We all know that Germany is currently producing some of the best electronic music on the planet. There’s absolutely no doubt about that. When discussing the finer details of house and techno music, Berlin is the city whose name is so often mentioned – a cheap and industrial haven which inspires creators to continue the work of their musical predecessors, and to represent their surroundings through that traditional, age-old craft of programming. But much like in other countries across the continent, each big city has a little sister – a rebellious, inward glancing and creative sibling. London has Bristol, Paris has Lyon and Berlin has Hamburg.

One of the city’s better known residents, Pantha du Prince has just released Elements of Light, an inspired new record capturing the nuances and extraordinary tones of bells and carillons. As such, we’ve taken the opportunity to find out more about his home city, and the venues, shops, festivals and people that make Hamburg such an exciting musical destination. Today, we take a look at a very special label that’s ensuring that the words ‘Hamburg’ and ‘house music’ remain inextricably linked.

Founded in 2005 by Julius Steinhoff, Just Von Ahlefeld and Peter Kersten (aka Lawrence), Smallville Records quickly became not only one of the best hang out spots in the city, but also a label providing an essential reference point for those wanting to take a closer look at Germany’s electronic scene. They release the likes of Julius Steinhoff, Juniper & Arnaldo and Stefan Marx, and then accompany their releases with a host of specially created drawings, which adorn the front window and walls of the cosy, but immaculately stocked store in St Pauli. We caught up with co-founder Just to find out about the ethic behind the label, and why the idea was brought to life.

How long has Smallville been in existence, and what made you start the label?

Smallville, as the concept and record store, exists since mid 2005 and the label started with its first release in 2006. We basically just wanted to have a record store and hang-out spot, that’s why we started Smallville – it’s actually that simple.

What was the first release?

The first release was a compilation with the two founders of Smallville, Julius Steinhoff, Sten aka Lawrence and the legendary DJ Swap.

What is the main idea behind the label?

Basically we wanted to release our music and good tracks from our friends around the shop, as well as people that we like and that we’ve met before, and this worked quiet well. Meanwhile, the record label definitely also supports the record store in terms of spreading the word and music around the globe.

Smallville is based in Hamburg – do you think Hamburg is a good town in which to create and release music? What makes it special or different from other places?

Hamburg is and was always famous for its music scene, but mainly for The Beatles and rock music in general. The Front Club, which opened in the 80s was one of the first clubs in Germany to import House music and Acid. It closed its doors in 1997, but still seems to be very influentual for the dance music scene in the third generation of DJs.

Hamburg is different because it has a harbour, and is more centralised when it comes to venues and clubs. People seem to be a little uptight at first, but when you get to know them better you will love them. And the electronic sound of Hamburg was always pretty deep and cosy, at least in Smallville.

If we were going to come and hang out in Hamburg for a day, what would you recommend that we do and where would you recommend that we go?

Visit the Smallville store, we do not only have records but we also have a variety of art books by our designer Stefan Marx.
Next stop would be the the Reeperbahn St Pauli, which is probably the most famous redlight district in the world. At daytime there is a special tristesse when you see all the party locations that are only open at night, but you don’t wanna be there at that time because it could be frightening.

In the night we would recommend a visit to the Pudel Club and later the Ego, we have our own parties at both locations once a month.

If you had to summarise Smallville in one release, which would you choose?

We released a CD compilation in 2009 called And Suddenly It’s Morning which covers most of our artists and illustrates a good picture of what the smallville sound is like.

What does 2013 hold for the label?

The next release will be an EP by our homie Lawrence, and the big thing for 2013 will definitely be the album by Steve Tang, of whom we’ve been big fans for a long time. The rest is a surprise.

What would you say is Smallville’s motto?

Stay true and do what you feel.

Have a listen to some Smallville sounds below, and make sure to head to their online shop to check out their full catalogue and accompanying artwork.

Smallville’s most recent releases:

SMALLVILLE 30 – Juniper / Arnaldo We Met In Manchester ‎
SMALLVILLE 31 – Roaming Believe In Reflecting ‎
SMALLVILLE 32 – STL Flying Saucer Attack
SMALLVILLE 33 – Julius Steinhoff So Glad

London’s Independent Label Market returned to Spitalfields for a two-day special Christmas event this weekend. With stock high, prices low and special releases and baked treats up for grabs, there was plenty to ponder ones bank balance over.

Best Fit headed over to East London to have a bit of a natter with some of the fair-goers about what they’ve managed to get themselves, ahem, I mean a loved one for the big day.

Jeanette Wall.

“The Rough Trade stall just about cleaned me out. I got this POP ETC record that I’ve been looking for all summer, but they don’t have it anywhere in the States. They also threw in a SXSW 2010 mixtape for free, which was a show I was meaning to go to while I was at the festival but now I can pretend I did. Two years too late, but that’s fine.

I also have this new Swim Deep single. I haven’t listened to the band before, but the guy sold me on it. I also bought a fanzine from This Many Boyfriends, because there’s a drawing by Edwyn Collins that I love.”

Darren Hayman, Hefner.

“My day’s going pretty well. Although I’m cold and keep drinking too much coffee, which is not a good mix. I’ve actually not had the chance to properly look around because I have a stall here for my label, but I’m actually quite uncomfortable with the act of selling. I don’t have the art of being a good market stall trader. Last time I had a fun game of selling a record then buying a record, and we were opposite Soul Jazz, which was not good for my bank balance. But I’m glad this time we’re a couple of rows away, so I’m not so tempted to buy all of their records.”

Jazz Atkin, Ooh Brilliant.

“I wanted to buy the new Flying Lotus record, because it’s one of the only things from this year that I’ve really wanted but haven’t bought yet. But sadly Warp aren’t here this time. Neither are XL or Wichita, but it’s actually quite nice because there’s some of the smaller labels here which is good. I’m sure I’ll find something to buy though because Gareth and Peter from Fear & Records make excellent market wheelers and dealers. I also saw a Lemonade vinyl that looked like a giant CD, which is cool as hell.”

Tom.

“I’ve managed to buy a couple of things so far: The Violence by Darren Hayman, which my friend appears on so I’m showing my support for it, and this split EP with a few bands that I haven’t heard yet – Paws, Dolfinz, Sex Hands and Waiters – but the description was just the kind of thing I like, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

Jess Partridge, Fierce Panda.

“I bought the Slime album on the off-chance. I hadn’t had the opportunity to get it in a store yet. It was right on the stall behind me and only five pounds, so I thought I’d get it. He played Nail The Cross festival recently and it was amazing. It’s not just electronic stuff, there’s more going on than that. Especially live, there’s so many instruments being used.”

Photos by Howard Melnyczuk.

While in Montreal earlier this year, we headed up through the torrential rain to the Mile End of town, past old warehouses now converted into offices, to the building that acts as headquarters, warehouse and home to one of Montreal’s most well known labels, Constellation. This year marks the labels 15th anniversary, which they will celebrate this month with a series of shows across Europe with some of the label’s longest running active artists including A Silver Mt. Zion, Do Make Say Think and Sandro Perri amongst others. We catch up with label co-founder Ian Ilavsky to find out about how things have changed since the label put out their first release, Sofa’s New Era Building on 30 May 1997.

I begin by asking how important Montreal itself was in the forming of the label. The city is one of the most politically active in Canada, and the question of separatism for Quebec is a controversial one that occasionally crosses the line into violence. [A few weeks previously there had been a fatal shooting at the celebration party of Parti Québécois following the Quebec elections]. Combine that with the different cultural lives of the Anglo and Francophone Quebec and the geographical location and the city stands as somewhere quite unique. Ilavsky, who originally hails from Winnipeg, in not comfortable being definitive about its influence but points to a few things that certainly had an impact when forming the label. “The most obvious thing about Montreal in ‘95 was how incredibly inexpensive the city was. The overall state of economic stagnation in the city made everything cheaper. Montreal was the de facto economic capital of Canada until the Quiet Revolution of the late 60s. After that, the rising Quebec nationalism pushed a lot of anglo wealth out of the city, and particularly banks out of the province, they left a lot of spaces to use. That helped us to stay extremely lean in our overheads compared to Vancouver or Toronto. The city also attracted internal Canadian artistic exiles, but to come here you had to have cultural courage – you weren’t going to get a warm welcome.”

Meaning what exactly – were there threats of physical violence? It’s an idea that makes him chuckle, so much so that he brings up the idea in a panel debate the next day. In reality, he says, you could expect hostility but “no one lived in fear of being beaten up by marauding francophone youths.”

The cultural context also was “less straightforward than those in Chicago or Toronto or New York at the time, where there was a clear distinction between overground and underground cultures,” he suggests. “When we started we had an inward looking self sufficiency. We didn’t expect to find validation or crossover. Those ideas sound quaint now: the notion of exposure of crossover now with the Internet is so different.”

Constellation’s first location was in Montreal’s Old City in a building co-owned by Patti Schmidt, who was the host of the seminal Brave New Waves radio show at the time. “Brave New Waves was pretty much the only state radio nationally that would play real out-there stuff. It earned its title. It didn’t play pop music unless it was extremely art-damaged and had whole sections for overtly out there stuff… you would have cut up college artists sat next to snarling punk rock or academic music or modern classical.” The building dated from the 18th Century, and housed a commercial space on the mezzanine level as well as a number of artists spaces. “Don [Wilkie, Constellation’s co-founder] and I rented a 1500sq ft room and lived there and did the production and assembly there too. We ran a kind of special music series there as well called Musique Fragile. It wasn’t meant to be a testing ground for Constellation artists but it was a response to local conditions that were extremely difficult for anything experimental or requiring a little more listening attention.

“At the time venues were run by club owners who only cared that you were out by 10.30. For the privilege of soundchecking and playing a show between 6 and 10.30 you had to pay them 350 dollars. No one could afford to spend 5-6 bucks a show so it was charity. Someone might take a risk and hire a bigger venue like Cafe Campus, which was the least offensive of them all, as they knew there was a crowd for live music. You could put on 5 or 6 bands and get 250-300 people which would be a huge crowd.” Although the venue situation is much improved now, more out there shows still regularly get busted. But, as Ilavsky muses, that tends to be the nature of the beast: “They have a short life-span. Not because they get co-opted or shut down but for the fact that it is exhausting running something like that, especially if you live there too.”

What came out of these events, eventually, was a record label to support the community that they were part of. “We couldn’t identify a home grown label we would send a demo to. What we did at the time was put out our own cassettes. Now people are doing that again, although now its freighted with retro-mania. You can just as cheaply burn a CD-R now but that wasn’t the case then. But our concerns were far broader than starting a label – our horizon was local and represented what we saw as a largely anglophone group in exile of the larger cultural context. We did no research. We thought we were going to sell out the back of a van and at shows and then tour locally as anywhere else was so hard to get to. From the day we started to get attention our interest was in talking about cultural production.”

“We felt part of a history in line with the likes of Touch and Go and Dischord. We do things for a reason. We could be baking bread, or books. It was important to us to be enacting a way of producing culture and putting it in to a market place in a way that felt engaged and principled. And we didn’t have to tell the story – people read the record sleeves, or read it into the music.” The success of Godspeed via word of mouth with no publicity brought the interest of distributors and allowed the label the fortunate position of being able to choose what fitted them best. In Southern they found a group of people who understood. “They told us our options and that they would never have to explain why we did or didn’t want to do things. They just understood. It’s the same relationship we try to have with our artists.”

The extent to which the Independent Label Market has grown within the space of a year is really rather remarkable, from a handful of stalls set up by slightly bewildered looking label bosses in amongst the weathered fruit and veg pedlers of Berwick street to the 48-strong list of labels and authors setting up shop today. From indie giants such as Domino and XL to the comparatively fledging efforts of labels like Double Denim and Transgressive everyone is thrown in at the deep end, rummaging around for floats and coveting anyone who possesses double-sided sellotape. Although their daily working lives often put them at odds, the air today is filled with nothing but camaraderie as old friends and new great each other with smiles, hugs and coffee. Approaching 11am as tarpaulins settled and vinyls were laid out Old Spitalfields Market was suddenly as busy as we’d ever seen it and even though not one single cry of “two for a pound” was heard, crowds swarmed and Josh Hall and Lauren Down took the plunge.

Joe of Angular Records. Photograph by Phil Sharp.

“I used to work at Music and Video exchange and I got sacked after a month, but yeah now I’ve got my own little record store! I think I’m probably the only person who has been to all three and today is about three times bigger than it was last summer. We’ve got This Many Boyfriends‘ new single, which isn’t out until Monday and is the first time we’ve printed using special risograph paper so I’m pretty excited about selling that.”

Hari Ashurst and Jack Thomas of Double Denim Records. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

Hari Ashurst: “We’re most excited by the Outfit 12”, which should arrive today. They started it in November or December, and they recorded it all themselves. It’s quite a hands on thing. There’s an album coming too, which we’re hoping to do. We spend loads of time on our singles. Some of the stuff that we’ve done has taken six months from discovering them to actually releasing.”

Joe Howden of One Little Indian. Photograph by Phil Sharp.

“The first one we did was just before Christmas and we were just desperate to do it again because we had such a good time. When you sit in an office all day you don’t really get that chance to sort of meet the people that you’re actually selling too so having that bit of market banter with somebody like “oh if you like that you’ll probably like this” is really nice. We’ve got loads of stuff to sell today, I’m particularly excited about the Flats vinyl because it is not out for another two weeks and it’s on orange vinyl as well and it’s lovely. We’ve got loads of Björk records because last time we sold so many we had to run back to the office half way through to fetch more.”

David Laurie of Something in Construction Records. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

“Our most exciting new release is probably the Visions Of Trees album, which is out in a couple of weeks. It’s been in the making almost a year. They made it at home. I suppose that’s where everyone makes records now.”

Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

Sunday Best. Photograph by Phil Sharp.

Sarah Bolshi of Sunday Best: “We didn’t come to the one in Berwick street but we did the one last December, and were very Christmassy. It was a really good day actually, really great fun and really nice to kind of bond with all the other labels, it is a great initiative that Angular and Katie have brought together. We’ve got a David Lynch signed vinyl with us today which is kind of our key selling point today I guess and obviously our deluxe very touchy-feely box set. We’re selling some single promos and we’ve got the new handmade Skinny Lister records. Sunday Best is very much about good packaging as you can see.”

Richard King author of ‘How Soon is Now?’. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

“I still don’t seem to have got the word ‘indie’ out of my system. The more I talk to people about it, the more I realise the perniciousness of the word. I think people are amazed at what went on. It’s amazing how many labels started in shops. Warp did, Rough Trade did, Beggars Banquet did. I think what’s really exciting about today is that it puts people back in direct contact with the customers. People talk about brands, but really [independent labels] were brands before brands existed. They just trusted their instincts, and trusted the people that bought from them. It’s a shame that everything’s a startup now. The fact that [the larger indies] don’t have shareholders, the fact that they’re not listed on the stock market, the fact that they’re not part of bigger corporations, that’s important. I think all those bigger labels still really admire independence.”

Michael Mc Clatchey and Stephen Bass of Moshi Moshi Records. Photograph by Phil Sharp.

Michael Mc Clatchey: “We took part in the inaugural Berwick Street event and I haven’t had a chance to look around properly yet but I imagine people are probably a bit more organised than the first time. I don’t think any of us knew what to expect then so at least this time around we got a better notion of what to bring – things like gaffer tape and a sharpie. We spent a day going through our back catalogue. Stephen was piling things up to take and I was putting them back on the shelves saying “that is the last one of them” or ” I don’t think we’re going to sell all of those.” And well actually we’ve got a copy of Moshi 1 today from a band called Suckpatch which we released in 1998, doesn’t go back any further than that. We’ve got a signed Summer Camp album, the new Wave Pictures and yeah loads of stuff. It is just great interacting with people, getting to explain to them what we do.”

Charles Kirby-Welch of Soundway Records. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

“We’re ten this year, and we’re releasing almost as many records this year as we’ve released in ten. [The birthday party] was the biggest party we’ve done, and the first party where we’ve had our own live bands. Part of Soundway being ten is us starting to work with active bands. So we had Los Miticos del Ritmo with a pickup band from the UK which was great, and then Batida playing, who I hadn’t seen live, but he absolutely smashed it. A really amazing show – lots of dancers. That was the first time we’d had electronic music at a Soundway party. Batida’s been DJing for a while. He’s a radio DJ; he has three or four radio shows. He’s been in music for quite a while, but this is his debut. His account was that he’s running out of the kind of music he wants to play, so why not make it yourself? [Rob’s] Make It Fast Make It Slow is a strange record. I can’t really put my finger on it. Rob’s quite a character. Soundway featured him on the very first Ghana Soundz compilation. He phones the office and asks, ‘Is my record number one? When are you going to send me a million pounds?’ And we’re like, ‘Er, yeah, on the Juno chart. Well, number three actually.’”

Ned Hodge of The Sounds of Sweet Nothing. Photograph by Phil Sharp.

“We’ve organised our own label fairs in the past with Double Denim but this is the first time we’ve been involved with something on such a scale and yeah we’re pretty excited to be here amongst people like Domino’s Laurence Bell. Everyone is banding together for the same reason and I think that a bunch of slightly eccentric, influential people all together is one place is worth checking out.”

Will Street of Chess Club Records. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

Adam Brooks of Warp Records. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

“This is actually the first time we’ve come down. I don’t know what happened before, I’ve always wanted to come along but it has never happened. It is great because we’re quite proud of the physical music that we make – the vinyl and the box sets and so on – we take a lot of care to make them look as good as possible and good value so this was a good opportunity to get all the special releases in one place. It’s good because there are some mis-conceptions about Warp, you know a lot of people still believe that we’re still entirely based in Sheffield or that we’re a purely techno label, neither of which are no longer really relavent descriptions and it is a good way to kind of counter act that. It is a good community spirit and it is a lot of fun. It is also nice to be in one place and see what every else has been up to because by the nature of our business we don’t mix very much.”

Heavenly Records Stall. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

Vanita Joshi of Rocket Girl Records. Photograph by Phil Sharp.

“I started Rocket Girl in ’98 having been at Cheree Records and Shay Records before that, I set up on my own to have more freedom. I also run an online mail order record store so yeah I have a bunch of records, test pressings, fanzines etc to sell from the shop, Cheree, Shay and Rocket Girl. I’ve done a few record fairs but nothing that is as tailored as this, or angled towards the kind of kids that will be coming today and it is very much my crowd. Not forgetting the labels too, I’ve already got my eye on the Dirty Three badge from Bella Union.”

Michael Morley of Lucky Number Music. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

“I think we’re at a significant point, where I could see us being a really unique label. But it’s up to us to push it on and go further. You don’t ever want to settle for what you’ve got. Our job is to keep building. We want to have the records that get played on the radio but which shouldn’t really be played on the radio because they’re not formatted for it. But they’re good enough that they have to get played.”

Lucky Number Music’s stall. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

Pink Mist Collective featuring Big Scary Monsters, Simon Morley of Blood and Biscuits, Alex Fitzpatrick of Holy Roar and Andrej Presern of Tangled Talk. Photograph by Phil Sharp.

Simon Morley: “This is our first Independent Label Market.”

Alex Fitzpatrick: “We did a stall at Groezrock and I did a stall at Heavy Fest last year but yeah the reason we sort of got together is because it is just better for all of us. It makes having a stall here cheaper, and in terms of distribution and advertising we can club together and get more done than we would be able to individually. The idea of the collective was to make everything better for everyone.”

SM: “There is a strong pink vibe running through all our merch!”

AF: ”We’ve even got stuff dating all the way back to 2006, I mean I don’t even think the internet was invented then, that was like when people used Myspace or something so you know, pretty vintage stuff. Kev might be trying to flog some tat from like 1996 or something but he’s in Poland so he’s got excuses I guess. There is new stuff from Three Trapped Tigers, what have you got?”

Andrej Presern: “Listener, The James Cleaver Quintet, The Long Haul”

AF: “Then I’ve got new stuff by Last Witness, Nibiru – loads of stuff, it is all fresh, fresh forever, the t-shirts are fresh as fuck, fresh forever – well at least until they’re sold.”

AP: “We’ve got CD’s, 7 inches, 10 inches, 12 inches, 5 inches…”

AF: “Credit card vinyl – that’s fresh. If it’s a format I’ve done it.”

SM: “Mini Disc?”

AF: “I haven’t done Mini Disc.”

Toby L of Transgressive Records. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

“I’m really excited about the Gaggle album. It’s been a long time coming, and it’s the most literally insane thing I’ve ever heard. It’s like a hurricane of chaos. It’s musically brilliant, it’s political, it’s funny, and it’s tragic in equal measure. But looking at this I’m really proud to see people buying some of the more obscure releases. It’s been almost 10 years and we’ve put out almost 200 records. We don’t think about recouping enough. I think our personal belief is that if something is brilliant, whether it finds immediate prominence or eventual relevance or commercial success, you just have to look at music as an ongoing creative process and not focus too much on that. It’s always been a struggle [for indies]. It’s good that there’s maybe more of a reverence now. There’s an aficionado that’s willing to invest a bit more. But in the history of every indie there have been ups and downs. No one has a great run through all their career. You just have to enjoy it when the going’s good and there are hits, and know that when it’s quiet it doesn’t mean the music isn’t as good.”

Ben Watt of Buzzin’ Fly. Photograph by Phil Sharp.

