts from around New England, including their own solo work and that of their bands (Capecelatro and Metrano are both members of Tiny Fires, and Metrano fronts Tiger Saw). The label is releasing a 16-song compilation CD in February titled “Seasonal Disorder: Winter.” It will also soon release a book of Capecelatro’s prose column “Some Women,” which appears each week in The Wire.

Capecelatro previously ran the local label Two-Ton Santa, which worked with Unbunny and Dom Leone. But the music industry has changed immensely since that time. No longer must bands compete for attention from a handful of major labels in order to expose people to their music. Internet tools like MySpace, Bandcamp, ReverbNation and many others, along with affordable home recording software, now enable bands to record albums on their own and instantly post them online for the world to hear. It might not get you mass riches and groupies, but it can get you thousands of listeners from around the world.

With the market for mass-produced CDs continually shrinking, demand for small labels that offer limited runs is on the rise. There are still plenty of collectors out there who want to hold a physical recording and admire its cover art and liner notes. That’s where labels like Burst & Bloom come in, ensuring that the experience of a new CD is memorable.

Broken Sparrow Records had a similar philosophy until it dissolved a few years ago. Nate Groth and Sidney Lindner co-founded the label around 2005, working with such popular local acts as Lindner’s The Hotel Alexis, Nat Baldwin, Gregg Porter and others. Although getting signed to a major label seemed out of reach for such artists, they still needed support to do the “grunt work” that goes into making music.

“Musicians are disorganized in a lot of ways. It kind of goes along with the creative mindset,” Groth said. “We could take on these things that musicians do terribly.”

Ott shares those sentiments at Lost Sailor Records. Modern musicians who care about their craft are less attached to the idea of getting signed to major labels as a measure of artistic achievement. But they still need help with the business side of the music.

“Artists are always going to need some sort of management to organize a CD release and to get it out there and to deal with the everyday nuances of business, because most artists are not business-minded,” Ott said. “They just want to do their craft and get it out to people. They’re not too worried about making millions or whatever. They’re just all about the love of music.”

Ott expects the rise of independent labels—and the collapse of the industry giants—to continue unabated. Jon Nolan, the owner of Milltown Recording Co., agrees.

“There’s no doubt. The old model is completely based on a paradigm which has no chance of surviving,” Nolan said. “There aren’t enough streams of income. There aren’t enough ways for big businesses to exploit music, or for artists to exploit themselves, that will justify the continuation of that model.”

Nolan originally founded Milltown to release “Every Mile,” the final album of his former band Say ZuZu, in 2002. He now runs a recording studio in Rollinsford but keeps it separate from his Milltown Records label. The label is used primarily as a platform to promote local bands as they look to book gigs around the nation, and to book out-of-town acts at local venues.

Flyrock, too, is invested in booking gigs for its bands. They host a regular “Flyrock Presents” series at Fury’s Publick House, located right across the street from their studio, and also frequently book CD release shows at the nearby Dover Brick House.

Among the area acts signed to Flyrock, in addition to Eyenine and The If in Life, are Vaast, The Foyes, Rio Bravo, and Todd Seely. But even bands not signed to the label are welcome to use Studio 1.1D at the relatively low rate of $30 per hour.

Flyrock also offers special recording deals that come with instant exposure. During Studio 1.1D nights, the label invites a handful of bands to the studio to play a show. For every six fans who come to see a particular band and pay a $5 cover, the band gets a free hour of recording. Days later, the recording is mastered and ready to go on the air. Flyrock hosts two radio shows on WXGR on Friday nights from 9 to 11 p.m.: DJ Myth’s Re-Education Radio and Eyenine’s Underground Hour. They can use the shows to play songs that were recorded mere days earlier.

“It’s been an outlet for us to show our support for everybody in the local music scene, not just the people on Flyrock. It’s basically our voice for the Seacoast,” said Jake Johnson.

Flyrock also releases hip-hop mix tapes featuring artists from around New England. The first track on the first volume features a collaborative effort between Eyenine and The If in Life. Although the label is not limited to hip-hop, it’s making strides to promote an under-served genre on the Seacoast.

Johnson is confident that as a new era in the music industry takes shape, small labels like Flyrock will be at its core.

“We’re really just sort of flexing our underground muscle,” he said. “We’re down here doing cool stuff.”