“We started in 2003 when I was DJing, and you know I was getting so many things passed through my hands that weren’t getting released and I just thought this is ridiculous and it was a really great opportunity. And it’s great, we’ve like a little nursery or seed bed for people. This is our first Independent Label Market and it is just  really nice to get the tangible stuff out in front of people. The artwork has won graphic design awards and it is just really nice to get it into people’s hands so they can see what it is all about really.”

Ben Beardsworth of XL Recordings. Photograph by Phil Sharp.

“It is brilliant for us, because we don’t normally get to see who buys our records. Being a record label we’re a few steps removed from record shops and it is quite magical to see people physically heaving through the racks and picking out LPs and seeing which ones they loiter on and what prompts them to buy what they do. It is so much more tangible than seeing a spread with some numbers on it or a chart position. We’ve rifled through the back catalogues and we’ve had tremendous fun this week making some one-offs, we’re turned our office into a bit of a workshop this week so we’ve been screen-printing these white labels of Womack and Jai Paul and that has been really fun. It is another thing that connects you with the real end of the business really. And we’ve made this kind of audio visual spaceman experience. The thing I’m looking forward to most is seeing which ones sell.”

XL Recordings listening station. Photograph by Phil Sharp.


Tom Brown of Lex Records. Photograph by Phil Sharp.

“We used to be part of Warp but we’ve just had our 10th anniversary. The remit with Lex at the beginning was to do anything that Warp wasn’t already doing. Similar but what they wouldn’t cover so we ended up with a lot of hip hop and early Danger Mouse and MF Doom stuff, which we’ve got with us today. We’ve never dropped anyone, we just work with the same guys on multiple projects over time, supporting them doing what they want to do, watching them grow. We’ve got a 10th anniversary compilation with us, and it took Will 10 years to come up with the pun ‘Complex’ so it’s more a celebration of that than anything else really! But really it is 10 really cool tracks you can’t get anywhere else – an exclusive from Danger Mouse and track with Doom, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood and an exclusive Neon Neon track.”

Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

Tim Burgess of O. Genesis Records. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

“I think if you didn’t know we were a young label it is quite obvious by our stall that this is the first time we’ve been along to one of these. I kind of quite like the idea of it not being that professional but you know there is a positive atmosphere. I think it is great, the spirit is brilliant and we’re only a couple of hours in so far but it’s going to be a great day. We’ve got a Nik Colk Void record and the sleeve is playable. It is made from the record and you can play it but it degrades over time but we cast the record and Nik handmade all of them. When they came out we made them as fast as possible but we only got to 270 so there were 30 actual records left so we made 30 more sleeves over the past two days and we’re selling them today and that will be it for those.”


James Endeacott of Analogue Enhanced Digital Records with his son Webster. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

“I came to the one in Spitalfield’s market over Christmas and it was freezing cold but it was brilliant. I just realised I knew so many people here. It was like a wedding reception you know, where you can’t move for saying hello to someone so you know me and Edwyn Collins do this record label AED records and they invited us along. There’s so many great labels here. Thank god I haven’t really got that much money on me today otherwise I would have spent a bloody fortune. It is going really well, I mean we’ve got Edwyn’s prints and mugs, badges, posters and sweets…and some records too! We’ve got a really great 10″ by a band called Pink Flamingos, which is on pink vinyl and it looks beautiful and it sounds great as well. Edwyn should be coming down later and hopefully we’ll get him to sign a couple of records as a little added incentive to the punters.”


Analogue Enhanced Digital’s stall. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

Simon Raymonde of Bella Union Records. Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

“[The record you’re most excited about] tends to be the one you just got delivered. Running a label you’re in the privileged position of getting everything about four months before the rest of the world. The main principle was always that I want to run a label that I would have liked to have been signed to. I wanted to be looked after and cared for by a bunch of people I get on with. I guess that’s familial.”

Photograph by Sonny Malhotra.

As Record Store Day 2012 wraps up for another year, music fans all over the place are settling in at home to begin making their way through the fresh piles of music patiently waiting to be heard. Record shop staff members are just about daring to open their eyes again after a hectic, busy but brilliant weekend as those that couldn’t make it out to the shops stare sadly at the rocketing prices of sought after items on Ebay. During its short life span, Record Store Day has come to be one of the most important dates on the musical calendar, encouraging music fans of all ages, tastes and trends to head to their local shop and marvel in the wonder of the physical product of music.

The Line of Best Fit headed to Rough Trade East on Saturday to find out what the punters had managed to get hold of, and to see the fifth annual Record Store Day in full swing.

Tim Wilds

“I got the Johnny Flynn 12”, I’ve been a fan of Johnny Flynn since his early records. One of my friends managed to get hold of one of his first 7” releases and then I heard this was coming out on vinyl, so thought I should snap it up.”

Zebedee

“I got the Animal Collective one, because you’ve got to. And I got Smuggler’s Way too – I wanted to get Mastodon covering Flaming Lips but they’d sold out.”

Roy

“I got a Martyn 12”, spotted him on iTunes and thought I’d get hold of it, so I found his album. And I got the Lone album too because his new single ‘Crystal Castles 1991′ is pretty cool so I got that on CD, and now we’re heading over to Phonica.”

Ben

“I have here the Dilla 7”, my friend who works in Phonica was telling me about it and they only had ten copies in the shop so that was one I really wanted. Feistodon, the collaboration between Feist and Mastodon where they’ve covered each other’s tune, which I thought was a good Record Store Day only thing. And I got Dross Glop by Battles, which has the Hudson Mohawke remix on it that I really wanted. Quite a good haul, pretty happy with it! ”

Darina

“I got several, Pond, Tame Impala, Zombie, Cold Spex and the Django Django album too. I haven’t found Matthew Dear, but I’m going to keep searching. John Cale, Chad Valley – so much, but now that you’ve asked, I can’t remember it all!  I love the new Alabama Shakes album too and Deep Sea Arcade.”

Sim

“I got NZCA/Lines. This has never been on vinyl until today. I worked on the promotion of it, so it’s quite a pleasing moment to see the hard work – not that I made it, of course! – but I helped to put it out there. You could only get it on CD before, which was all well and good but it’s not quite the same as all this plastic. So, happy days! And one of my friends has bought Zombie for me.”

Anna

“I bought the Jonathan Wilson 12”, which has got a George Harrison cover on it. I’m a massive George Harrison fan and a massive Jonathan Wilson fan so I thought that’d be really interesting! I bought Velvet Underground, Loaded, on a pink disk – I thought that was really cool. I bought three 7”s, Beach House, Edward Sharpe and Laura Marling and I got three 3 cds which are [Rough Trade’s] albums of the month… and Alabama Shakes because I’ve wanted it for ages. ”

John Doran, Editor of The Quietus

“Circle are a really good band, they’re a Finnish kraut band if that’s not an oxymoron. I’ve seen them live a few times and I really like the side project Pharaoh Overlord. It’s a combination of the two best forms of music – psychedelic, hypnoid kraut rock and old fashioned heavy metal. Then The Heads are like Britain’s best cult space rock band, they’ve been going for about 20 years and never got anywhere, it’s just a bunch of wasters – they’re all part time teachers and things like that, but they’re absolutely brilliant and if you ever see them live, they totally kick out the jams. So this should be good. ”

Laura Snapes, Associate Editor at Pitchfork

“I got the St Vincent 7” and Oscar Cash plays Metronomy, mostly because I like the cover art but also because I like the idea of him playing their songs in a jazz piano style! I also got the Field Music cover of the Pet Shop Boys which is awesome, and the Beach House single. I was trying to find the Ryan Adams covering Bob Mould thing, but that sold out everywhere really early and the Donald Fagen reissue which nobody seems to have had – that might just have been an American thing.”

Kevin King – Secret 7″

“We opened Secret 7″ on Tuesday night and we’ve been an exhibition since then, open for people to come and have a look. This morning we started selling, so people started coming in and picking their favourites off the shelf. It was inspired by something that RCA do, which is like a secret postcard sale so they get students to make postcards and then some famous artists do them too, then they’re all mixed together. I was on the committee at Universal for our charity, Teenage Cancer Trust, and I wanted to do something a bit creative that involved the artists and was something a bit different, and all of the money goes to Teenage Cancer Trust.”

 To see more of our Record Store Day 2012 coverage, click here.

Album that made me want to Breakdance

Street Sounds Best Of Electro Vol 1. I tried it but by limbs wouldn’t bend enough. I stuck to the ‘hold your pint and shuffle about’ school of boogie.

First album I bought that wasn’t the Beatles; Public Enemy, Fear Of A Black Planet. 

I knew it was rap or hip hop which I wasn’t sure about at the time but for some reason I was drawn to this album and made my mum take me to Our Price to buy it on cassette. It didn’t leave my sports Walkman for some months.

Album that got me into dance music – The Prodigy Experience

The Prodigy Experience. I was really into Nirvana when I heard this for the first time. I still loved Nirvana but this got me into DJing and discovering House and Techno music.

It’s Record Store Day! It’s finally here! As music fans all over the world head to their local store to get their hands on some special edition purchases, we catch up with Young British Artists as the band members each discuss a record that changed their view of music.

Young British Artists are releasing a limited 150 run of vinyl for Record Store Day, with their track ‘Salad Days’ as the A side and the B side hand etched by a member of the band.

Scott Walker – Scott 4

Leo Scott talks about ”Parallel Pop Music”

I was introduced to Scott 4 late on and have only owned it (a re-press) for a few years. I have rinsed it but can never tire of it. It is the record I associate most with the time since I finished Uni and moved to Manchester. It is the end point of Scott Walker’s transition from 60′s pop star to enigmatic cult figure, yet it is the pop elements which ground the record and halt its descent into becoming a weird, esoteric over-indulgence. The stranger aspects of the record – the composition, arrangements and lyrical content – outnumber those more commonplace associated with a pop record. Still, when paralleled with his vocal performance and natural ear for a hit, these elements are not at odds with each other but complement one another and the result is a masterpiece, equal parts soothing and cathartic as it is exhilarating and uplifting.

Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

Ben Phillips talks about ‘the American indie, college rock template’

This was the first Pavement album I properly got into. I had listened to Wowee Zowee before but didn’t really ‘get’ it at the time, probably due to it being the most far-out Pavement album. Crooked Rain is more accessible and contains the song ‘Gold Soundz’, which is pretty much my/everyone’s favourite Pavement song. I will never tire of Stephen Malkmus’s laid back guitar noodling, and every song on this album sounds effortless, sunny, and, well, just plain cool. This all left a big impression of me at the tender age of 17.

My Bloody Valentine – Loveless

Sebastian Mariner discusses the album that taught him that “learning guitars could be different”

Like a lot of people, when I fell in love with Loveless I instantly obsessed over its sonic craft for a considerable period.

I was around 16 when I first heard ‘Only Shallow’ on Pitchfork’s list of tracks of the 90’s and bought the album on my next visit to Rounder Records some 2 days later.

I first listened to Loveless hanging out with my girlfriend at the time whilst reading catcher in the rye like any self respecting clichéd teenager would do. I distinctly remember getting distracted from the book and having to devote my full attention to the album, not fully understanding what was going on but being intrigued by sound. I think I listened to that record a subsequent 5 times that night.

What I love about Loveless (as so many do) is the depth of the sound and the ability to swim in the layers of noise. Loveless creates a space for you to sit and observe even though the record is so sonically dense the fact that Shields manages to do this with the humble guitar is totally awesome.

It’s Record Store Day! It’s finally here! As music fans all over the world head to their local store to get their hands on some special edition purchases, we catch up with Lanterns on the Lake to find out about three records that changed their view of music.

Lanterns on the Lake release a special white 12″ vinyl for Record Store Day through Bella Union, featuring the following track listing:

Side A

1. If I’ve Been Unkind (Man Without Country Remix)
2. Ships In  The Rain (Laurel Halo Remix)
3. Not Going Back To The Harbour (Dauwd Remix)

Side B
4. Ships In The Rain (Sun Glitters Remix)
5. You’re Almost There (Young Montana Remix)
6. Tricks (Damu Remix)

Tom Waits – Orphans (Bawlers) – An album for a rainy day…

“The album I tend to visit most on wet, rainy, housebound days. Perfect for soundtracking a long, dark journey in the van whilst on
tour. It never fails to warm me up.”

Sound of Silver by LCD Soundsystem – An album that helps me get back on track…

I love all of their albums but this one especially seems to do the trick when I need a lift. It’s full of anthems and great party tunes and it’s just a great album to listen to very very LOUD.

The Velvet Underground by The Velvet Underground – The album that made me want to be a musician…

This isn’t the first record that inspired me to play music but it made a big impact when I first heard it. I always loved how each track seems to exist in it’s own world. There’s loads of variety on this album and that’s a big inspiration. It shows that you could write ballads like ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ alongside weird trip-outs like ‘The Murder Mystery’ and they can all sit nicely together.

It’s Record Store Day! It’s finally here! As music fans all over the world head to their local store to get their hands on some special edition purchases, we catch up with Cate Le Bon to find out about three records that changed her view of music.

Cate releases a special split 7″ single with Gruff Rhys featuring the tracks ‘Time Could Change Your Mind’ by Cate Le Bon and ‘Gold Medal Winner’ by Gruff Rhys, out today on Rhys’ Ovni (Turnstile) label.

Selda – Selda

It was whilst touring with Gruff Rhys on his Candylion tour in 2007 that I first heard the formidable sounds of Selda. Record collector extraordinaire, Andy Votel, was on board spinning tunes every night and amongst them was the incredible Ince Ince by the virile Turkish chanteusse. I had not heard much that had excited me for a long while but if the pay off of the drought was Selda then the thirst had been more than worth it. Her sound was infectious, exciting and alarming and at that moment in my life it was the greatest thing I had ever heard and all I wanted to listen to. It was total, blissful satisfaction. It illuminated just how I lazy and despondent I had become in my pursuit of new music. Together, Votel and Selda reignited my passion for the hunt and led me to new pastures of music that I have foraged on relentlessly since.

Syd Barrett– Barrett

It was almost accidentally that I fell upon Barrett by the Late and great Syd Barrett. The thought of having not ventured upon it makes me feel quite unsettled. During a spat of weekly journeys from South to North Wales armed with a limited number of cassettes it became apparent that there was only a certain number of times one could listen to Pipes Of Peace and Thriller on rotation before turning violent. We stopped in Porthmadog at the famous Cob Records and whilst I was winding down in the car park my boyfriend ran in and grabbed the only cassettes that they had. We listened to the ones we were more familiar with; Syd Barrett was always overlooked in favour of cassettes we could sing along to. When we’d exhausted everyone else, Syd was finally pushed into the Blaupunkt. Initially, it made no sense to me at all. It was like hearing a different musical dialect that I could not decipher, but I was strangely compelled to return to the record and persevere. I will be forever thankful that I did not own an MP3 player. I would have almost definitely been impatiently flicking towards something that was easier on the brain at this point. So we battled it out on the A470 , me and Syd and every time I listened I’d hear something new. I started looking forward to car journeys knowing that I was getting closer to assembling the songs out of the cacophony. What I first mistook as a jumbled raucousness was a fragility that at some points would come so close to falling apart but would always manage to hold on by a thread. I have been reluctant to own an Mp3 player since my love affair with Barrett frightened that impatience will lead to me to miss out on a musical masterpiece.

Pavement – Brighten The Corners

At the tender age of 13, my dear father sat me down and told me he had a new CD to play me. I was just starting to get into bands, or rather, I was starting to get into the groups that the boys I’d taken a shine to in school were into. It was a dire roster of shocking, cock-rocking bands. My poor dad, who had raised me on the good stuff, was mortified, and rightly so. It was time for him to gently intervene. I had decided that whatever he played me I would hate hard out but in the face of Pavement’s Brighten The Corners my teenage stubbornness lasted only seconds. I was immediately enthralled with the wonky guitar solos and Malcamus’ cool delivery. The song structures were like nothing I’d heard before, but I liked that there was no telling where they’d meander because they would insist on you coming with. It was the first time I became obsessed with a record without knowing a thing about the makers and without the affirmation of my peers. It is the first record that I truly fell in love with and am still very much in love with it now. Job well done Jono.

It’s Record Store Day! It’s finally here! As music fans all over the world head to their local store to get their hands on some special edition purchases, we catch up with Patrick Adams of Blouse to find out about three records that changed his view of music.

Blouse / Craft Spells release a limited 200 edition run of 7″s through Captured Tracks featuring the track ‘Gruesome Flowers 2: A Tribute to the Wake’ for Record Store Day 2012.

Fugazi – Red Medicine

The album that made me want to become a musician

I was 15 years old and my friend made me a mix tape. One of the bands on there was Fugazi, with songs from Red Medicine on it. I freaked out when I heard the bass lines. My friend told me I should play bass and he would play drums. We played a show a week later.

Queen – Greatest Hits

The first album that made me stop in my tracks

I bought a tape player and that album for a three week long road trip I took with my parents when I was 12. I listened to it probably 100 times on the trip. I still know all the lyrics to every song on the record.. Even “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy”.

The Beatles – Abbey Road

The album I always listen to on a rainy day

A consistently amazing album from start to finish. Duh.

Amorica by The Black Crowes – The record that made me want to get real

We’d already been playing in bands for a couple of years when we first heard the Black Crowes. Their second album (The Southern Harmmony and Musical Companion) chimed with the rose-tinted 1971 dreams we had for ourselves and they became a totemic reference point for how we wanted to sound and look (back when I was 13). Amorica, which was the first record I ever bought in the week of release, came from a completely different place. The songs were odd and forlorn, the swagger was muted, even apologetic and to me, it sounded like a new type of music - they still wore bellbottoms but it wasn’t retro, they still played guitars but it seemed a million miles from the other rock music of the time. It made me want to make better music and write better songs. I listened obsessively to the sonic details of the record and Peter and I would feverishly dissect the percussion parts and the guitar sounds. Along with the mid-period Beatles albums we got around the same time, it opened my ears and brain to the intricacies of production, arrangement and engineering.

Big Star’s Third – The record which redefined success for me

For Christmas back in 1997 I was given a ‘Top 1000 Albums Ever As Voted By You (and some music writers)’ type-of-thing. As a teenager just discovering how much music was out there, I found it fascinating. especially in trying to figure out why a particular album was in there. Once you get the general public involved all sorts of bizarre things go on -  if I remember rightly, the top 30 included both Jagged Little Pill and Be Here Now and also probably K by Kula Shaker. Spice by The Spice Girls just scraped the top 100. So far, so justifiable (in that they were huge-selling albums of that year which hadn’t yet suffered a major critical backlash). More interesting were the albums which I’d either never heard of or knew next to nothing about and which had never enjoyed any commercial acclaim. Five Velvet Underground albums (including an out-takes album) were in there, along with all three Nick Drake albums and all three albums by a band called Big Star. I spent most of my student loan on albums like these. Back in the early days of internet shopping, Big Star’s Third was particularly difficult to get hold of (an album so obscure you couldn’t even buy it???) but the emotive force and strangeness of the album was absolutely worth hunting for. As well as being extremely beautiful, it’s a very odd-sounding record and discomfiting in many ways (you’re never far from the feeling that Alex Chilton is just toying sarcastically with the listener) – it certainly wasn’t a mystery that no-one had bought it. But at the same time if the record-buying public at large don’t like this then why make records for the record-buying public at large?

Soft Bulletin by Flaming Lips – The record that made me glad to be alive now (rather than in the some imagined golden era in the past)

I’m sure everyone who’s involved in making music occasionally comes to a point where they hit a dead end and the aim of trying to create something new, original or interesting seems futile. Hopefully some record or idea comes along which kicks you out of the mire and gives you a reason to keep at it. At a time when I felt very little connection to new music, a flurry of albums from American weirdos came along and chief among them was The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips. It sounded old and modern, heartfelt and intellectual, ambitious and humble all at the same time. Looking back, it took me a couple of years to get away from making unintended homages to this record but I absolutely needed to go through that process if only to realise that it’s always worth trying to make things a bit better.

Field Music will release a special 500 edition run of white 7″ vinyls to celebrate Record Store Day, featuring the songs ‘Heart’ and ‘Rent’.

Their album Plumb is available now through Memphis Industries and the band will be performing at the following UK dates:

14 April, Independent, Sunderland
07 May, The Black Box, Belfast
04 June, Forbidden Fruit Festival, Dublin
23 June, Transmission 003, Jodrell Bank, Manchester
22 July, Tramlines Festival, Sheffield
04 August, Standon Calling, Hertfordshire
12 August, Wilderness Festival, Oxfordshire
18 August, Green Man Festival, Wales
08 September, Bestival, Isle of Wight
03 October, The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen
04 October, Oran Mor, Glasgow
05 October, The Cockpit, Leeds
06 October, Kazimier, Liverpool
10 October, Cellars, Southampton
11 October, Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
12 October, Slade Rooms, Wolverhampton
13 October, Sumo, Leicester
17 October, Electric Ballroom, London
18 October, The Haunt, Brighton
19 October, Komedia, Bath
20 October, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry

A brand new initiative has been announced today: 7s-Eleven is a fleeting record shop held at and organised by Bloomsbury’s Orange Dot Gallery. Taking place on December 3 the store will be open from 11am to 7pm and aims to bring together some of the most exciting independent labels in the UK.

On sale will be some of the year’s finest releases as well as some special odds and ends that will only be available on the day.

Participating labels include:
Abeano
Cascine
Double Denim
Luv Luv Luv Records
Merok
Moshi Moshi
Pictures Music
Something in Construction
Sounds of Sweet Nothing
Tough Love
Transparent
Tri Angle
Young Turks

Follow the 7s-Eleven tumblr for updates and news.

We chatted to Lanterns on the Lake about the label, we showed you an exclusive Veronica Falls session, we spoke to Zun Zun Egui  about their newly released  album, Katang, we chatted to the lovely Treefight For Sunlight and we were even lucky enough to catch up with Mr John Grant.

To top it all off, Mr Bella Union himself, Simon Raymonde, has offered us a brilliant insight into the inner working of the label, as well as rounding up the year and giving us some thrilling hints of what we can expect from the label in 2012.

To round off the week, we have a brilliant competition for you, offering one lucky winner NOT ONLY a bundle of Bella Union goodies (including T-shirts and CDs), but also a pair of tickets to any three Bella Union UK shows over the next 12 months!

So what do you need to do to win?

Get out your felt tips, HB pencils, watercolours, photoshop… whichever medium allows your creative juices to flow most freely, and create a picture of your favourite Bella Union artist. Once it’s done and you’re thrilled to bits with it,  post it to our Facebook page and you’ll be entered into our draw to win the super Bella Union swag on offer!

There are already some great entries posted on our Facebook page, but the competition is far from finished! As an example of what you could do, here’s a highly accurate representation of one of may favourite Bella Union bands… Just count yourselves lucky I’m not allowed to enter this competition, s’all I’m sayin’…

Chosen medium: Biro       Chosen style: Realism.          Title: Midlake, Mid-Lake

The competition closes at 12 noon on Friday 14 October, so there are less than 24 hours to get your marvellous creations posted!

Good luck!

(Please note that the tickets will only be available for UK shows.)

The past year has seen the release of an astounding number of albums from the Bella Union fold, be those from very well known artists such as Explosions In The Sky or Fleet Foxes, or the debut albums of bands such as I Break Horses and Veronica Falls. Here, The Line of Best Fit takes a look at some of the fresh, new talent to have emerged on Bella Union this year – Bella Union’s ‘Debut’ants.

I Break Horses – Hearts

Photograph by Sébastian Dehesdin

It didn’t take long for I Break Horses to capture our attention here at The Line of Best Fit. The Stockholm based duo, comprising the immense talents of Maria Lindén and Fredrik Balck had us at ‘hej’, and we’ve been completely entranced by them ever since. Their debut album Hearts was released in August and we’ve had it on constant rotation ever since. To find out a little more about the band, have a read of our interview with I Break Horses, and then have a look at the clip below to see exactly what it is that’s made us fall so very deeply in love with them.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Zun Zun Egui – Katang

It’s not often that a band can cite influences ranging from Japanese underground music to african and jazz rhythms, but that’s exactly what Zun Zun Egui keys player and vocalist Yoshino Shigihara stated in our interview with the band, published this week. Colourful, vibrant and massively entertaining, Zun Zun Egui’s debut album Katang (released this week) is a technicolour breath of fresh air from the Bristol based band, who will be making their way around the UK at the end of this month. Absolutely not to be missed.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jonathan Wilson - Gentle Spirit

Jonathan Wilson by Nick Walker

Gentle Spirit actually marks LA based musician/producer Jonathan Wilson‘s second solo album, but it’s his first for Bella Union (which is why we feel we can justifiably shout about him here). His music is a harmonious union of pianos, flutes, guitars and gorgeous vocals. And that’s before we even get onto the richness and integrity of the lyrics. After having conducted many highly scientific tests here at TLOBF HQ, we’ve concluded that it’s absolutely impossible to listen to this record and not become completely engrossed, captivated and touched. Jonathan will be making his way around the UK at the end of the month supporting Wilco, and Gentle Spirit is available to all good homes right now.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cashier No. 9 – To The Death of Fun

We move from LA to Belfast now to catch up with another recent signing to Bella Union, Cashier No. 9. Their album, To The Death of Fun was released in June, capturing the euphoria and energy that so much of their music represents. In their louder moments, the band’s music is full of vigour and intensly rich layering. The quieter moments are delicate and divine, with the combination of the two approaches making for an excellent live show. Cashier No. 9 will be making their way around the UK throughout November, exact dates and places can be found by clicking here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Treefight For Sunlight – Treefight For Sunlight

Treefight For Sunlight have been gifting us tracks packed with epic harmonies, intricate instrumental builds and sumptuous melodies for the best part of the past year. They hail from Copenhagen, and since the release of their eponymous album back in February, have been wooing audiences throughout Europe with their gorgeous tunes. And anyone that’s had the good fortune to catch the band at a festival this summer will concur that their live rendition of  ‘Wuthering Heights’ is a truly, truly magical event. For those unaware of the band, they can currently be found playing dates all over Europe, so do make sure to have a listen to the session that we recorded with them earlier this year. Their

Click here to view the embedded video.

Heidi Spencer and the Rare Birds – Under Streetlight Glow

Heidi Spencer is from a breed of musicians that seem to be all too rare nowadays. She’s a traveller, a creator, a maker, an artist. Many of her songs were written on her wayward travels, sleeping in cars as she made films whilst wandering a around the US. Her music consists of beautiful compositions led by guitars, piano and her gorgeous, sultry vocals.  Under Streetlight Glow was released back in the wintry depths of January, and not too long after she joined us to film the beautiful session below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Veronica Falls – Veronica Falls

If singer Roxanne Clifford’s vocals sound familiar, that might be because her tones are currently doing the radio rounds as the lead vocal on Metronomy’s latest single ‘Everything Goes My Way’. So for those of you that have been sat at home, trying to figure out why that voice sounds so familiar, that could be why. Aside fom helping out Metronomy, some members of Veronica Falls were involved with Glasgow’s Sexy Kids, another with Your Twenties and even more interestingly, bassist Marion Herbain had never even played the instrument before joining the group! (She’s very good now, though). Nowadays, they’re based in London, but can currently be found in the States where they’re supporting The Drums and preparing for the release of their eponymous debut on the 17 October.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thousands – The Sound of Everything

Having been pointed in their direction by Fleet Foxes guitarist Skye Skjelset, Bella Union were quick to snap Thousands up and to go about setting their sumptuous harmonies and delicate guitar work to wax. The Seattle duo, comprising the musical talents of Kristian Garrard and Luke Bergman subsequently released The Sound of Everything in March, which they recorded in a number of weird and wonderful venues across America, be that a barn or a riverside. The result? An album which entices you in and smothers you in comfort, before sending you back on your way feeling much lighter and much wiser than you did before.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lanterns On The Lake – Gracious Tide, Take Me Home

Hailing from the north-east of England, and specialising in a gorgeous brand of heart-breaking, delicate folk, Lanterns on the Lake have already gained a reputation for being creators of beautful music. Combining delicate, intricate melodies, soft tempos and lush vocals, their debut album Gracious Tide, Take Me Home was released in September to rave reviews. And deservedly so. The band are soon to join the legendary Yann Tierson on tour, so click below for a taster of what to expect of their beautiful live show.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to read what Simon Raymonde has to say about the Bella Union family.

As Bella Union week draws to a close here on The Line of Best Fit, we have one last video treat in store in the shape of an interview with Copenhagen’s brilliant Treefight For Sunlight.

Recently over in the UK to play a handful of dates, we managed to grab some time with the band following their impressive show at Dorset’s End of the Road Festival. They were kind enough to treat us and some lucky bystanders to an impromptu version of their track ‘What Became of You and I’ on a rickety piano, tucked comfortably away in the festival’s woods, and chatted to us about their UK label, Bella Union. There’s also mention of Marks and Spencer’s sandwiches being the worst in the world. Intrigued? Watch the video above to find out more.

Over the last week, we’ve been celebrating everything to do with one of our favourite independent labels, London based Bella Union.

We’ve chatted to Lanterns on the Lake about the label, we’ve shown you an exclusive Veronica Falls session, we’ve spoken to Zun Zun Egui  about their newly released  album, Katang and we caught up with John Grant.

To top it all off, Mr Bella Union himself, Simon Raymonde, has offered us a brilliant insight into the inner working of the label, as well as rounding up the year and giving us somethrilling hints of what we can expect from the label in 2012.

To round off the week, we’ve got a brilliant competition for you all, offering one lucky winner NOT ONLY a bundle of Bella Union goodies (including T-shirts and CDs), but also a pair of tickets to any three Bella Union UK shows over the next 12 months!

So what do you need to do to win?

We’ve thought long and hard about this and decided the best way to find a worthy winner is to get you to draw your favourite Bella Union artist, and post it to our Facebook page.

Here’s in an example that I’ve drawn, and frankly – you’re all just lucky that I’m not allowed to enter this competition…

Chosen medium: Biro       Chosen style: Realism.          Title: Midlake, Mid-Lake

Competition closes at 12 noon on Friday 14 October, and please note that the tickets will only be available for UK shows.

Good luck!

Our Broken Garden, the band created by former Efterklang keyboardist/vocalist Anna Bronsted, have released two albums on Bella Union. They’re perfect pop records, for those of us that like our pop to be dark and brooding rather than too light and shimmery. Recent release Golden Sea has, in fact, some wonderfully dark and broody yet shimmeringly spectral lights shining right through it – just in case you were wondering!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some bands take longer than others to gain the recognition they deserve and while it is a mystery to me why bands like Treefight for Sunlight, The Acorn, Our Broken Garden etc. haven’t received wider acclaim to date, I have faith that ALL will in time. One only has to look at John Grant of The Czars who, at the tender age of 42, is showing us all that perseverance DOES pay off! The Czars released three albums on Bella Union that barely registered with an audience, and yet we always knew, believed that with the right record at the right time, singer John Grant could make a CLASSIC record and Queen of Denmark showed what is possible. Even Beach House and Midlake, two of our biggest bands took 2-3 albums to get widespread acclaim.

Our Broken Garden, I believe, will be the next band to deliver on all that promise. Those that witnessed their festival performances this summer will agree with me. The two videos shown here of songs from Golden Sea may have passed you by, so maybe now is a good time for a brief re-appraisal!

Simon Raymonde

Click here to view the embedded video.

The past year has been an extremely busy one for Bella Union, with huge releases coming from some of the label’s most well known artists, as well as the launching of a whole host of stunning debuts. Here, label leader Simon Raymonde glances back over the last 12 months and has a look at the very exciting things in store for the coming year.

“2011 has gone so quickly, it’s hard to believe it’s almost over. A quick re-cap for those of you coming back from a coma or from active duty:

We began the year with a flurry of brand new artists, and the return of The Low Anthem with their marvellous Smart Flesh. Heidi Spencer & The Rare Birds, Thousands (both from USA) and Treefight for Sunlight (from Denmark) are all very different from each other. Heidi Spencer had lived in cars, made experimental films and self-released three albums in her home town of Milwaukee before she came to my attention. I am drawn to her rawness, her honesty as a songwriter and her all-or-nothing delivery as a singer. Heidi doesn’t just sing her songs, she lives them.

Click here to view the embedded video.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Thousands (from Seattle) were recommended to me by their friend Skye Skjelset, the guitarist of Fleet Foxes. The Sound of Everything was recorded in several different public spaces around Washington and Seattle – libraries, stairwells, that kind of thing. It’s a strange and wonderful secret of a record. Secret, because no-one played it on the radio, and barely anyone reviewed it. It goes like that sometimes. Those who DO own it adore it, and their live show – equally quiet and lovely – is a rare treat. Duelling nylon acoustic guitars play with intricate patterns and on top of all this rides Kristian Garrard’s unusual voice, like a young Kurt Wagner.

Click here to view the embedded video.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Treefight for Sunlight’s debut came out in February but this was not a cold, wintry sound. With nods to The Beatles and Beach Boys, Floyd and The Who, this four-piece all sing beautifully and play their pyschedelic sunshine pop with youthful energy. I loved how positive and summery their sound was. It felt like, and it was, a breath of fresh air.

Click here to view the embedded video.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Then Alessi’s Ark, Fleet Foxes, Explosions In The Sky, Vetiver  and latest signings Cashier No. 9 released new albums. Alessi has made a wonderful new record, Time Travel with producer and engineer David Wrench, and confirms all that we have known for 3 years already (and she’s only just 20!) We will let all our artists grow at their own pace and I think that’s important. I see so many artists jettisoned on to the scrap heap even just a few short months after their first record has been released! Sometimes even before.

Click here to view the embedded video.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The return of Explosions In The Sky was celebrated with a truly special launch night at the Royal Observatry in Greenwich where we had a playback of the album Take Care Take Care Take Care inside the Planetarium to a uniquely designed stars & planets show.

Click here to view the embedded video.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Fleet Foxes‘ brilliant second album Helplessness Blues took our breath away and the addition of Morgan (from Blood Brothers) has also given the band extra dimensions live. Of all the shows I saw them play this year, I would say Brighton Dome was my absolute favourite. The venue was of course beautiful, atmospheric, and they filled every crevice of that room with sounds so divine I found myself wiping tears away all night long.

Click here to view the embedded video.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Vetiver‘s The Errant Charm is already my favourite creation of Andy Cabic and his band. Vetiver do certainly suffer with press and radio, because they just write wonderful songs and play them with love, care and attention. That isn’t particularly fashionable these days, and without it having been ‘heralded in a fanfare cos it was recorded in a tent in a snowstorm in Alaska’, great music can sometimes drift past people.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Cashier No. 9, I believe are destined to be a great band, both live and on record and I owe the producer and composer David Holmes a big favour for telling me about them. Holmes has invested a huge amount of love and energy into the Belfast five piece and it shows all over their debut record. I am told it’s not an a-typical Bella Union signing which makes me smile.

Click here to view the embedded video.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The last quarter of the year has been non-stop, as Jonathan Wilson, I Break Horses, Veronica Falls, Lanterns on the Lake and Zun Zun Egui all have debut albums being released.  Much has already been written about some of these in recent days so I won’t labour on, except to say that I don’t recall our roster being this consistently strong before, nor have we ever had so many bands from these fair isles before.

Click here to view the embedded video.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

September saw John Grant finally getting to perform Queen of Denmark with the band he recorded it with, our Texan friends in Midlake and that has to go down as one of the finest shows I have seen at the Royal Festival Hall… or anywhere for that matter. The new songs aired at this and his other recent shows, suggest that the next album, set to be recorded in January 2012 should be something very special.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

2012 will see the return of Beach House, Midlake, Andrew Bird, Peter Broderick and a brilliant new album from Xiu Xiu, as well as a couple of surprises I cannot mention just yet!

A few changes have been made in this last quarter. From September onwards, all Bella Union vinyl albums will come with a free CD too. Then, next year, we’ll be celebrating our 15th anniversary with some very special gigs and unique limited edition releases. The Line of Best Fit will be the first to know exactly what we are planning as soon as we release the info.

Thanks to all of you who continue to support our bands.

Simon Raymonde

 All week, The Line of Best Fit is looking at the life and sounds of Bella Union, so stay tuned for exclusive videos, interviews and a very special competition.

Lanterns on the Lake are one of the newest additions to the Bella Union family, with their beautiful debut album, Gracious Tide, Take Me Home being released just a few weeks ago. Combining gorgeous melodies with delicate vocals, soothing strings and sedate structures, Lanterns on the Lake have succesfully wooed audiences during their live appearances over the summer, and are sure to do the same on their upcoming UK tour, the dates of which can be viewed here.

We caught up with the north-eastern six-piece just ahead of their stunning performance at Dorset’s End of the Road festival to find out  how they came to be signed to Bella Union, and what being a part of the prestigious label means to them.

Simon Raymonde with The Duke Spirit - Photograph by Richard Thane

I am fast-approaching my 50th year on this strange planet of ours and yet I still feel like an excitable child in a sweet shop most of the time. For all the waves of doom and gloom that lap at our shores on a daily basis, desperate to erode what remains of our fragile musical universe, I am still buoyed by the astounding beauty that grows in seemingly, surprisingly fertile soil, and I am a willing tiller. With a very sweet tooth…

I have resisted the temptation to expand the label in the past year or two, not for fear of going too fast nor conversely because we know the industry is in some sort of a decline, simply because I love the intimacy of what we do, and the close relationships we have with our artists. Bella Union operates from a very small office in London, and is a label run by just four of us. Mark, Luke, Anika and I, with Duncan our redoubtable head of press sat close by.

It’s long been my contention that what lets this business down most times is when all the different factions and elements fight against each other. For example with antimatter, when an electron and its antiparticle – the positron – collide, they destroy everything. When management, agent, label and band have separate agendas, chaos is always just one breath away. I have seen it at close hand, as a musician, as an observer, and as label.

Yet when we all work together, incredible things can happen. We use the word fusion in music, to describe occasional hybrid styles coming together but thinking beyond that back to the physics analogy, fusion is a process by which two or more atomic nuclei come together to form one single, more impressive nucleus which is then accompanied by a release of powerful energy. When we work hand-in-hand together in the music business, we can achieve anything. The energy of us all working together can conquer most things.

Bella Union at the Independent Labels Market - Photograph by Paul Bridgewater

Small IS best for Bella Union, though I realise it isn’t necessarily so for other labels. Seth Godin says “Small means you can tell the truth on your blog, and small means that you can answer email from your customers ” and whilst there’s a lot more to running a label than either of those examples, they do sum up my reasons for loving ‘small’ pretty well.

The last few years have been clearly fantastic for Bella Union, the runaway success of the wonderful Fleet Foxes in 2008/2009 no doubt bringing more attention to some of the bands who released records in their wake. I recognise this from my own days in Cocteau Twins and the residual exposure it brought other bands on the 4AD label. While Bella Union has since been flooded by demos from bands who seem to think we would like nothing more than to sign another band who sound awfully just like Fleet Foxes but not as good, we have just gotten on with what we have always done.

So what do we do and why?

We love to discover our own bands. We love the word-of-mouth we are able to build, simply because it is real. We don’t, where possible, go to shows that other A&R go to. We love the remarkable. And mostly we love adorable and nice considerate people,  and that’s not just for the bands, we feel the same way about managers and booking agents. We could work with a ton of great bands but if it doesn’t fit us as people, we wouldn’t go there, no matter how awesome the band were. (Done it and won’t be doing it again!)

We don’t look at numbers or estimate sales, as I believe this is counter-productive and probably a total waste of time. We want to build something long-term for our bands and the way to do that is to get music out to as many places as possible and to generate as much awareness and attention as possible. Most artists we work with appreciate that the biggest issues are not about getting paid, but about getting attention. Once you have people’s attention, only then you can start seeing the model changing into one that has a financial element. That may take a month or three albums and this suits us fine because ultimately, we are in it for the long-haul.

Simon Raymonde

All of this week, The Line of Best Fit is taking a closer look at the work of Bella Union, so keep an eye out for exclusive sessions, interviews and content over the coming days.

Hello, and welcome to the first of a collection of week long features that will take a look at the people bringing us the music that we champion here at The Line of Best Fit – in other words, the good stuff. Over the coming months, we’ll be celebrating some of our favourite independent labels and the incredible music that they’ve brought to us over the past few years, and what better label to begin with than long time friends of the site, and the all round cracking bunch of people that go by the name of Bella Union?

Bella Union was set up by Simon Raymonde and Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins in 1997, with Simon taking full control of the reins in 2000. Since its conception, the label has released the likes of Fleet Foxes, Beach House, Laura Viers, Midlake, The Walkmen, The Low Anthem and most recently, I Break Horses, Lanterns on the Lake and Jonathan Wilson. The label has garnered a reputation for offering its artists creative space, and thus giving them the freedom to produce honest, beautiful music. Here, The Line of Best Fit takes a look at some of the bigger names of the Bella Union family, to remind of ourselves of the wonderful sounds the label has been bringing to us over the past (almost 15!) years.

Make sure to check back this week as we take a closer look at the label’s newer signings, as well as bringing you exclusive interviews, exclusive sessions and exclusive content as we celebrate all things Bella Union.

Dirty Three

The brilliant Dirty Three, (originating from Australia but now to be found living all over the place) were one of the earliest signings to Bella Union and continue to release on the label. Fronted by the artistic powerhouse that is Warren Ellis, the band have an outstanding reputation as not only a great recorded act, but also a live force to behold, and that’s without even mentioning Warren’s outstanding beard!

Whilst on the subject of bearded, outspoken musicians, now would be a perfect moment to mention that Bella Union released the records of Lift To Experience, the band of Josh T Pearson. A big fan of Warren Ellis and Dirty Three, Josh interviewed Warren for The Line of Best Fit a little while back, the very interesting results of which can be read here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

John Grant

Some names have become synonymous with Bella Union, and John Grant is certainly an artist that could be put into that category. The Czars, Grant’s former band were another early signing to the label, joining in 2000 for the release of Before… But Longer. Subsequent albums were also released through Bella Union, until the group decided to go their seperate ways in 2005. Although Grant continued to perform under the moniker of The Czars for a few years, the name was soon put to rest and in 2010, Grant returned with the incredible Queen of Denmark. Keep an eye out on the site this week for an exclusive interview with the man himself. In the meantime, remind yourself of John Grant’s stunning voice and sense of humour by checking out his video for ‘Chicken Bones’.

Click here to view the embedded video.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Midlake

Over to Denton, Texas now where Midlake hail from. The band have a special relationship with Bella Union, having released all three of their records through the label, so that’s 2004′s Bamnan and Slivercork, 2006′s Trails of Van Occupanther and 2010′s The Courage of Others.  Check out a great interview with Midlake speaking to Mr Bella Union, Simon Raymonde, here.

At recent performances in London and Dorset’s End of the Road festival, the band showcased new tracks from their next album and from what we’ve heard so far, it’s safe to say it’s going to be stunner.

Click here to view the embedded video.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Fionn Regan

Fionn Regan of County Wicklow, Ireland released The End of History through Bella Union in 2006, with the album then going on to receive a presitigous Mercury Music Prize nomination. The End of History was produced by Fionn himself, with Simon Raymonde stepping in to help with the mixing – a great example of the approach that Bella Union employ when it comes to helping their artists to achieve their best.

Click here to view the embedded video.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Beach House

Last year’s Teen Dream instantly gained itself cult status thanks to its lush, lush melodies and sumptuous vocals. One of the most revered duos of the past few years, Beach House have found a home in Bella Union, who have released all three of the duos albums in the UK.

Click here to view the embedded video.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Fleet Foxes

If 2011 has belonged to any of the artists on Bella Union’s roster, it’s Fleet Foxes. Since releasing Helplessness Blues through the label back in May of this year, the group have risen from strength to strength, constantly building on the very well established success of 2008′s Fleet Foxes. A superb live band and a thoroughly nice bunch of chaps, Fleet Foxes is a group that typifies what it is that Bella Union are so good at nurturing – wholesome, outstanding music from great people.

Click here to view the embedded video.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Explosions In The Sky

Back to Texas now for a look at another of the Bella Union heavyweights to release an album in 2011, Explosions In The Sky, with Take Care, Take Care, Take Care. Their sixth album, Take Care… cemented the group’s reputation as one of the most powerful post-rock forces out there, and the series of live shows and festival dates that the band played over the summer in support of the release has further proved this.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Keep an eye out for exclusive interviews and sessions over the coming week, as The Line of Best Fit celebrates all things Bella Union.

Check out this great footage of Johan Angergård, owner of Labrador Records, as he talks through the history and future of the label in his Stockholm office. Responsible for launching the careers of The Radio Dept., The Mary Onettes, Suburban Kids With Biblical Names as well as playing in a bunch of the labels roster such as Pallers, Acid House Kings, The Legends and Club 8. Angergård is a true hero of Swedish pop culture; relaxed and informal, the footage here offers a rare glimpse into the inspiration and desire behind the label.

Watch out for the beginning of the clip as he hunts through the Labrador stock room – a place TLOBF had fun rooting through back in April during our visit to Stockholm. Also worth holding out for the moment Angergård starts mimicking Sweden’s 2011 Eurovision entry.

Video courtesy of Photosphere Studio.

Founded in 2008, Captured Tracks is the label and love of Brooklyn based Blank Dogs mastermind Mike Sniper, a man of impressive taste and few words during our brief email exchange. I could be wrong, but from reading back his replies it feels as though Mike doesn’t care much about charming press, courting bands, or fighting lost causes. It really feels that the focus of his label is the music he is releasing, which in all fairness is the most admirably honest way to run a label, and it seems to be working out pretty well for his bands.

Captured Tracks is home to the likes of Beach Fossils, Wild Nothing and Thee Oh Sees with an impressive back catalogue spanning releases from The Bitters and Brilliant Colors to Ganglians and The Wake.

Despite starting the label because, “I hate bands and I heard you can really fuck them over by releasing their music.” Captured Tracks has gone from strength to strength earning respect and listeners alike.

So can you tell me a little bit about how Captured Tracks started? What made you want to start a record label?

I’d already had two labels before, one was a reissue label and the other a label for new music that I ran with a partner. I had varying degrees of success with those. After that I came to know how I’d run a label if I was 100% owner. So one day I decided to do it and I started with a Dum Dum Girls 12″ and Blank Dogs 12″.

Was the label just about putting out your own material at first?

We actually released Dum Dum Girls at the same time as the Blank Dogs 12″. The weird experimental CD-R release we called “Captured Tracks Vol. One” wasn’t really on a label, but I wound up using that name for the label – WEIRD, right? I guess it’s not weird at all…

Has the label now become your main focus over making music?

Regretfully, it probably has.

What makes you want to release a band?

If I like the music, that’s pretty much it. They have to be really good, and write good songs.

What are the most important things you have to remember when running an indie record label? Do you have an overall ethos?

Quality control and preserving the idea that record labels exists to sell records, be it vinyl, CD or digital. We are not a marketing / licensing vehicle and sadly, I think a lot of indies are becoming that.

Would you agree there’s a certain sound to the label?

I guess, in a sense there might be, but I’m not aware of it, really. I suppose it’s my taste that dominates it, although I listen to a broader scope of music than what we release.

As the label’s progressed you’ve been releasing more UK bands (Spectrals, Dignan Porch, Veronica Falls) – do you think your label’s music might be influencing acts overseas?

That would be some reverse influence, since a lot of the more known bands on the label (Wild Nothing, Beach Fossils, Soft Moon…) have very British influences. If it influences English bands in any way, my hope would be on a more real, practical level. I don’t understand why UK bands have managers right off the bat. It really turns off US labels. I’d elaborate on it more, but I’m off topic… It’s a shame as there are some great bands you have over there right now, but the UK music industry seems kind of like this hulking dinosaur with too many mouths to feed and not enough food to go around..

How about Independent Record Stores? What is it about them that is special, and worth championing?

That you can see something interesting, hold it in your hands and play it without knowing a thing about it and fall in love with it. That doesn’t exist in any digital/online capacity. That being said, I’m not for supporting a record store for the sake it’s a record store. There are so many poorly run stores out there.

What’s the best thing about having a record label?

Having an inside perspective on how most labels screw bands over pretty bad.

Captured Tracks have just announced a brand new signing, Virginia’s Hoop Dreams, who will be releasing their their first 7″ in June.

As I step out of Old Street station in the crisp early hours of the morning, last night’s revellers are still stumbling through the streets which find themselves lined with abandoned kebabs. The reason I’m out this early on a Saturday, well it’s Record Store Day of course. Turning the corner of the Old Truman Brewery around 7am, the queue is already around 100 deep and the sense of excitement is palpable. Keeping my ears warm underneath my headphones as the odd obnoxious drunk staggers past, I am suddenly aware that I’m being a bit unsocial. I mean here I am in a queue to buy records from an independent store, with people who I am assuming are as enthusiastic about music as I am, and are certainly as geekily early and I’ve got my headphones on and am engaging in a spot of shoe-gazing!

It’s not long before I’m waxing lyrical about Record Store Day to the lovely folks behind me and we compare our ‘wants’ list for the day: top of my list Kate Bush, top of theirs The Beach Boys. With an inordinate amount of caffeine in my system, the two hours until opening doors disappear in no time. Running about half an hour late, the stampede finally begins around 9:30am and I feel like a kid in a candy store. While eager record collectors search for the items on their hand-written lists, the entire staff are courteous, friendly, cheery and helpful. Cries of “have you got the White Stripes 7 inch” and “are there any Kate Bush vinyl’s around” echo around the room before a single till has rung out, only to be met with a resounding “no, they’re not in store yet” and “I haven’t seen any all morning.”

Despite the inevitably delayed, missing and extremely rare releases it doesn’t take long until I’ve accumulated more than I could have hoped for and I soon find myself in a queue for the cash register. A new queue brings with it the same folks from outside, who have also managed to tick everything they possibly can off their checklist. Having given Rough Trade a miss last year in favour of Berwick Street, I wasn’t really sure how things this morning compared to Record Store Day 2010. Within 15/20 minutes we’re at the till and by this point pretty much everyone around me is in agreement that today has been a more enjoyable experience: a lot more organised, less riotous and much less stressful. With some very limited releases on the shelves there is still definitely an element of “to the victor go the spoils” in the air, but for the most part there is a real spirit of camaraderie.

My newfound friends invite me to join them for breakfast after our respective vinyl splurges. This, amongst many other things, is why I love independent record stores: I got chatting to some strangers in the queue behind me and less than three hours later I find myself with a bag full of vinyl getting to know these like-minded people over a Full English and a coffee. Perfect.

Heading back inside for the first in-store of the day, Chilly Gonzales’ set is already in full swing. Weaving my way through racks of records to the front, Canadian born artist Jason Charles Beck can be seen leaning over his piano keys, feverishly creating infectious and witty numbers. “I love playing somewhere that you can hear the cash registers ring out over the top of the music. I love that people want to buy records” he yells before announcing his next orchestral hip-hop number.

Put simply, Chilly Gonzales’ recital is amazing. He jokes about his recent commercial jingle, yelling “Chilly Gonzales is the mother-fucking iPad, you got it?!” before creating ‘Never Stop’ on the Mac tablet. The beats splutter along as he quips “oh shit, Gonzales is a fucking DJ…bring it back…or [cue awkward skipping] make it more skippy, you know whatever.” He finishes the song off with a generated trombone solo and shouts “artistic expression rules!”

He spends the second half the set taking songs from the records that people are purchasing, which results in a great, one-song rock ‘n’ roll medly of ‘I Love Rock N Roll’, ‘Tainted Love’ and ‘Come As You Are’, a rendition of Beastie Boys ‘Sabotage’ and a hilarious country version of Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ after a mis-understanding over Josh T. Pearson’s ‘Country Dumb.’ But the thing to remember is that for all his comedic bravado, Gonzales is an incredibly talented pianist, MC and musician.

Before long it’s Gaggle turn on the microphone or more accurately microphones, plural. The impressive 20-piece female choir all crowd onto the small stage at the back of the store. Led by the classically trained Deborah Coughlin and cloaked in colourful robes, the Transgressive signed group sing about alcohol, cigarettes and love. Abrasive, sonorous and overwhelming from the start – Gaggle completely blow the stereotype of choirs being a dull, fancy and serious thing out of the water; but for the most part I don’t really enjoy their performance. The underlying beats whilst compelling are complimented only by clichéd, slightly chavy lyrics about getting pissed, being thin and fighting over men.

After a few more hours of rummaging around for limited editions, chatting to staff and an expedition to get burgers we return for Wild Beasts. By the time we get back inside, the band are already on stage and you can barely move, let alone get down the front. With soft sweeping vocals and delicate guitars, the four-piece play a beautiful acoustic set, including a hushed rendition of forthcoming single (and today’s limited edition vinyl release) ‘Albatross.’ Filtering forth from the speaker stacks over the vinyl racks the band finish on a beautiful version of  ‘Invisible.’

As the store begins to empty out and all that is left on the shelves are over priced Vaccines records I think we can safely say that Record Store Day has been a great day for music lovers, independent record stores and musicians.

All photographs by Anika Motterhsaw

With the dust on Record Store Day settling and the new purchases sitting pride of place on your shelves (and in some cases eBay, but the less said about that the better) it seems the perfect time to take a look back over the past few days of coverage. We’ve given you insightful interviews with some of the key players in Record Store Day 2011 – from Spencer Hickman of Rough Trade to Huw Stephens of Radio 1, each contributor giving their own personal take on what Record Store Day (and indeed records) means to them.

However, it would be rather short sighted to have a week long feature on Record Store Day without taking a look outside of the romanticism and media brouhaha that surrounds it. Here, Charlie Jones – editor of esteemed online magazine Dummy – takes an alternate look at Record Store Day and suggests that there’s more to life (and music) than record shops.

Yesterday, when I was supposed to be researching this piece, someone sent me a clip of a toddler dancing to Waka Flocka Flame [below]. I rinsed it as you can only do with YouTubes when you have an article to write, but for once, it wasn’t a complete distraction. Because this piece is about Record Store Day, and why we should – among all the rush-buying novelty 7″s – remember how awesome music is as an ecological whole, and how little that has to do with the purchase of physical objects from bricks and mortar stores.

First things first – I’m afraid that this won’t be a trolling piece along the lines of Rick Martin’s astoundingly unconsidered NME blog. Record stores are beautiful places that form and develop local music. They should exist. Records should exist. But the idea of a day to save record shops falls on two pretty weird ideas: first, that purchasing a physical object from an independent shop is the most authentic way of being into music, and second that record stores need saving.

Record Shop Day started in 2007 as an SOS says, and though today it’s more of a celebration than a last resort, it plays into that 00′s idea of the music industry as so interminably fucked that something would have to be organised. It’s not. Despite a heartbreaking number of record shops having had to put up “Everything must go” signs (what must it feel like to write that about your own shop?), a few continue to do brisk busines. Some new ones have even opened. Shops like Mexican Summer in New York, Clone in Rotterdam, Phonica, Sounds of the Universe and Honest Jon’s in London are not relics of the past hanging on through the goodwill of an annual day, but progressive, fascinating institutions, each playing a vital part in shifting music in their city and beyond. Moreover, they are businesses that have adapted to a changing marketplace by keeping their heads down and flogging stuff to people who want it.

And while I love these shops and am always chuffed to hear about one doing well, we make a mistake when we think that we have a moral obligation to shop there. Not that you’re going to get off lightly round here if all you do is Mediafire albums – if you don’t consider a pop album the single most perfect cultural invention in human history, and the endlessly profound experience of listening to one worth the price of a Wagamamma lunch, we’re not going to have a great deal in common. But your obligation is to the musicians who made the music, and the labels who put their time and money getting it paid for and talked about, not to the people who work behind the till at the places where this music is sold. Not to say for one second that they aren’t important or deserve to exist, just that we should not confuse what is a retail business with the experience of music. There have been countless fluff pieces written about going to the local shop on the bus, pocket-money fivers in hand, and coming out with a sparkling record that changed the writer’s life. But record shops are not charities, and do not deserve ours – nothing can exist on sentimentality alone, still less a business.

This year, physical music has finally shifted from a mass-market commodity to a folk object. People expected that by now records would either be obsolete or luxury items – instead they’ve used online hype to turn what once seemed like music into merch. Records are not bought to be heard, not anymore, but to be bought. Which I’m 100 per cent down with – a 12” is an exquisite object, and putting some more effort into the artwork or whatever to make them even more desirable is a pretty cool example of recessionomics at work. But let’s not slag off those who are happy with MP3s because they aren’t quite as obedient commodity fetishists as us.

Record Store Day – and the in-no-way-cynical bandwagoning of it by so many labels – has capitalised on this by creating a huge number, 250-odd, of objects to covet. From the View cover themesong [below] to the reams of canonical reissues, it’s got more than a whiff of rockism. But if the ideology is locked in the 1980s, the business idea is totally 2010s – involved shops and the companies who supply them have artificially induced a demand by keeping stocks low and not releasing the files online, at the same time creating enough of a media storm that every music magazine reports on what seems like a movement. It’s a brilliant idea, but not a romantic one.

I Need That Record by The View

In most of these pieces is a side-swipe at the MP3. While there’s been a lot of very well written and thought out articles, there’s always an implication of hierarchy, with buying from a bricks-and-mortar store the highest form of fandom. Personally, I think there’s something rather magical about being able to click on Boomkat and receive a simple string of code that tells your computer to do something life-changing, but that’s beside the point. It’s cruel to call someone out for how they get their music, where it’s through Bluetooth or Rough Trade. It’s also rather ludicrous.

Let’s realise what a radically exciting world the ability to enjoy and exchange almost any music in any place at any time has created. Music exists not as a square shop but in a rainforest of sound – from Youtube clips to vinyl purchases to to Gmail attachments to Soundcloud links to radio rips to live events, all mutually enforcing, self-creating. Just this week, I read that one of the most exciting new hip hop producers in the world, Clams Casino, used to select samples by typing in “Blue” or “Cold” into Limewire and downloading the first ten hits, grabbed a set of tracks Saharan traders would swap over their Bluetooth cellphones, listened to Christina Milian’s astounding, still unreleased Chameleon on a rip for the 300th time and watched a three year old bounce around to Waka Flocka Flame. These things are exciting, and have nothing to do with whether or not you shop on or offline.

Music is not a record, nor a song sheet, nor a file. It’s the vibrations in the air worth giving your life to, and its appreciation cannot be tied up with its method of purchase.

Article originally published on Dummy, 15 April 2011.

So here we are, Record Store Day is finally upon us. As I type these words I’m sure there are hundreds, if not thousands of people across the UK queuing up outside their favourite independent shop, fantasising about getting their hands on at least one extra special release – if they haven’t gone and got their enthusiastic mitts on it already!

One of those extra special releases today is a Hercules and Love Affair 7” being released by the venerable duo responsible for Moshi Moshi. Having started out as a hobby for three friends in 1998, Stephen Bass and Michael McClatchey took their label “pro” in 2003. Since then it’s gone on to become one of the most successful independent record labels around, having even facilitated the launch of three imprint labels – Tender Age, Dream Beach and Not Even.

Last week, Michael was kind enough to take 20 minutes out his day to have a chat to TLOBF about 7” records, Our Price and one particularly ridiculous vinyl in his own collection.

So how did everything start for Moshi Moshi as a label, before it became more than just a hobby?

Well I started it with Stephen, who I still work with, and another fella called Adrian. We all worked for different record labels at the time, Stephen was doing A&R for Go! Discs, which was PolyGram affiliated and I was at Beggars. Anyway, the three of us were friends and we got together for our first release in 1998. [It was a 7” single by American duo Sukpatch entitled ‘Hey Jolie.’] Stephen was always bringing in stuff to Go! Discs that he wasn’t allowed to sign, or that didn’t really work for them as a label so we decided to have a go at putting some stuff out ourselves. And that was it really; it was a hobby as you say, a chance for Stephen to work with bands that he wasn’t allowed to with his day job. It was never really intended to be anything more than that.

So how did it become more than that?

Well, we did it for about 5 years in our spare time and we put out hardly any records, I mean we must have been averaging about two 7 inches a year. Then around 2003 we reached a bit of a weird crossroads. I was working at Beggars full time and I was actually thinking about stopping doing Moshi because we had just got to this point where we felt like “well we’ve done as much as we can with this.” And then I got made redundant from Beggars, and thought well rather than try and find another job maybe the thing to do is make a proper go of Moshi: see what we can do with having someone working on it full time.

So I did, I slummed it for a couple of years and that coincided fortuitously with a couple of big releases for us with the Bloc Party single and the Hot Chip album and that just sort of kicked everything off really. It just grew from there.

What role have independent record stores played in the running of Moshi Moshi and in gaining support for your artists?

Well, we rely on them quite heavily as a promotional outlet. Actually when I was in A&R I used to go to Rough Trade West all the time and they would tell me what I should maybe listen to that hadn’t got a proper deal you know. [Laughs] Well they did my job for me basically!

I think the key is that the staff have an expert knowledge and they stock our releases, so they help us no end in that respect. I guess a lot of stuff we put out does have a specialist market and they’re the kind of people that will go into an independent record store to buy their music.

How important are physical releases to you as a music fan and as an independent record label?

They’re still the most important, or the biggest format for us in terms of sales. That is changing year on year; the digital sales are going up and the physical sales are going down. And you know, I think at some point we might even have to stop doing vinyl, as much as it pains me to say that because I mean we started off as a seven inch label and I would just hate to stop doing it.

Old vs. New. Moshi Moshi’s first release – a ‘Hey Jolie’ 7″ by Sukpatch sits alongside their newest; Beer In The Breakers by The Wave Pictures

That would only be for financial reasons, not because you feel they’re an irrelevant format?

Yeah. They cost more to make than they used to and they cost more, respectively, to buy than they used to. But it’s weird, people still do like having physical releases, especially bands. They want everything released on a 7” and you know most of them don’t even have record players so yeah vinyl has this weird emotional attachment.

What do you think it is about vinyl in particular that garners such attachment?

It’s something tangible I guess from the band’s perspective, you know it’s something that they can hold onto and say: “this is my record.” It’s that they have something physical to show for their endeavours, to show off to their friends, you know its not as impressive waving an mp3 around in the pub.

How would you even do that anyway?!

Well exactly!

If you value music I guess, and you have that weird nerdy attachment to it or are maybe borderline obsessive about it, then I think it matters to you to have something like a physical format, especially vinyl, that you can treasure because it can give some substance to your passion.

I think there will always be a market for vinyl, I don’t know about CDs, I don’t think there is the same resonance but there will always be some people who want vinyl. I mean there are companies that specialise in doing very limited, very expensive and very special vinyl releases now. It might even be the case that things head in the opposite direction of the way the market is right now and sees people making fewer products and charging more for them. You know adding more value to the music rather than devaluing it.

So with all this chat of vinyl I have to ask, what do you think of Mercury’s recent announcement?

I think it’s inevitable really. I think they will be the first of many. Yes I read that NME article the other week and I did get a little grumpy about it because you know, we like this day to day. We love doing vinyl releases and 7” but may well end up going the same way as Mercury. It would never be through choice, it would be through what we’re being forced to do to survive.

I’m guessing that it’s only going to get worse to be honest, because there is generation of music fans growing up now who don’t know anything other than mp3s and they probably have a different mindset when it comes to consuming music. They don’t feel the need to have a physical product. It’ll soon be the same for everything, it will be like having a DVD collection or a library or any of those things, I just think people will be more comfortable with not having physical versions of things, where as it still feels a little alien to my generation.

What other Record Stores do you find yourself going to in London other than Rough Trade?

Well I always very fond of Pure Groove, especially when it was up on Holloway Road. I think it was a real shame that it closed but I always though they were in a better location where they were in Holloway Road before they moved. They were there for years and it always felt like when they went to Farringdon they moved away from their customer base. I mean you had to make a special effort to go there and of course there are always people who will do that, but I think most people just didn’t. They always did very well out of mail order, I wonder if they still do.

Speaking of mail order, what do you think about the limitations of Record Store Day and it’s exclusion of online stores? I mean Pure Groove is just online now so it can’t officially take part.

I don’t see why it shouldn’t be included. If it’s selling a physical product and it’s selling the same sort of stock then it will retain a lot of the personality it had when it was a proper shop because it’s the same people doing it. I’m sure mail order is a massive part of Rough Trade’s output as well. I mean that is a really great thing, a good example of how you can use new technology to enhance what you do rather than it being to the detriment of your business model.

Did independent record stores impact your life at an early age?

I used to be quite an obsessive record collector. I was a massive Jesus and Mary Chain fan. I used to spend a fortune on their records – you know the most ridiculous, pointless releases. They had this Riot EP which was a 7” recording of a riot that took place at one of their gigs. It came with a piece of Bobby Gillespie’s clothing, [the whole office laughs], an ‘LSD’ bar of chocolate which was just a milky bar in a different wrapper, a letter form the guy who ran the record label and a syringe that came with “heroine sucks” written on the side of it. I got that in the post and my syringe had been smashed in transit and I can clearly remember walking down the stairs and going to my mum, “my syringe got smashed in the post!” and then kind of going, “oh shit, I shouldn’t have said that.” Of course she questioned “why are you getting syringes in the post?!”

But yeah I used to go to Record Fairs and buy Record Collector. Then when I left university and went back to my hometown, Crawley in Sussex, I got a job in Our Price to save up money to go travelling. And I loved it, I think it was the best job I have ever had…I wish I could go back to that! I mean Our Price was then a weird hybrid of an independent store. It was very much of it’s time – you could play and stock whatever you wanted in store, the music wasn’t piped through from HQ somewhere you could play whatever you wanted on the stereo. It had its own personality, and the personality of the staff was reflected in what was played, and what was sold.

It was working there that really made me want to work in music properly. So when I got back from travelling I went straight back to work in Our Price and became a manager, and from there I got a job at a record label. It will be a real shame if that breeding ground doesn’t exist anymore.

The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Riot EP. Broken syringe not pictured.

Do you think it’s those kind of personal touches that keep people going back?

Yeah absolutely otherwise why would you bother really? It’s very much about the people that work there I think, being able to have that personal interaction with someone whose knowledgeable about music and hopefully has the same passion as you do. I mean in a way it’s just as much of a social thing as a commercial activity and that is probably why places like Rough Trade sell coffee and have lots of in-stores.

Do you think independent stores play an important role in building or maintaining a local music scene?

Of course, if nothing else it is becoming more of a community, a social space. I mean certainly when I was growing up if you had an independent record shop in your town it was the best thing ever really. When I was younger we didn’t have one in our town and that was at the height of my record store buying obsession so I walways used to have to drive to nearby towns. I was always deeply jealous of those places, and the passionate musical community that sort of store encouraged.

How important do you think Record Store Day is?

I think it’s a brilliant idea. I think anything that draws attention to the fact that these places exist and what they do is a good thing. And you know I’d be surprised if there were any independent record labels who weren’t being supportive and trying to be involved in someway. We certainly always want to do stuff for Record Store Day.

Do you think it’s at risk of becoming too big?

Actually in a way I think it could have been more inflated this year. I guess last year they had the benefit of Blur being the flag carrier which helped enormously I’m sure.

Have you got any exclusive records coming out for the day itself?

We have a special Hercules and Love Affair 7” coming out that featured ‘Painted Eyes’ and a cover of The XX’s track ‘Shelter.’ We’ve got a special edition Wave Pictures album that we’ve made up a bonus disc for and got them to sign 300 copies. We wanted desperately to get a vinyl version of the Slow Club album into stores but unfortunately we weren’t able to get it finished in time.

Are you taking part in The Independent Label Market in May?

Yep, we will be down there with a cardboard box full of sevens.

Have you got anything special planned for that?

No, not really. Are we supposed to?

Haha, I don’t know! I just know some releases that were initially aimed at a Record Store Day but weren’t finished in time are going to be brought out for that.

Well that would probably be a good idea wouldn’t it!? God we’re probably going to be massively upstaged as everyone else turns up with bunting and exclusive stuff. I might rope some of our bands to help me out. Maybe get myself a sheep skin coat, a flat cap and sell records from my suitcase whilst keeping a look out for the police!

David Laurie started his life in the music industry as the A&R for Nude Records, thus responsible for the careers of Suede, Ultrasound and Geneva to name just a few. Launching Something In Construction in the early noughties alongside his career as a succesful radio plugger, Laurie has gone on to sign countless amounts of incredible artists. From Loney Dear to Memory Tapes, Air France to The Concretes and most recently ANR and A Lull – needless to say, the man hath taste. A long-time supporter and friend to TLOBF, we asked him to tell us just exactly what his record collection means to him.

I have a problem. I am a pathetic addict. I can’t walk past a record shop without wanting to go in and get inspired. Luckily they are making record shops extinct so my habit is easier to manage these days. It certainly won’t be a problem my kids have.

The modern instanet is a miracle. If I fancy hearing a Sparks song, mentioned by someone I was just talking to in America, it’s only a click away. This happened yesterday. It happens to me pretty much everyday. Amazing, really.

And very efficient. Very clean. And, frankly, if y’all are strapped for cash (ie. young), it’s pretty much free. Again, amazing. If we’d had the internet first, there would doubtless have been no need for records.

But that was not how it went down. And that is a good thing because records are art. The music is the main part of the art, of course. But the packaging, the presentation, is very much part of the art. It develops, enhances and informs the music. It lures the listener in, provokes curiosity and interest. It is informed by the music. It strengthens the relationship between the artist and the listener. It makes fans of listeners. And this extra appreciation and understanding of the music, and the musician is amazing. It’s a connection. A one-way connection but, done well, it’s a profound one.

I run a label so, I would say that. But it’s my love of music, of art and yes, of records that inspired me to do this job. That and an insatiable wish to be proved right.

It lifts the process from buying music to buying into it. And with something as magical and transformative as music, why would you not want to buy into it? I could download the entire Sparks discography off a torrent. It wouldn’t take long. But would that immerse me in Sparks’ world better than buying an album at a time. I don’t think so. Buying a record from a shop marks a time and date in your life and is the result of a thought process, your mood, your life situation and the world around you. The investment again enhances the experience. The OMD single (‘Souvenir’ – geddit) that I bought in Paris on a school trip when I was 14, the Nirvana album I was so so so excited to buy, the Cure albums a girlfriend bought me, the Pixies single my mum actually liked, the Joy Division box set that I really couldn’t afford at the time, the surprise Radiohead 12” panic buying, the Subtle album I was previously unaware of that I got in Oxfam in Farnham last weekend. The summer of 1983 that I bought a David Bowie album every Saturday with my paper round money. I strongly recommend this Bowie/weekly idea to all of you by the way. Bowie = God.

So maybe the connection is not so one way. These links are part of the process and they are not efficient and clean. They are human, emotional and way way better, deeper and stronger than they are efficient.

Flicking through records. If I get a bit down, that is what cheers me up. In record shops, at friends’ houses and of course, on my own bespoke, gorgeous, nerdy, shelves. This simple pleasure has won me friends, started relationships, ended some too, and broadened my horizons more than books and films and anything else. Record collections and record shops are like brains. And flicking through the racks and shelves is like a thought process. Synapses link up and all of sudden you are considering Thai psyche music from the late 60s or Big Youth or realising that The Besnard Lakes are amazing, or discovering that someone actually likes Maroon 5 and should probably be cut from your social circle.

Scrolling through files on a hard drive is absolutely not the same experience, it is uninspiring and clean to the point of soulless. That hard drive makes for a piss-poor heirloom and it doesn’t cheer me up on a rainy day.

Without his job working at Beggars Banquet Records in London, Simon Raymonde may never have joined the Cocteau Twins, and after they split he and Robin Guthrie would never have been left with a beautiful space that they thought “may as well be used for something.” A ‘something’ that eventually became Bella Union Records.

So Bella Union started as a means for you to release  Cocteau Twins records away from your original home of 4AD, but what made you continue the record label after the band split?

I suppose because I didn’t really know what else to do initially.

We had moved into Pete Townsend’s recording studio in the early 90s, it was a beautiful, fancy-pants riverside place in Richmond. We loved being there but then the band broke up and we were like “oh shit, well we’ve got this beautiful studio so we may as well use it for something.” So we made a lot of the early Bella Union records there for free. It was the perfect place to run a record label from, I would never have been able to sign bands like The Czars if I had not been able to bring them over from Denver and make their records with them. It all made perfect sense until the studio went bust and we lost all the gear we had acquired over the past 16 years. It was kind of heart breaking but also, you know, pretty humbling. I had to think on my feet, I put my head down and just carried on with the label and now we’re here and it’s like really weird.

How has the label grown and changed since those early days?

It’s hard to believe we’re still here today to be honest because of the traumas and dramas we have been through, most of which have been of a financial nature. Running a label is not a cheap business, as I’m sure you know, it’s a cash out business. You have got to spend a lot of money before you ever see any back, and even then you only may see it back. It’s a gambling business, and quite how we’ve managed to get it right more than wrong I can’t really tell. It is just a lot of luck really. Well, I mean I know I’ve got good ears and I’m not being big headed.

John Grant – I Wanna Go To Marz by Bella Union

You’re roster is kind of a testament to that.

Well yeah, I hope so.

The music industry has changed a lot in recent years. How do you think this has affected you as an independent record label?

There have been plenty of times when I have really thought there is no point carrying on with this, no one buys records anymore. I mean you go down that road in your mind quite often when things aren’t going very well, and there have been plenty of periods in the last few years when things haven’t gone well: distributors have gone bust on us, our licensing partners have gone bust and we’ve been left owing hundreds of thousands of pounds. I mean what do you do when you’ve already spent the money that is owed to you? It’s pretty hard to recover from that kind of thing and it has seen a lot of labels go under over the years.

What makes you keep going?

I think in my case it is probably just my own bloody mindedness, I’m not one for giving up. Also because I’ve been really lucky, I have got a lot of nice friends in the business who want to work with me.

We just love it, there is nothing better. I don’t think there is an art medium that makes people feel as awesome as listening to music does. I mean it can actually make you cry, make you feel things that other art forms can’t, it can take you out of yourself, get you through difficult times and it’s so tied up with memories. In every waking moment I am thinking about music is some form or other and I really can’t imagine doing anything else.

How important are physical releases to you as an Independent Record Label? Do you think it’s important to have a tangible testament to your releases?

Yeah, absolutely! Vinyl is the first thing we talk about when it comes to releasing an album, EP or 7” single and all our records come with free digital downloads. Vinyl and physical records are really, really important, and the only way I think we’re going to save the physical industry of music is to change people’s attitude. I was talking to someone the other day about how we sit at home and expect our TV’s to get bigger and bigger, and better and better with more pixels, HD, 3D but we just sit around watching our audio things get smaller and smaller, and shitter and shitter [he says laughing at TLOBF's  little digital dictaphone]. We have to change something; we need people to believe that their audio systems should get bigger and better, not smaller and worse. And I think that problem is down to the industry: the majors and the corporates who we always used to look to for change don’t seem motivated to make changes anymore, and I think we’re going to have to start doing it ourselves.

It’s difficult of course; if you’re a teenager and you haven’t got a credit card then what are you supposed to do? You can’t go out and buy CDs because they’re too expensive so I totally get why people end up downloading for free. I mean, you can’t really deny it, people are going to download stuff for free but I bought my son a record player and a few records and now his room is just full of vinyl. I think maybe it’ll take another 20 years but people are getting more into vinyl, realising that it is better, not just like “oh my parents listen to that, why would I ever want to listen to vinyl?”

Josh T Pearson

Where did you shop for records growing up? Any particular fond memories of local independent stores?

My whole life I was brought up in record shops. When I was a teenager I would go down to the local record shop and buy my little 7”…  Punk happened when I was 15, so vinyl was so important in my life and probably always will be because I know how good it sounds. I still listen to vinyl everyday and I can’t imagine why anybody would want to listen to music on their computer over listening to music on vinyl but you know I am very old fashioned that way. I do of course listen to music on my computer but you know, given the choice I wouldn’t because it doesn’t sound even half as good.

What do independent record stores mean to you?

Well I mean that is where it all starts really isn’t it? I come from that background anyway. I mean my first ever job, my only ever job was in a record shop.

Where did you work?

I worked at Beggars Banquet Records in Earls Court. It was the best one because all the record labels were upstairs – 4AD, Beggars and Situation 2. I was in a band on Situation 2 and working at Beggars was how I met all the 4AD people, and how I met Robin and Liz from the Cocteau Twins. They were fans of my band and I theirs, I actually took a cassette of their first album off them to give to the record label. It was the best shop to work in, it was absolutely brilliant.

Obviously this was way before CDs or anything like that so it was all vinyl, punk and reggae was all we sold really. It was tiny, like half the size of my office now. There was just two of us working there and all the label people would walk through the store to get to their offices so they were really incredible days. I was there for about 2 years before the shop closed.

How do they impact what you do as an independent label?

Independent record stores are vital for us as a label because the major retailers don’t really stock our stuff on vinyl as standard. There is something really special about the brand of Rough Trade too, its something ever so powerful. You know the Rough Trade Album Club is hugely important to labels. If they get behind one of your releases then that can be responsible for propelling even little bands into a greater sphere of consciousness. They are amazing; they have become a lot more than just a record shop.

I rely on people like Nigel House a lot for my tips because you know you can’t find out everything yourself. Lanterns On The Lake is the perfect example of how invaluable stores like Rough Trade can be to us as a label. Before they were even signed, well I mean obviously I’ve signed them now but before there was even a visible buzz surround them the guys at Rough Trade lead me to appreciate the vibe surrounding them. Just chatting to them they mentioned “everytime we order their EP it just sells out” and so I started investigating and it so happens that they are now on Bella Union. Their inside information is incredible.

Lanterns on the Lake – Lungs Quicken by Bella Union

Obviously a lot of music that is bought by the public nowadays is from online sources but what is it about independent record stores that is special and worth championing?

The reason Rough Trade has been going as long as it has and is pretty much packed out every day is because they know their shit; you go in there because you want to buy into their knowledge and the whole experience of shopping is a pleasurable one. Whereas if I went into HMV or Virgin any time in the last 20 years I wouldn’t come home and be like “hey I had a great time at Virgin today” I’d come home and be like “fuck I couldn’t find anything, the people were really rude, I didn’t know where to go and I just forgot what I wanted when I went in there – I just got completely bamboozalled and then left with a DVD!”

Knowledge is so important as well. When I grew up working in the record store, if a customer came into the shop I would go over and say hello, talk to them about their musical taste and they would become regulars and come back every week because they would learn to trust your recommendations. I’m sure this happens maybe less so now but I know in Rough Trade it still does, I could talk to those guys all day about music.

I just pray to God that somebody is going to say to Nigel House and Pete Donne who run Rough Trade one day that they would like to open up a store in every city across the country. It’s just such a brilliant experience going into Rough Trade, as it is going into a lot of smaller independent record shops. I don’t have as much experience with all the ones up and down the country but I know they are all really important.

Beach House

Do you think the music community feels losses like Pure Groove?

Pure Groove was definitely a bit of a bummer, they tried to do something completely different. It was a really brilliant idea but I guess it is tricky trying to turn a profit when there is so much malaise about physical product. It is very easy to get blasé about things like that though and just see a store closure as another blip.

What role do you think Record Store Day plays in supporting stores and highlighting maybe the problems faced by independent stores?

It’s so important and it’s just been getting bigger and bigger, year on year. Rough Trade took in something ridiculous last year, which is just fantastic, the thought that you can’t get inside a shop that sells vinyl is wonderful. It is so heartening to hear that so many people love the day and are motivated to go and buy records, it can’t just be to own the stuff, people love the whole thing.

But I mean some people in high-ranking positions at major labels don’t even know what Record Store Day is. Maybe I shouldn’t be so shocked, I mean what possible interest have they got in it? It doesn’t feel like a label thing at all, it’s led by the stores and the bands who want to be involved, its not being shoved upon us by “the industry” it feels more real and organic.

Another thing I’m excited about is The Independent Label Market that is taking place in May on Berwick St and all the bosses of the labels are going to don a black cap and man a market stall to sell vinyl hand to hand. The more of these kind of things the better, because it gets people excited about buying music again.

Have you got any exciting exclusive records coming out for Record Store day on the 16 April?

Now we did have quite a few but unfortunately a lot of them have fallen by the way side. We do have a 12” Fleet Foxes record coming out featuring a couple of tracks from their forthcoming album Helplessness Blue, so I think that will be quite successful. We did have Treefight For Sunlight doing a ‘Wuthering Heights’ cover  due out on 7” but unfortunately EMI put a stop to that at the last minute because apparently Kate Bush doesn’t approve of covers. Of course we didn’t know that until the band had gone and recorded it, mixed it, mastered it and it was at the pressing plant.

We are doing this thing called a ‘Play Button’, which is very cool. It’s like a badge that will have a picture of an album sleeve on front of it and it will actually contain an entire album’s worth of audio inside it. I mean it’s not vinyl but it’s not a download and it’s fun.

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues by Bella Union

What are you planning on doing on Record Store Day?

I’ll be down at Rough Trade, I’ll try and get there really early. Caribou have got a 12″ coming out and I want to get hold of some Captured Tracks releases, like the Beach Fossils/Wild Nothing 7″ in which they cover an 80s punk outfit called The Wake so yeah I’ll be down there with my credit card out.

Elbows at the ready?!

Well yeah, if it is anything like last year I will need to camp out the night before. It would be really cool if they had like a midnight opening, I love stuff like that.

Explosions In The Sky – Trembling Hands by Bella Union

www.bellaunion.com
www.facebook.com/bellaunion
www.twitter.com/bellaunion
www.soundcloud.com/bella-union

As Record Store Day becomes a bigger and bigger event, it’s perhaps worth noting that Rhythm Online have been snubbed from participating: they don’t have a physical shop and therefore don’t count. This is very short sighted. If Record Store Day was to champion something, it should be to help promote the independent, DIY sellers who are struggling to make an impact in this global marketplace, regardless of appearance. Popping to their home in Catherine Street to pick up my records I get treated to tea, cake, musical discussions and a chance to play with their cat. I don’t remember getting the chance to do that in any other record shops…

So, with RSD in full swing I thought it was time to celebrate the only option us Cambridge residents have to embrace independent record shops and to chat to Nick and Jude about Rhythm, how it all came together, what the future holds and why RSD might want to broaden its criteria. Visit www.rhythmonline.co.uk to get involved.

So how did it all start?

Nick: Well it started in 1984 as a record stall with Jeff Barrett who I used to work with in HMV. We set it up and spent about a year doing markets in the West Country including Plymouth and St. Austell and various others in the Summer markets. I did one Winter on my own when Jeff went to run a record shop with someone else and that was enough!

So then I decided to turn our stall into a catalogue as people would see the stall and like the combination of the music we were selling. This became a catalogue that was typed up every month and advertised in the classified section of the NME.

Jude: Typed up by hand!

Nick: Yes, this was prior to having a PC! It then gradually expanded and got bigger as the independent music scene grew in the 80’s and we always had customers from all over the world who’d buy stuff from us and also sell their own records. So we traded with people as well. I had one person turn up from Japan one morning expecting to find a big record shop, knocked on my door and asked if I’d sell his record for him! So we’ve always had an international basis for what we do and it seemed to attract enough interest to make a catalogue each month and gave people something interesting to browse through. Generally it was stuff they couldn’t find in their local record shops.

Do you think you’ve specialised in featuring music that isn’t readily available in usual outlets?

Nick: Well, we did then…

But you’re a lot broader now?

Nick: I think music has broadened out and the availability of music is much greater.

Jude: There was perhaps a clearer definition then of what an independent label was, do you think?

Nick: Yeah, it was very strictly independent, definitely something you couldn’t find in HMV.

So if it was on an independent label, you sold it? You didn’t sell anything that was major label?

Nick: Yes, though we do now. And I think in the 80’s and early 90’s, before the major labels cottoned on, they had a niche of their own. People would buy stuff from an independent label because it was more interesting than the stuff the major labels were putting out. Then, in the 90’s, someone like Sony would set up an “independent” label that they owned that was, basically, pseudo-independent, to try and capitalise on this.

I also think that there was a very strong “brand culture” around these labels, and you knew what you were going to get. You bought something from Mute, you knew what it was going to be.

Nick: And some of them have maintained that even now.

Jude: Yeah, there were some customers who would buy the latest release on a label just because it was on that label, to be a completest without even hearing it, or without knowing very much about it.

From your beginnings as a type-set catalogue, why the move to online?

Nick: Well, we were a bit too late on the change over really. We carried on with the catalogue till about 2000, then we took some time out and setup a website, trying to maintain the same format as the catalogue. It took a number of years to get that right really, and we only launched the site as it is now in August 2007, so that was less than 4 years ago.

Jude: But we’ve had an online presence of some sort from 2001.

Nick: So it was a question of building it up again and making the site attractive and having a lot of information that made it more interesting than just a total list of records.

Jude: But it was also important not to lose what was us about us. What people loved about getting the catalogue each month was the personal touch, the immense detail. It was transferring that and keeping the same spirit on the site. Not making it too slick.

You’re never going to compete with Amazon!

Jude: No, exactly. And you know you can get sites that look impressive but are soulless, and we didn’t want to do that. I do a little bit, but it’s mainly Nick who looks after the upkeep of the site. And if someone orders something and they want to chat about it then Nick is there and available to do so.

I never use the website, I just email Nick with what I’d like!

Jude: And we’re fine with that.

Nick: Yeah, and you know what you want! But some people don’t. A lot of my customers will have an intense interest in one band, more than I could possibly know, unless it’s a band I really like as well, and there are so many records on the site that you can’t know about all of them.

Jude: What we try to do, and aspire to do, is to model it like a record shop but “online”. I always describe it as an “online record shop”. Not a music website or something. There are different ways you can search and browse, trying to replicate the feeling of looking through racks. And people emailing Nick and chatting to him emulates the feeling of speaking to someone in a shop.

Plus you’ve got the trading aspect as well.

Nick: We have a ‘Wants’ list on the site that gets updated regularly. Say there’s someone who was in band in the 80’s, they can see their name on the list, and say “I’ve got a bunch of these in my loft and they’re available if you want them” so people can get music that they can’t get from regular shops at all, and it’s all through that personal relationship with the customer.

So you guys were snubbed last year by Record Store Day?

Nick: And again this year!

Jude: Yeah, we thought we were going to be included this year, but no. It’s quite confusing how they do it, there’s a main RSD website, which is American, and that’s got an international bit. Then there’s an English website. I contacted them and they said no straight away as we weren’t a “physical” shop. Then I tried the American one, and I could enter our details and we were listed there for a while. And a few people contacted us saying it was nice that we were listed. But it seems RSD found out about us and removed us from their listings.

Nick: And yet our customers expect us to be involved with RSD as we are an independent record shop. There’s no other shop in the area, and because of the nature of what we do, specialising in more obscure and hard to find things, they can’t really understand the distinction. If they’re in an area and can’t get to a shop, or they’re in Europe, and they know how limited these RSD releases are, they will want to be able to turn to us. The example is the Foo Fighters covers album, they’re a massive band and demand will far out strip how many are available and we’re hoping to get some from our supplier in America.

I was going to ask that, are you able to get hold of RSD releases?

Nick: Through a third party – not officially, we’ve got to go through a back door. It’s organisation is pretty chaotic. No one knows how many they’re going to get. You can’t order them in advance.

Jude: It’s well intentioned, but it just seems a shame that as we’re not in direct competition on the street, we can’t take part.

Nick: It’s a great idea and it brings people back to record shops, which can only be a good thing.

For a University, and quite an affluent town, it feels quite strange that there’s no longer any independent record shops in Cambridge. Why do you think that is?

Nick: I guess it is the Internet, really. And that people can’t afford a specialised music shop enough. I don’t honestly know, if we could afford it, whether we could set one up in the same vein as our website. There might not be a big enough demand for it. It does seem bizarre that Fopp is the closest we have in Cambridge…

Which is basically an HMV outlet…

Jude: Yeah, but Cambridge is pretty small…

Nick: Yeah, the student population swells it quite a bit…

Jude: And you wonder whether the student population is the market for records now.

Is the record “shop” still a pipe-dream for you?

Jude: If money was no object, which in the real world it always is, then we’d definitely do it. But the economic reality, with lots of record shops closing down, I can’t really see a way of making it work, unless it just covers the costs / shared interest etc. If there was a business model that would work, we’d have no qualms putting in the time and effort to make it work.

Nick: The VAT loophole closing would also help us – HMV.com can register off-shore and sell stuff a lot cheaper than we can, that would help us, just generally! We do it because we love it, we don’t make much money from it, but we wouldn’t be happy doing anything else.

“That is where it all starts really isn’t it?” Bella Union boss Simon Raymonde said to me early last week as we sat drinking tea and chatting about independent record stores near the label’s HQ in East London. Delivered with such earnest conviction, this understated and beautifully simple notion struck me at the time, but I didn’t quite realise how apt it was until I started replaying all the conversations I have subsequently had about Record Store Day.

For Simon it all began at Beggars Banquet Records in Earls Court, where he had his “first, and only real job”. For Heavenly Recordings’ Jeff Barrett it was Saturday market stalls and Revolver Records in Bristol. These are the places that started it all for the hundreds of journalists, musicians and music lovers today who have been quoted saying they are not sure what they would be doing now if they hadn’t discovered the joys of an independent record store.

For me, it all began in a little independent record store called Solo Music, tucked away in the deepest darkest depths of Devon. Instead of an overwhelmingly large warehouse aesthetic with uniformed racks of 3for2deals set to bombard you upon entry, Solo is a long narrow shop that is divided in two. The left hand side of the shop had a small rack of CDs at the front featuring more mainstream albums and singles from the charts, but the moment you took more than one step in the door you would find an amazing selection of alternative CDs, with little staff recommendation stickers scribbled in biro dotted around the place. Then towards the back you could head on through to the other side of the shop and into a room that was basically just wall-to-wall vinyl and there was always something incredible filtering forth from the speakers.

Going in there was always about so much more than just buying a record. The people behind the counter didn’t conform to that trite snooty record store employee stereotype, they were friendly and always took the time to recommend something you might like. Eventually I got to know the people who worked there, we had some really fun afternoons just hanging out and talking about music. There was always a hand-written piece of paper on the counter with local gig listings for the week or month, and I got to see some great shows because of it. In fact because of Solo Music in Barnstaple, I found out about their sister shop in Exeter, where I then discovered a place called Martian Records and a venue called The Cavern. The Cavern was where I saw my first real rock show and decided to write about it! Solo Music started everything for me.

Of course, it’s easy to dismiss stories like these as misty-eyed nostalgia in a climate that is currently seeing record prices rise, sales plummet, stores close and everyone downloading everything from the Internet for free anyway. With Mercury records announcing they are stopping production of physical singles and HMV having to close over 60 stores whilst they teeter on the edge of liquidation, it’s impossible to deny the record industry is in some serious trouble and it’s easy to understand why some people see independent record stores as an expensive bastion of a lost era.

There are 187 stores taking part in this year’s Record Store Day across the UK, from Aberdeen to Yorkshire, and yes Solo Music is one of them. There are 22 official stores in London alone, from Rough Trade West and East to places like Sounds of The Universe, Phonica and Sister Ray on Berwick Street.

My love of physical records and independent stores didn’t stop simply because something more convenient came along with downloading. Obviously I find myself listening to a lot of new music on the Internet as bands set up bandcamps and soundclouds to showcase their songs, but I love buying records. Most people I know still love buying records: the physicality of having a record collection, rummaging through racks of vinyl in the excited hope they might find something extra special, the beauty of the artwork and the sound quality of a pressed 12” is something they cherish.

Oh and that bygone era – you know the one where the local indie shop would be the place to hang out, the place where everything started, a creative melting pot where you could talk about music, maybe form a band, change the world and genuinely meet some incredibly interesting people – it’s not gone. Maybe you just stopped looking for it as you digitalise your life or maybe you lost touch just as major retailers have lost touch of what it means to sell music, but it’s still here. And Record Store Day, well it’s here to celebrate that: to celebrate the stores and their independent ethos, their personal touches and their love of good music. In my books, anything that actually encourages the world to support the musical community instead of idly lamenting its demise is nothing short of amazing.

Originally conceived by New Hampshire record store employee Chris Brown, Record Store Day was founded in 2007 as a way to celebrate the unique culture of independently owned record stores in America. From humble beginnings to a worldwide organisation with over a 1000 participating stores Record Store Day 2011 is going to be bigger than ever.

Spencer Hickman is not only the man behind Rough Trade‘s hugely successful and independent flagship store in East London, but he has been running the UK side of Record Store Day since it began. TLOBF caught up with him to find out how he came to work at one of the most powerful independent music retailers in the UK, why he loves independent stores and why he believes Record Store Day is so vital.

How did you get involved in the organisation of Record Store Day?

Well during the course of my job running Rough Trade East I came across this article online about how in the States there was this thing happening called Record Store Day and I thought what a great idea, we should do something like that over here. It’s not really like a job, just something that I ended up doing because I really believe in it. From that first year it has just got bigger and bigger, and it’s a really great day. It’s so brilliant to see so many stores get involved. I love hearing from stores that I wouldn’t normally get the chance to visit about how they have had their busiest day of the year. It really seems to have captured people’s imagination.

So how are things coming together for this year?

Erm, hectically! It has all been a bit crazy. Obviously the day is huge you know, it’s not just about Rough Trade but co-ordinating everyone else and it has grown so rapidly over the past four years. In the first year we had 6 stores involved in the UK and now I think we’re at 187 stores nationwide. There has been like 11 new independent stores open in the UK in the last year and they’re all taking part, which is really fantastic. It is great to see the day grow, because the media constantly talk about how the record store is dying, the last bastion of a forgotten era, and you know that is obviously not strictly the case. More stores than ever are doing all day events, in-stores and even taking over their local pub in the evening and throwing these really big parties, so it’s all really encouraging.

What have Rough Trade got planned for the day itself?

Well, Rough Trade West are going to have a series of acoustic performances from the likes of Pete and The Pirates, Marcus Foster and Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou. Rough Trade East has Chilly Gonzales doing a piano recital and Wild Beasts doing an acoustic set. Then we have Trangressive’s new signing Gaggle playing, they are like a 20-piece female choir that sound like M.I.A so that is going to be pretty nuts, you know a great spectacle. The store is open from 9am – 8pm, at which point we will shut up shop and head to 93 Feet East where we are having a party with bands like Mazes and The Soundtrack Of Our Lives playing. It’s going to be a pretty full on, intense day.

You’re also taking Rough Trade ‘on tour’ as it were for a month aren’t you? How did that idea come about?

Well Agnes B is a customer and big fan of ours. She has a store in Paris and we’re going to be there for a month from 16 April. She has designed a special tote bag and t-shirt especially for the occasion and we have Ed Banger’s DJs playing there for the opening.

[For more information on Rough Trade in Paris and their special partnership with Eurostar for the occasion click here.]

How did you come to find yourself working at Rough Trade?

It’s not really something I made conscious decision to do like “I want to waste all my time in an independent record store!” It just sort of happened. When I was at school I used to go into my local shop in Birmingham and I literally just ended up working there every Saturday, I didn’t even get paid I just loved hanging out there and then eventually the guy who ran it was like do you want to come and work for me properly and that was that.

There is no way that all this talk of record stores and physical records being a dying breed is true, I wouldn’t let that happen! I know interest in physical product is waning but that is what we sell and the clientele we get are still excited about buying the physical product, holding it, talking about it to us and then taking it home.

I couldn’t imagine doing anything else and you know I guess if you are going to work for an independent record store in this country, then Rough Trade is the one. The atmosphere is just great, all the staff are all best friends and we get to hang out and listen to music all day. We chat about it to our customers and sell them stuff that they may never have discovered otherwise. There is nothing better than the shared experience of music, it has always been a two-way thing between us and our customers – they share as much knowledge with us as we share with them.

As you said, the interest in physical product is waning and obviously has been pretty significantly for quite some time now. What has that meant to you as an independent store, what have been some of the trials and tribulations you have faced?

Well we started Rough Trade East from the ground up. It took us like 6 months to get to know what we were doing and probably a good 12 months to really find our feet. But all this talk of dire straights is blown out of proportion. Because we’re focused and because we sell music that we really love we haven’t been affected by it as badly as some other people have been. We’re still finding there are a huge number of people who want to come into our shop and buy a record over the counter because we’ve got knowledge and well we’re pretty friendly!

So are those the kinds of things that you feel are worth championing when it comes to independent record store?

Yeah, totally. I mean we don’t just sell records: we have bands play, we have film nights, we do book readings it has become a little hub, a real community. There is always something interesting going on in the store. Major retailers don’t really sell much music anymore, they’ve lost touch and lost focus whereas shops like us, Piccadilly in Manchester, Resident in Brighton and Avalanche in Scotland are really focused. We sell music and we are passionate about it. Highstreet stores have diversified too much and just really lost their way.

You know, we just do what we do because we really believe in it, we really love it and we don’t really do it for the money because there isn’t any!

The word ‘community’ often comes up when I speak to people about independent stores, what role do you think independent record stores play in building communities?

Well they are as important now as they ever were. I mean the internet is important, of course it is in building relationships through forums and stuff but look at the local stuff on our wanted board, you know where you can put adverts for drummer needed etc, it’s always absolute full. I think its important because peoples till come hereto discover music, watch bands, meet others and maybe start something of their own. I think it’s vitally important.

What do you feel is the overall message of RSD? What do you hope to achieve from it in the long term?

The limited edition releases that are coming out are exciting, of course, but that is not the point of the day. The day is about celebrating your local record shop and its place within the community. It’s about coming down and having a great time in a place that will be buzzing with loads of stuff going. It’s like we’re having a party and there just happens to be all this incredible stuff for sale. The items bought on Record Store Day become intrinsically linked with it so we connect with our customers. We can connect with them when they’re at home taking their purchases out and playing them they’ll remember that they had a great time and then hopefully they will come back here ore than just once a year. More and more stores are having bands play in-stores and in the long run I guess are beginning to carry what Record Store Day represents through to the rest of the year.

There can be an air of snobbery when a group decides to start a record label with the aim of releasing the music of their own band. People are quick to assume that they must be doing so as they can’t find anybody else who wants to help release their material. A decent proportion of the time assumptions like this might well be true, but with the case of Shape Records it most certainly is not.

Based in Cardiff, Shape was started in 2006 by brothers (and sole Attack+Defend band members) Mark, Lee, and John Thomas with the original aim, indeed, of releasing their band’s material. Four years have passed and things have changed. Mark and John make up half of Islet, Shape is now run by Mark and Lee alone (though John can dip in and out of activity freely, I’m told), and the label have put on far more gigs and released far more material than that of their band Attack+Defend (who, incidentally, barely play or release anything at all anymore) alone.

Not bound to any strict genre, Shape have a wide range of releases under their belt; names such as Fredrick Stanley Star, Them Squirrels, Evils and Failed NASA Experiment may not be especially well known, but Shape rightly pride themselves on the quality, not reputation, of their releases – although they aren’t without a ‘bigger’ name or two. Previous work from Sweet Baboo and Islet, plus the forthcoming H. Hawkline debut album, are certainly helping to raise the label’s profile somewhat. I had a chat with Mark and Lee in a Portuguese café in Cardiff over a cup of tea/bottle of beer/frappuccino about Shape Records.

Why do you do what you do?

L: We kind of just stumbled upon the opportunity to do it really.

M: It’s a buzz. There’s just something about it. Although it can be an expensive habit, it’s worth it. It’s just fun and it’s something to sink your teeth into instead of just going on the internet and watching telly.

All the music released seems to be quite different. Is the ‘criteria’ essentially if you like the music and you can help the band out you will try to?

M: Yeah, I guess so. There are some things where we’ve come close to releasing certain things and then not done it due to the fact that it feels like the other person isn’t quite on the same page as to what we as a label can and can’t offer. We basically set our stall out and say this is what we can do… it’s not very big, but this is what we can promise. Some people aren’t mega into it and want more.

L: I think there are a variety of reasons why we release a band’s stuff but essentially we just have to like it.

M: Yeah, we have to like it. Quite often it’s been people that have already been established bands, more recently anyway. People like Sweet Baboo, Evils, Failed NASA Experiment are all people who have previously released stuff themselves or have had stuff released, and they know that they aren’t going to sell out Wembley and sell a thousand-million records over-night. I think it’s kind of the worst thing if people aren’t realistic.

I often think independent labels might be in a little of a catch 22. They’re not there to make money, yet you do need money to continue helping bands in the future. What do you think?

M: I think we’ve come up with fairly decent ways of making money and paying for records. For most of them we’ve done a launch party and on a couple of occasions that has sold out, so all of the money that comes from that we put against the cost of making the record. That’s a method that seems to work for us.

Mark, you’ve been increasingly busy with Islet. Does that mean you, Lee, have had to take over more?

L: I wouldn’t say that at all… Mark’s just busier!

M: I’ve got a handy internet phone now which means I can do a lot of replying on the road. In fact, I can probably do more replying on the road than I can when I’m at work in Cardiff, so it goes hand in hand. Lee has kind of got more involved again too though. With Sweet Baboo and H. Hawkline – they’ve happened primarily because they’re my friends, so it was obviously easier for me to deal with that. I like to think Lee does all the boring bits, but I think I’ve stepped into the boring bits now.

L: You’re increasingly finding [the boring bits] quite exciting!

M: Yeah. It’s good to learn about the boring bits; ISRC codes, ordering promo CD’s, There are endless things you can do which is the good slash bad thing about running a label. You can always feel disappointed that you haven’t done enough, and I don’t know how you really feel satisfied.

It’s probably difficult to choose a favourite release. What’s the most satisfying release, or the one you’re most proud of?

M: I’m going to say Fredrick Stanley Star. We oversaw it from the very beginning. They were a kind of ramshackle bunch who had no direction at all [laughs]… sorry guys. I watched them a few times and I absolutely loved them. They put some recordings online and I told Lee and we just totally fell in love with them. We actually came up with an entire plan with them. We did the release and it was just a really fun period of time.

What other labels do you aspire to be like or are a fan of? I think you’ve mentioned Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks before?

M: Yeah, that’s my big one.

L: I remember this one right at the start, I can’t remember their name…

M: I know. Smoking Gun Records.

L: Is that the one where you had to print out a form, fill it in..? It was really home brewed.

M: Rather than have a PayPal, you had to print off this sheet of paper which asked for the artist which you wanted to buy and the release – like an application form. You’d send it to them with a postal cheque and they’ll send you it back. Just everything about that record label, the way they’ve laid out the website; everything. I think, as well, the Super Furries’ label Placid Casual simply because they were a band with a label and we were a band with a label. That influenced us, or me anyway, to get it going and made me think “this is an okay thing to do, we can do this.”

L: I think the Smokin Gun Records too. I think that was inspirational for me.

M: We’re kind of strange because we’re not people that are that heavily influenced by things particularly. I think a lot of the way the music industry works is like that, but I wouldn’t put us in that category… We don’t know that much. You could ask Lee “let’s name some American labels” and we basically wouldn’t know any.

Despite the fact Shape started relatively recently, the music industry has changed quite a bit. Things like illegal downloading and Spotify – do you think they’ve made things easier or harder for you as a small label?

M: Having known a few bands which I’m friends with who are very outspoken about [illegal downloading] and against it… I think it depends where you’re coming from. In a way it’d be sensational if that happened to one of our releases, but I can completely understand the other perspective. I have never downloaded anything illegally to my knowledge because I don’t want to. I quite enjoy the current free MP3 download thing. The idea that that’s a single and you can sample that or go and buy it. I’ve just become a subscriber to eMusic, for example.

L: I think things have changed. I think it’s about much smaller quantities of higher quality releases. There was a bit of a hoo-ha about Spotify with one of the artists who didn’t get paid much but if you compare it to what you get off Radio 1, relative to audience sizes it’s about the same, apparently.

M: It depends what you’re in it for. Spotify doesn’t bother me at all. I really like its existence, I think it’s great. I’m sure loads more people have listened to our releases just because they’re on Spotify, and whether they ever buy it or not, kind of… “Whatever.”

So you don’t ‘believe’ in release dates..?

M: I don’t really like build ups and hype ups.

L: There’s a bit of a pretence to it.

M: Yeah. In the last few years, even people that I know, have had countdowns on their pages like “24 hours to go until the thing which we’ve already got will be sold to you, the public!” kind of thing, and it’s like “piss off!” I’d rather just say “Hey, you alright? Here it is.” For example, around the Fredrick Stanley Star release I was walking to [Cardiff independent record store] Spillers with the records and someone I vaguely know stopped me and bought one there and then. That’s what it’s all about – I love that. We have a release month in mind, and whenever we send it off to the press we make up a release date. I understand that the system couldn’t work without release dates, but we just don’t need a big thing.

Your next release is the H. Hawkline album. He’s just been announced to go on tour with Gruff Rhys. That must be pretty cool.

M: Yeah, it’s really good. Really exciting, good, and pleasing. H. Hawkline, Huw, has done gigs for a couple of years yet no-one really knows who he is yet, so it’s really exciting.

I’m not too sure how far ahead you think. Do you have another release planed after that?

M: No. It’s completely as it comes. Lee has a bit more time now, so maybe he’ll like the sound of something. I keep saying that we’re not going to do another release.

L: There are no targets or anything like that.

M: I keep trying to do a bit less but then get tempted and end up doing more. I was concentrating on doing my own thing, but I think I like doing Shape too much. We do have an Attack+Defend EP and some stuff by Them Squirrels that will happen at some point, and there’s talk of doing something with Sweet Baboo again depending on what he wants to do, and I think H. Hawkline is thinking of going straight back into the studio. If I think about it there is quite a lot, but I’m trying not it think about it.

So do you think it will ever finish or run its course?

M: No way! That’s a definite. I always get into talking about other people’s things, but I think it’s what people may have expected. I remember when we first did Shape and we released our first thing by AttackDefend, Shape001, and people were kind of smarmy that we were releasing it on our own label; that attitude was there a lot at the time. But those people have since then created their own labels which have already been and gone. It’s a family. There are so many people that help out. Like Emma [also of Islet] has done a lot of artwork and general encouragement, and Steve [Sweet Baboo], Huw [H Hawkline], and James and Murry [Evils] are all very proactive in terms of getting stuff done and helping themselves as well which is really good. It’s a partnership [between us and the bands] really, and it’s based on friendship primarily. That really helps; there’s no blame or anything. It’s just good fun. We’re going to continue to release for the foreseeable future, definitely. We’re doing such limited runs as well that it just makes sense. I think we want something quite different to what people may perceive when people start something like this. I think we just want to continue to enjoy it rather than wanting to take over the world.

Islet: ‘Jasmine’

As we continue to champion some of the most interesting and exciting labels across the globe, Rich Hughes catches up with Lou Rogai, label founder of La Société Expéditionnaire, fine purveyors of freak-folk-rock…

La Société Expéditionnaire was originally intended as a vehicle to release my own music (Lewis & Clarke) and that of my friends. Out of necessity, a musical orphanage of sorts was inadvertently created that has slowly turned into a resort community. Tom and Brian from Dragon Turtle were key in helping me launch the label. In the beginning, there were no distributors, no bean counting, no bottom lines, no worries. I was self-releasing Lewis & Clarke and wanted to make beautiful sounding records and tangible musical artifacts in the mp3 age. I had an idealist view that great music would find its audience, and friendships could prevail. I wanted to form a community, a co-op of artists. It sounds good in theory, right? The intimate process of releasing records with creative people comes with a roller coaster of ups and downs and some old fashioned trial-and-error. It’s not easy for those with a weak stomach. Some artists have ultimately fallen by the wayside or have been led in different directions on different paths, while others have created a lasting bond built on well-earned mutual admiration and respect for one another’s craft. I try not to forget about the importance of the ideal, and try to remember why I love music; expression and people. It’s a privilege to help spread the music of people I believe in. I guess that is the true “bottom line” for me.

I’m really excited about Soars’ self-titled debut as well as Columboid’s upcoming album, We Were One. I think I need a good amount of time to process what those albums really mean and how they will impact us before I can reflect on them. Here are some I can talk about in retrospect:

Lewis & Clarke – Live on WPRB 12″
This was one of the first releases on the label, my own music. There was a certain magical chemistry between Russell, Dave and myself at that period in time. We were in the process of recording what was to become the Blasts of Holy Birth album, and were invited to do a session with Jon Solomon on Princeton University’s radio station. A group of our close friends (including my then one year-old son) stopped in to the studio to surprise us and offer some backing vocals. We re-interpreted two older tunes, and played 2 songs that were going to be on the upcoming record. It didn’t take much for me to want to preserve the moment on vinyl. Our then drummer/banjo player, Dave Ulrich, led us in hand-screening some 500 record covers. Labours of love, indeed… simply preservation of a moment.

Moon & Moon VII – Acts of an Iron King
This is William Lemon’s “Avant-Rock Opera”, if you will. It has been one of my favorite projects to be involved with. It was originally intended to be carried out in full theater form, but it’s surely an equally engaging listen on recording. Watching Will’s brain at work is a fantastic creative spectacle, he’s completely without fear and invested in the performance at all times. The collaborative effort of the album is a feat unto its own. Matt Boynton recorded and produced the record, Jay (from An Albatross) was also a major player in the project. I was lucky enough to collaborate musically as well. We also recruited my then seven-year-old niece to narrate each of the seven Acts, and she did so with vigor and candor. Will is an amazingly skilled block-printer, he created 12 x 12 prints to correspond with each act. He also hand printed small cards which were inserted into each album and scented with Jasmine oil.

Dragon Turtle / Goodnight Stars Goodnight Air – Split 12″
Tom from Dragon Turtle mentioned he wanted to take a much-needed break from the laborious DT LP recording. His idea was to step back from the LP in the middle of the process to record a split 12″ with David (GSGA/Soars). The result was a swift and beautiful inspiration. This record takes me on a journey, providing a different twist with each listen. Aesthetically, the vibe of the record was captured perfectly, resting somewhere between the cold winter sky and our deciduous Pocono forest.

Mako Sica – Dual Horizon
The first time I saw this Chicago trio, they appeared to levitate the entire stage. That’s what they do best. There are rare and humble traits at work, as genuine humility can only come from the most powerful sources. The strength of the album continues to grow, as do their musical explorations. I’m excited that we’ll be releasing another full length together.

Judson Claiborne Time and Temperature
I was a fan of Chris Salveter’s band Low Skies, and when a mutual friend put us in touch, we hit it off right away. There’s a magic to his storytelling and arrangements. He’s an inspirational person, having travelled through Southeast Asia by bicycle, and taking time away from music to instruct Yoga. He’s a very well-rounded and positive human being, and it shows in the weathered compassion of Time and Temperature. Kindred and familiar, but exotic and enticing at the same time. Sarah Wilmer’s surreal photographs compliment the album perfectly.

For more information, hit their gorgeous website.

Of their new endeavour, Carl Severson states, “We’ve built a company that is in a unique position to rise to the challenges of the evolving music industry. We’ve been on the front lines as digital has become the medium of choice for music marketing and commerce, and we’ve grown with it, embraced the opportunities it’s presented. Paul, myself, our staff; we have the resolve to thrive in this climate. Good Fight Entertainment is the culmination of our experiences as artists, band members, managers, musicians and executives. We have the opportunity to work with people who believe in us as much as we believe in them. This is a very exciting time for us.”

So far, the roster is already looking pretty impressive. Rosaline, I Am Abomination, Son Of Aurelius, Disembodied and Madball are a cherry-picked few who have all signed on the dotted line. Their first release was a class act too – Cancer Bats‘ latest album Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones. Having had a chance to review the latest material to emerge, (see below) it has certainly given enough food for thought.

Here’s a quick rundown of what you should be keeping an eye open for:

Band: The Chariot
Album: Long Live
Released: November 2010

Press Release Summary: “With a hard earned and accomplished sales history of over 100,000 units and years of vigorous global touring, The Chariot have entrenched themselves as a standout in the hard and aggressive music movement.”

TLOBF Review: Ultra-rapid, spasmodic changes of attack take you swinging through more obnoxious levels of ear-scouring than you can shake a stick at. From opener ‘Evan Perks’ plaintive repeated howl of “disappointed, I know you are”, through ‘David De La Hoz’ and its multi-faceted tomfoolery (and accompanying haphazard one-take video), to the lacerating smack in the chops that is ‘The King’, The Chariot tread the tightrope of bothersome lunacy and damnable genius. This is destructively cantakerous hardcore music like never before and will leave many in pieces whilst the remainder will be left staring down at their cowering forms with freeze-framed faces, caught in throes of rapture.

Listen here | Watch here

Band: The Contortionist
Album: Exoplanet
Released: October 2010

Press Release Summary: “While hardcore punk may be the sound that rules the day in The Contortionist hometown of Indianapolis, it is the band’s signature brand of forward thinking heavy metal that has made them stick out as hometown favorites”.

TLOBF Review: This is probably the most insanely complex album I think I’ve ever heard. The Contortionist manage to blend bruising post-hardcore and highly complex math-metal with utterly benign passages of rock music. The vocal anomalies (dirty grunts hitting sterile melodies and robotic vocoder narration) match the broken nature of the guitar styles and track structures. ‘Expire’ hangs off crushing deathcore whilst ‘Contact’ unfolds into part-epic rock anthem, part-deconstructed technical metal. And if you thought this was all about creating something insanely aggressive, dig down to the eloquently melodic ‘Axiom’ or part one of the title-track and you’ll be simply blown away by the tenderness on display. With attention spans shortening all the time, The Contortionist may just have created the music of the future.

Listen here | Watch here

Band: Conditions
Album: Fluorescent Youth
Released: September 2010

Press Release Summary: “The songs are steeped in hard rock with an infusion of heartfelt pop. Track after track finds towering hook-laden choruses fit to reign on radio’s airwaves”.

TLOBF Review: This comes across like a dose of Flood Of Red’s epic walls of sound yet rocks with the grim determination of You Me At Six. Finding a middle ground between those two can’t have been easy, yet Conditions find it by combining mewing pop-punk with rabble-rousing hard rock. There are plenty of big hooks but, sadly, little variety in delivery and they do appear to be on a collision course with a million other bands. Thankfully, the emotional damage that bursts forth from ‘Comfort Far Away’ combines with tracks like ‘Keeping Pace With Planes’ and ‘When It Won’t Save You’ to thunder in and prove they have plenty left in the tank to show us. This is no one-trick pony.

Listen here | Watch here

What started as a one-off club night in 2004 to promote the criminally under-appreciated debut album from The Radio Dept quickly grew into many more club nights. Two years down the line, following a nervous request to put out a 7” for former Ride frontman Mark Gardener, Sonic Cathedral became a record label. Adrian Mules caught up with the man behind the stained glass, Nathaniel Cramp, to find out more.

“The name Sonic Cathedral started as a joke,” explains Nathaniel on an early morning chat, after we’ve put our respective toddlers into their childcare arrangements. “It was from the Pretentious Music Journalist character on Steve Wright’s radio show who was always talking about ‘Sonic Cathedrals of sound’. The Night That Celebrates Itself came from the scene that celebrates itself, which was Melody Maker’s nickname for the shoegazers. That then became The Label That Celebrates Itself.” He continues to explain the ethos behind the club night and now label. “The shoegaze thing is the whole reason why the club and label exists; most of the records aren’t really shoegaze in the traditional sense, but they all come from that point.” I rather flippantly ask if I turned up with a great speed metal band would he sign them up. “No!” He pauses, then laughs. “I wouldn’t consider it at all, it’s basically just grown into the stuff I like, and that is dreamy, reverby, ethereal stuff which, of course, takes in a lot of stuff that isn’t shoegazey.”

Whilst fortunate enough to put out ‘My Cabal’ – the debut from The School Of Seven Bells – the label didn’t put out their album. Was this too early in the label’s lifecycle to leap from pressing 7”s to make the leap to albums? “I would have liked to,” he quickly responds, “but I didn’t feel ready at that time. Now with acts like Yeti Lane I’ve been able to follow that through. I have never tried to force or overstretch anything; the label has grown naturally into what it is today. It began with no distribution, I just went round to all the record shops with the first pressing of The Tamborines single and asked if they would sell it.”

I’m keen to know more about Nat himself and what his background is. Was there a history of playing in bands dishing out fuzz and feedback? “I’ve no history of playing in bands, I’ve always been really into music since I was young.” We discuss the records that started this love affair: “Slowdive – Holding Our Breath EP and Technique by New Order.” We continue for some time to lament 1991 and 1992 and the seemingly endless streams of classic releases. “I want to release records that I am proud of and that people will want to listen to in ten years time. I want to bring all the aspects that make them special together, like the artwork. I’m obsessed with Peter Saville and Factory, I’m even inspired by the catalogue numbers.” He goes on to joke about how he considered giving his son a catalogue number but decided it was a step too far. “I’m interested in the culture of records and vinyl, scratching stuff into the run-out groove.” He laughs as he recalls asking Kyte what they wanted etched on their run-out groove. “’What’s a run-out groove?’ they asked. Admittedly they were only 19 at the time, but I felt like their dad.”

And what of the label’s fans? Are there people, as there were in the glory days of 4AD or Rough Trade, who are as much fans of the label as well as the acts? “There are people than have bought every single release from me from the start.” And after four years running the show alone what advice would he give to someone thinking of starting their own label? “Don’t!” He chuckles, although goes on to support his proclamation: “Don’t expect it all to happen overnight.” But it’s clear his label is growing and increasing in notoriety; this year’s Roky Erickson tribute album gained column inches outside of the traditional specialist press, with Stewart Lee heaping praise upon it in the Sunday Times.

He’s clearly a man living out his dream, but is acutely aware of the challenges he faces: “As a one man band I have to do everything.” I applaud such bravery, but he questions if stupidity might be a more accurate term. “The challenges are lack of time and lack of money,” he explains. But what of the longer-term strategy? “I find it hard to think beyond next week,” he sighs with a refreshing honesty. “There are a few exciting things coming up, there’s a new Team Ghost EP in October and there is some stuff that’s going to happen next year that is really quite exciting. But I can’t say anything about it…”

We’ve picked six sonic releases from the catalogue and asked Nat to tell us a little more about them, plus there is a download from four of them to give even more of a flavour of the label:

Mark Gardener - The Story Of The Eye (Ulrich Schnauss Mix)/The Story Of The Eye
The intended first single was pipped at the post by The Tambourines, on which Mark sings backing vocals. It was so exciting to release a record by one of my musical heroes, remixed by one of my favourite contemporary artists.

School Of Seven Bells - My Cabal/My Cabal (Robin Guthrie Mix)
Benjamin Curtis – then still in the Secret Machines – gave me a demo of his new band when he DJed at Sonic Cathedral. I loved it, asked if I could put out a 7” and he said yes! I approached Robin Guthrie who said he’d do a remix for a small amount of money and a set of steak knives!

The Psychedelic Sounds Of The Sonic Cathedral
It took about 18 months to put together this tribute album to Roky Erickson and The 13th Floor Elevators, but it was worth it. The initial idea was for a 7” single, but I just kept asking more people until there was a 13-track album’s worth. I love everything about this record, I’m so proud of it.

Darker My Love: ‘She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own)’

Yeti Lane - Twice EP
Perhaps the most consistently brilliant release on Sonic Cathedral so far, and the first 12” too. Four amazing tracks which point to the future of Yeti Lane the duo as one of fearless exploration of rhythm and electronics. Exciting stuff.

Yeti Lane: ‘Twice (Team Ghost Mix)’

Team Ghost - You Never Did Anything Wrong To Me EP
The best-looking record I’ve put out so far. It just oozes cool from every groove of its beautiful black and white marbled vinyl. I’m so excited about this band it’s not true, they take all the things I like and turn them into something completely new; like a cross between Tangerine Dream and Sonic Youth.

Team Ghost: ‘Colors In Time’

Sad Day For Puppets - Pale Silver & Shiny Gold
The second Sad Day For Puppets album is a real development from the first one – they sound like a proper band now, and a band who have spent a lot of time on the road with noisy bands like A Place To Bury Strangers. Definitely the scariest cover on Sonic Cathedral to date too.

Sad Day For Puppets: ‘Monster & The Beast’

Photo of Nathaniel by Bob Stuart.

Anyone can put out a record, as the last few years have proven. The requirements are restricted to a small amount of money, a couple of CD-Rs, some form of music to put on them and willingness to accept making a loss. There are very few, however, that manage to keep the process up for five years, putting out over fifty singles and two albums, whilst breaking some of the most exciting and important acts around in the process. Young and Lost, then, are far from your usual boutique imprint.

Founded back in 2005 by Nadia Dahlawi and Sara Jade at the sickeningly young age of 20, the two have spent the past few years releasing seven inch singles by the likes of Vincent Vincent and the Villains, Johnny Flynn, Good Shoes and Everything Everything, whilst Noah & the Whale went further and put out their two groundbreaking records out with the help of the label. So, half a decade on and still going strong, the duo have decided to release a retrospective of the compilation containing the highlights of their output.

In advance of Young and Lost Compilation’s release on August 16, as well as the accompanying party, Nadia and Sara chatted with us about the difficulties of running a label, their favourite releases and the indie goths that got away. They even gave us an exclusive mixtape to give away – listen and download below.

So you’re the founders of Young and Lost, tell us a little bit about what you do.
Nadia: Young & Lost Club is a record label and club night. We have released 7” singles from Good Shoes, Vincent Vincent & The Villains, Bombay Bicycle Club and Golden Silvers as well many more! Noah & The Whale are also signed to us and we have released two albums with them and are working with them on the third one to be released next year.

The imprint has just turned 5 years old, how do you think that you’ve changed in that time?
Nadia: Although we have changed a lot its still just Sara and I running the label by ourselves. We still do everything from getting the single recorded, artwork to distributing it ourselves.

Sara: When we started out we really didn’t know what to do, we just learnt as we went along! Looking back I don’t know how we managed it!

What’s it like running a label in a time when everyone’s saying the record industry is dead?
Nadia: It is hard at times, especially for new bands starting out who just want to have enough money so they can go on tour and record their album.

Sara: I hope things will change and people will not download music illegally. 79p is less than a cup of coffee and you’re giving the band a chance at their future.

Nadia: We think it’s great though that so many blogs are onto new bands and even more established bands are happy to giveaway tracks too. We are just looking forward to a future when people don’t download illegally!

What’s your process for putting out a single? Are there a lot of checks to go through? Do you worry much about whether the record will sell or not?
Nadia: We never put something out just because we think it will sell a lot of records, we only put out singles by bands we really believe in.

Sara: First of all we work out getting the tracks recorded with the band, then we work on the artwork. A lot of bands we work with have a very clear idea on what artwork they want to have which is great. We also get the single out to press and radio people as much as we can.

For all our releases we do a single launch party and try and make it free entry too. Since we started the label we have always done distribution ourselves, we even package up every single order we get through our website (we are pretty well known in our local post office!).

Of the current crop of boutique labels, are there any that you particularly admire?
Sara: We really like our friends label Chess Club and the new Manchester label Hit Club.

Nadia: Growing up we were really inspired by Rough Trade.

Over the five years you’ve put out over 50 singles – which has been your favourite release?
Nadia: The first Noah & The Whale Album Peaceful The World Lays Me Down, because it was our first album and it was in the top ten for 6 weeks!

Sara: Vincent Vincent & The Villains ‘Blue Boy’ because it was our first release ever, that single will always be special to me.

There must’ve been a couple of acts that have slipped through your fingers – are there any bands you wish you’d have put out and didn’t? Any major mistakes?
Nadia: We were always meant to put out the first Horrors single, at the last minute they went with another label though. I always wish we had got the chance to release that.

Sara: Luckily there has never been one big mistake, just lots of little ones! One time we sent a CD with the wrong tracks on to the pressing plant! We got back all these Fear Of Flying (now White Lies) CDs with the wrong band on!

Can you imagine a time when you put an end to the label? What’s for the future?
Nadia: I think we will probably stop when we are 60! But who knows!

Sara: We have an album out with Oh Minnows and Planet Earth this year. Oh Minnows was a key member of Semifinalists before they split up. He plays every instrument on the album and recorded it all in his own homemade studio in his garage in Chicago! Planet Earth are also one to watch out for, they will be recording their debut album with Charlie from Noah & The Whale later this year

The appeal of London’s Union Chapel as a live music venue is in its simplicity as much as its grandeur. It’s hard not to appreciate the cavernous ceilings and air of reverence in the main hall, but essentially, when an audience is sat facing the small stage, nestled into the rows of seats, the experience becomes a fairly uncomplicated example of what is beautiful about a good live performance. You can forget about dancers and strobe lights, in this environment, only one thing takes center stage – the sound. Despite the impressiveness of the room there are no frills, in the best possible way.

A similar thing could be said of Bella Union records. A label with a reputation for quality, an incredibly strong discography and an authenticity that many a major label would love to buy; their success simply comes from an ethic of artistic freedom and nurturing over exploitation and is measured in the beautiful records they help to produce.

A luxurious line-up, then, of four Bella Union acts: Alessi’s Ark, Lone Wolf, Mountain Man and John Grant, sharing a stage at Union Chapel for an evening, is quite a proposition. One that TLOBF would’ve found it monumentally hard to pass-up if we’d wanted to, which we emphatically did not, especially since we were given a chance to interview each of the frankly brilliant acts performing on the night.

Alessi’s Ark

Hi Alessi, I really like the Sole Proprietor EP you put out on Bella Union.
Thank you!

I’m looking forward to the album, what’s happening there?
Well, I am in the middle of recording, I did some recording in Wales just before I went to do a tour in April and then I did a bit more last week in Brighton with the Willkommen Collective, Sons of Noel and Adrian, they’re people that I got to tour with and just got to know from playing places and being on the same bills and they’ve become friends of mine, they’re really comfortable to play with and easy to be around. So I did some recording with them and yeah, just working on it. I guess the Autumn is when I want it to be finished, but I feel like maybe it will be finished before then…

Going well?
Yeah it’s been fun! The loose plan would be to put it out in January, we’ve got a bit of time, but I thought that it’d be better just between shows and things just to be doing stuff… so I’m busying myself with that!

How have things changed since Notes From a Treehouse? Are things a bit different now?
Well I think it’s only healthy, traveling on – but I don’t think the music is going to be anything too dissimilar from what I’ve done. The common thread is that I’m singing!

No rapping?
No, I haven’t started rapping yet! Nothing too groovy! Yeah I feel like it’s a continuation of the last record, but the environment is different, for Sole Proprietor, which is the only thing I’ve put out since that -besides a split EP I had with thunderpower that was done at a friends house- I mean, the first three songs were recorded ‘as live’, so apart from a few songs on Notes From The Treehouse because there were quite intricate arrangements and things, the nature of the recordings were such that you couldn’t really do that many things ‘live’ and so it was quite fun to record some of these songs almost like a show, you know? And then the fourth track on that EP was made to sound like how it sounds when I play with the Willkommen and it’s fun because there are cornets and bits and bobs, things that I hadn’t really entertained before. But now, stick cornet on anything, anything can have a bit of cornet on it, hahaha! Yeah, it’s been fun – there’s a bit of harp on there and there was harp on the album so there are instruments that are re-occurring but um… I don’t know where the music is going, but it’s fun!

It’s going there by itself and you’re just following it, right?
Yeah yeah! I feel like it’s leading me… on…! Hahaha!

Opening the night to a still-growing crowd, Alessi cuts an unassuming figure standing alone on the Union Chapel stage. Her disarming, informal greetings flutter by and she begins to play. Some artists can peel their material back to the bare bones while losing none of the essential spirit, Alessi is one such artist. The sound of a beautiful voice working through a collection of sweet songs is a simple but powerful pleasure, one amplified by the dimensions of Union Chapel and the effortlessly likable character that threads through this performance.

Alessi’s Ark: ‘Shovelling’

Lone Wolf

Hey Paul, so you now have a name that isn’t… your name… so how did that come about?
Well, it came about from me realizing that I have a really shit name.

Heheheh. Right.
And also, I got sort of sick of being pigeon-holed as a singer-songwriter. And many would say “well you were a singer-songwriter” or “you are a singer-songwriter” but there’s a problem and a weird little stigma that comes with that sometimes.

Absolutely.
And you know… how many records probably drop on radio DJ’s desks every day – “John Smith”  “Michael So-And-So” …

Johnny McPowerballad…
Yeah, you know and the thing was… Vultures was very much about ‘Paul Marshal’, the songs on that record were brought in from all kinds of different timeframes and stuff, it wasn’t meant to be an album originally, it was kind of a compilation of my work as it were. And then when it came to recording this record, I always wanted to just push things a little further and it came to making the demos and I just wanted to shake off that initial sort of immediate singer-songwriter label because I wanted people to sort of give this a chance, like maybe from the point of view of thinking that it’s a full band at first – I don’t know, I think I wanted to create a little bit of an illusion I suppose.

I don’t think you’d be alone in that, I mean it happens all the time, doesn’t it? People instinctively approach something with more of an open mind at the moment for some reason if it’s given a name that appeals – I mean Beirut, St Vincent… the list goes on.
Precisely. And it’s not because I think I’m worth any more than anyone else or anything stupid like that. I guess that after I signed to Bella Union I just felt that I wanted a fairer crack of the whip, really, rather than just have people make that assumption that I’m this singer-songwriter, which is why in a way I was happy we put ’Keep Your Eyes On The Road’ out as the first single because I wanted people to hear that, and then have responses coming back like “Who are they?” and “Where are they from?” and it’s – Aha! it’s not actually a “they” it’s a “he”, you know?

So now that you have the new name and it’s sort of a fresh project in that sense, how do you feel things are moving on?
It’s certainly moving on in the sense that I’m getting a lot more opportunities than I ever got as Paul Marshall and it’s weird actually because we’re in the location that I think a year and three days ago that Paul Marshall metaphorically died! It was the last gig in here. But yeah I mean at the end of the day it… it’s only a name.

Have you been doing a lot of live stuff for the new album?
Yeah, quite a bit, I went on tour with Wild Beasts which was great, did that solo. Then there’s Blue Roses (Laura Groves), she comes out with me and we do it as a two piece, then we do it as a five piece like tonight. But we’re doing bits and pieces, we were in the Royal Festival Hall on Monday, supported Broken Bells, which was pretty…

That sounds amazing.
Yeah it was pretty much one of the best nights of my life, got to play the Steinway hidden, you know in the Royal Festival Hall. Well, you only have to imagine it really, it was pretty spectacular.

Yeah, I am imagining it, right now…. Any other highlights to look forward to?
Green man. Oh and I don’t know how 100% confirmed this is, but I think I’m going to be touring America with Wild Beasts, only for like four or five dates or something but that’ll be fun.

So what with changing the dynamic so often, five pieces, two pieces – how does the music translate? Do you have a favorite way to play the stuff?
Favourite way is always full band, always, because that’s the closest to how it sounds on the record. But the one advantage I have, whereas some bands might have an ‘acoustic set’ where they strip the songs down, for me that’s where the songs started, so when I do it on my own or as a two piece the songs are just going down to were they started from, the core of the song is still there. But yeah I prefer it when I have James smacking the crap out of the drums and the synths going. Also, it’s nice to hang out with my friends, you know it’s nice to not have to be on the stage by myself all of the time you know?

While it could be argued that the sound of some of the other acts tonight might take to the cavernous echo chamber of Union Chapel like the proverbial duck to water, Lone Wolf’s set up might find the acoustics from the stage a slightly less comfortable variation in environment. Adaptability, however, is the key to success, and with the thrumming alternative rock teased out with a measure of restraint, fighting to get away and thunder around the room, gaining richness and drama without losing too much in the way of clarity.

Lone Wolf: ’15 Letters’

Mountain Man

Hello! How long has Mountain Man been a band for?
Molly: Just over a year, like a year and three months…

And you came together and started writing songs?
Amelia: We already had a lot of the songs that we sing. Alex wrote Animal Tracks and we learned it and I wrote Honey Bee and so… it was.. an amazing event.

So you turn up to indie clubs or maybe these black boxes where a lot bands show up with drums and guitars and pianos and everything – and for most of the set is just you guys singing. A lot people probably don’t expect that.
Molly: No and they especially don’t expect to see three women appearing under the name Mountain Man!

Amelia: Usually it’s the initial shock that gets people in. And that’s nice, but usually we can’t string them along further based on the fact that our songs are authentic and interesting. Sometimes it’s really hard.

Alex: I mean bars are definitely not the best venue for us to be performing in.

Molly: But sometimes they’re great!

Alex: Yeah sometimes it feels good to fight for it.

Amelia: …and it feels deserved and earned when you have to really work to get the audience to be there. And once they’re there, they’re there.

Molly: I think it’s really refreshing sometimes for people to hear just three voices without drums and guitars and everything else on top of it!

Amelia: I think those things are wonderful, but it’s refreshing to be without them sometimes. Especially in the land of reverb that we currently live in.

So do you guys just hang out a lot together, singing all of the time? Is that how you practice?
Molly: Actually we don’t really practice, we just hang out.

Alex: I live in Virginia, which is a nine hour drive from Vermont. So we don’t practice unless we’re together.

Amelia: But we can learn to play it right in like fifteen minutes? We’ve got it down within an hour. We have good communication.

So what inspires you to make songs? What do you think about when you’re singing in harmony?
Molly: I think about going inside people’s chests with my voice.

Huh. That’s interesting.
Molly: Yeah because everything else is already there and what we have is already there, I don’t have to think about it.

Amelia: By now it’s just muscle reflex, like our bodies know how to sing and so we don’t really have to think so much about the song, just about the emotion.

Alex: Yeah it’s more that we just have to tap into that emotion when we’re singing… I think about family … and being a woman and being a human that conducts sound, particularly in this hall, it felt really, really amazing to feel that “okay I am going to open my mouth and my voice is going to be like synthesized with these other two voices”.

Molly: Sometimes I think about people I really love and care about and try to share that.

Union Chapel seems almost purpose built for what Mountain Man do here tonight. Having seen the room and decided to perform with no amplification at all, the three ladies stand hand in hand on the stage and wind together layers of vocal harmonies with incredible skill, accompanied only occasionally by a solitary acoustic guitar. Their voices reverberate around the lofty ceilings, the intelligence and playfulness of the vocal-only compositions could never fail to raise a smile. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to describe a performance like this as unmissable, the audience are hearing the layers of a contemporary folk band peeled all the way back to the core, and it’s fascinating how luxurious and expansive it can sound with the right amount of skill. If one were to risk spinning a cliché, a Mountain Man show such as this one is a truly organic live music experience.

Mountain Man: ‘Soft Skin’

John Grant

Hi, John. So let’s start by talking about the new album. Are these songs that you have collected over the years, or songs that you wrote specifically for the album?
Three of them are ideas that I had before, but the other nine all came about during the course of recording. So it’s all pretty fresh.

And you worked with Midlake on the album, how did that come about?
Well we’d both been on Bella Union for a long time and we met at SXSW down in Austin whilst having breakfast one morning with Simon and everyone. We just hit it off right away, kept in touch a little bit. Then Eric Pulido asked me to come down and sing at his wedding and that sort of cemented out friendship, I got to know them all a little bit better. They knew that I was struggling with the music… that I was sort of giving up on music because I had such a nightmare experience with The Czars and that the music business in general is just really disheartening and they started asking me to come and do my first solo album with them. And the Czars basically had very little success, we were together for over ten years and so I was really just unsure, I was living in New York when the time came to go and record the new record and I was doing well, I was doing Russian medical interpreting which is another big passion of mine, languages. So I was working at a really high-end restaurant and I had insurance and I had started to put down roots in that city, which is a hard thing to do, I would imagine it’s the same way here in London, it takes a long time to get to know this place? Like years?

Yeah, absolutely.
And so I was thinking “Well you’re forty one years old, are you really going to go and try again, aren’t you just fooling yourself? Shouldn’t you just give up? The reason that you didn’t make it before is that you’re simply not good enough, so just quit.”

But I felt like it was an offer that I just couldn’t refuse, it was just too good. And I felt like deep down I still had something to give and that I should be doing it. And Midlake really encouraged me, they said to me “we feel that you are far from done, what you need to do is simply keep going..”

So it was more than simply guys that you started to hang out with and play music with they really were a huge source of support. Without those guys it might not have happened?
It’s hard to say, I think the music would’ve gotten to me eventually, it would have kept coming. But, I don’t know. I’ve been asked this question several times and I am still not sure, it is very special the way it happened and it could not have been this way if it hadn’t happened this way of course. I know that sounds obvious, but you know what I’m saying.

That balance you have in your life. Having that dream, that passion and wanting that to be your life and also needing to commit to having another life, sometimes we have to admit harsh things to ourselves about how realistic our dreams are. Sometimes we need to re-evaluate the role that something like music for example might end up playing in our lives…
Yeah.

But having someone to tip the scales for you in a certain direction…
They kept after me. They kept saying “Come on man, we’re here. Let’s do it. Let’s go. You can live here for free, you can use the studio for free and we will be your backing band for free.”

That’s amazing.
Yeah, it’s huge. And that was encouraging in itself, that people I respected that much had that much faith in me as a musician. That I was respected as a musician and an artist by these people that I respected myself. That was nice because I really felt down on myself. I really felt like a failure. So that really helped me out a lot.

Yeah, you said earlier that you would tell yourself “you’re just not good enough” and I think that’s a place that we can all go to very easily.
Well, I was there you know, I kept showing up, I kept doing it. But the thing is, it simply does nothing for the situation for you to call yourself a failure and that you’re not good enough.

What is the difference at the end of the day? What’s the difference between doing it and being terrible and doing it and being under appreciated? I mean, does it matter?
I see your point and I sort of agree, I think the thing is that there are so many variables involved that you can’t understand.

When people talk about The Czars being ‘cult’. What does it mean?
Nothing. Nothing. Because you’re thinking “well I can’t pay my fucking rent!” I don’t care if everyone thinks I’m great when I’m dead. I want to figure it out now. I’m not asking for much, I’m not going to have the world’s greatest architect to build me the house of my dreams on prime real estate in Beverly Hills and I’m going to own half the world and hang out with Mick Jagger, but I can probably have a life doing music.

And why shouldn’t you?
And why shouldn’t I?

John Grant: ‘Marz’

The sense of John Grant’s vulnerability has not faded, although at this stage it does seem to form major part of his charm, his appeal, the the feeling from sections of the audience as they applaud out each song is that they feel personally invested in John’s well-being, his journey. For his part, John seems well, while not completely devoid of tension, fairly happy and comfortable. He mentions, as he has before that London holds a certain significance for him and that he particularly wants to play well while he is here. For tonight at least, he doesn’t disappoint- he delivers his heart-bearing laments, all of the passion, occasional twists of humour and surges of emotion with a with a certain open intensity. The sense of catharsis runs through the performance, perhaps, some dare to hope another stop in his road to that final success, redemption and final validation that his fans might feel he has long deserved.

All photography by Paul Bridgwater

It’s Wichita Record’s 10th Anniversary this year – and what a marvellous 10 years they’ve had. With a series of events next week planned to celebrate their greatness, we’ve got Huw Stephens to pen some words about how wonderful they are.

Stick around after reading though, as we’ve been given a pair of tickets to two of the parties been held next week…

Way back in 2000, records started arriving at Radio 1 towers. Some were weird, all were wonderful. They had the Wichita logo on them, and music by Bright Eyes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and My Morning Jacket started breaking through, taking us to another world; intense and joyful, intricate and massive. Her Space Holiday, Brave Captain and Wauvenfold were masters of wonky brilliance, Northern State and Saul Williams were slammin’. Through all of their releases, from the mighty Cribs to the beguiling Bloc Party, there has been a quality and consistency to Wichita’s releases that is magnificent.

More recently I’ve loved their nurturing of bands like Los Campesinos! who continue to charm and excite, growing steadily and play bigger and bigger venues. The look on Wichita’s faces when they played Koko’s in London recently was a joy to see; the same when Sky Larkin and Frankie and the Heartstrings treat the world to their excellent songs. I love how they embrace everything from Lovvers’ hardcore to First Aid Kit’s heart melting folk. Their signing of Simian Mobile Disco saw them realise an ambition to work as a home for a real live dance act, which has seen SMD take their tunes and live show to a whole new level.

You’ll be hard pressed to find another label boss with as much positive vibes and an incredible optimism, coupled with a deep love of MUSIC, as you do with Mark Bowen. The man is joy to be around, his character and no shit-barrier is inspiring. Dick and Ben, Gareth and Janine, Vicky and all who ride the good ship Wichita do so for the good of the bands and artists on the eclectic roster. Their office is a mess of albums and ep’s, badges and t shirts. Most labels with Wichita’s success rate would have had swankier offices by now I’m sure. The mess says it all in a way.

I nearly flipped out when I found Bowen is from Wales. Inspired by Spillers Records in Cardiff, his love of the Bluebirds continues to grow. From what I understand about football, this love grows at a time when most would have given up by now. His signing of the Super Furry Animals to Creation Records back in the day brought the band to prominence and inspired so many more to get their music out to wider world.

I still can’t believe Wichita Recordings have never been to Wichita, Kansas, in the US of A though. There should be some sort of huge Wichita festival there one day.

Happy Birthday Wichita!

Huw Stephens

Awww – isn’t he nice?

Now’s the fun time! We’ve got a pair of tickets for:

Monday, 12th July: LAUNCH PARTY featuring Lissy Trullie, Those Dancing Days and Young Legionnaire.

Tuesday, 13th July: featuring: First Aid Kit, Peggy Sue and Meg Baird.

All you have to do to be in with a chance to win, is email competition@thelineofbestfit.com with “Happy Birthday Wichita” in the subject line, along with the night you’d like to be entered for i.e. Monday OR Tuesday, and your name and contact details in the message! Easy!

Starting life back in 2005 as a photocopied fanzine distributed across London by devoted young promoters Sahil Varma and Jack Shankly, Transparent has found its way online as a popular music blog and record label. Since then, the pair have been responsible for thrusting new bands such as Yuck, Summer Camp and Kisses into the blogospheric limelight, garnering praise from Pitchfork and The Guardian’s Paul Lester. With the bulk of their roster based across the Atlantic, they have managed to conduct A&R duties almost entirely via email, and it wasn’t until last month with a visit to SXSW in Austin, Texas that they were able to meet many of their artists face-to-face. Distance has not been an obstacle however, as since September last year, Transparent has overseen an impressive thirteen vinyl releases by the likes of Washed Out and Perfume Genius, each song also available to download for free via the blog. This summer will see the first full album release by Herzog, further singles by Psychobuildings and Myles Cooper, as well as live shows in London featuring appearances from Los Angeles’ Active Child and Chicago glam garage teens The Smith Westerns.

We caught up with three bands making an indelible impression…

Kisses

We spoke with Jesse Kivel, one half of the LA boy-girl duo who released 7” single ‘Bermuda’ on Transparent last week

In your own words, how would you describe the music you make?
I would say that it is dance music with a nostalgic quality that can be found in some long playing disco tracks. Despite this there is an undeniable nod to more contemporary artists like Air France and The Tough Alliance. The initial hope was to make a massive disco production with strings and horns in a studio but I quickly remembered I had no money. So I then decided to record in my garage with limited resources.

Though your sound is pretty sundrenched, do you think it’s fair to say your music is also tinged with melancholy?
That is fair to say. Although I am a fairly happy individual I find that I draw inspiration, especially lyrically from sadder times and themes of love and loss. This sometimes bothers Zinzi [Edmundson, partner musically and romantically] because she thinks I am writing songs that are about her, but they’re really not about her, we are a happy couple!

How did you first get in contact with the guys at Transparent?
Actually I was about to email them through my friend Pat [Grossi, Active Child] and he was going to put a word in for me. Before he could do that they had already emailed me. We had a phone call for an hour or so and everyone was super-nice so we decided to put ‘Bermuda’ out through them.

Kisses: “Bermuda”

Active Child

Pat Grossi, the man behind Active Child, talks us through his project

How did you start making music as Active Child?
Around the winter of 2009 I was living in Denver, Colorado and basically just started experimenting with different sounds, recording techniques, and programs until I stumbled upon something that struck me. I would spend hours in my room tinkering with synth filters and drums reverbs, layering vocal over vocal until I made something that resembled what I was hearing in my head.

In your own words, how would you describe the music you make?
In my mind, my songs lie somewhere between hymns and new wave pop. Sometimes the spiritual side dominates and sometimes the pop side dominates, and occasionally the ingredients are just right so that the two styles combine to make some sort of hymn pop hybrid. Although I am not a religious person, I find spirituality very intriguing as well as the music that usually accompanies spiritual movements, like gospel or chant. Some of this is from my own curiosity and some influence stems from growing up singing spirituals in choir.

How did you first get in contact with the guys at Transparent?
Jack and Sahil reached out to me early on as well, somewhere around last summer. Somehow they came across my music on the Internet and posted ‘She was a Vision’ on their blog. Not long after we discussed a single release and that was that.

Active Child: “Wilderness”

Yuck

Frontman Danny Blumberg was on hand to answer some of our questions

You and Max used to be in Cajun Dance Party, but how did the whole band come together?
Max and I met when we were babies. I met Jonny [drummer] in the desert in Israel where he was living in a weird date farming commune. We sent him some demos a few months later and he instantly dropped out of college and came straight over here.  Mari [bassist] we knew just from being in London. I was only 15 when Cajun Dance Party started, and was that age when I wrote most of the songs. It feels a world away now and obviously between the ages of 15 and 20 you change so much.

Which bands and artists have influenced your music the most?
I think we go through stages but certainly when we started Yuck, Max and I were listening to The Holy Bible by the Manic Street Preachers, lots of Teenage Fanclub, Dinosaur Jr. and Silver Jews.

How did you first get in contact with the guys at Transparent?
I met Jack and Sahil through a punk band called the Video Nasties. Our relationship was initially based on a mutual obsession with them, but we’ve become friends slowly and beautifully and I just think what they do is incredible. They dig out amazing songs and artists from all around the world that I’d never have heard about otherwise. I guess that’s what all blogs and labels aim to do but they’ve been consistently brilliant.

Yuck: “Georgia”

Now that the dust has just about settled after last nights Ja Ja Ja (curated by Sean Adams of Drowned In Sound) it’s a good time to reveal that the line-up for February has been finalized with the curator revealed as Simon Raymonde of Bella Union. A huge fan of Nordic music for many years, Simon has chosen Denmark’s The Good The Bad, Vuk from Finland and  Ungdomskulen from Norway, he’ll also be DJing with TLOBF’s Rich Thane. As always, the event will take place at The Lexington, London on the third Thursday of the month (two days after TLOBF’s other affiliated club night ILL FIT) on February 25th. For full details visit the Ja Ja Ja website.

Ja Ja Ja caught up with Simon for a quick chat about what Nordic music means to him…. Before we start, here’s a potted history about him. In his own words.

Simon Raymonde, a young freakishly handsome man who single-handedly saved the music business from extinction. In Hollywood, my biography would begin thus. However, I am so busy with 4 albums out in the first month of 2010 that I barely have time to pee.

Quickly then, I was born, then I went to school, spent most of my summers in a Spurs kit and dreamed of being Glenn Hoddle. Then I got dragged along to Chelsea’s training ground once by Pat Nevin and he made me train with the first team squad. Luckily I was awesome and scored in a training exercise of free kicks. He tells the story that I scored some incredible overhead kick but that part I don’t actually remember. I do recall having to run round the back of tree to get several puffs of my inhaler though.

By then I’d joined some pub rock band called Cocteau Twins and we knocked out a few records over a few beers, across a few years. There were a few of us. Three actually. A holy Trinity, you may laugh but we actually had a singer who may have been the Messiah! I know, right?!!! I didn’t think so for the first while but then some writer in the Melody Maker or NME said ‘This is the Voice Of God’. I started to look at her QUITE differently after that. Then we all decided to have a career change. None of us managed it, and I wound up discovering bands and verily I did enjoy it. I have been close to having a career change again a few times over the past 13 years but now I am reaching an age where my freakishly handsome looks are transforming into just freakish looks.

Thankfully Chelsea never called. While my ex-wife was keen on the Nordic name Stig for our second child, I resisted. This isn’t why she is my ex-wife by the way. But for sure my son is no Stig.

When and how did you first hear of JaJaJa, and what did you think of the concept/idea?
I read about it online and saw that my friend Rich Thane from The Line Of Best Fit was involved so thought I’d throw my hat in to the ring! I think it’s a great idea and I am all about promoting music from other countries where it is hard to get attention. So much great music to expose. If i can help a little that’s a good thing.

Is Nordic music special to your heart in any way? Are there any particular countries or bands you have a fondness for, for example?
Yes. I have lots of friends there since the Cocteau Twins days but my first proper involvement was in the 90′s with Bel Canto singer Anneli Drecker, who is from Norway. We became friends and I co-produced some songs on her record Tundra. Also Anneli and I released a vinyl 7-inch together, with our version of ‘Morning Glory’ by Tim Buckley which also came out on a Buckley tribute album. She’s ace. She introduced me to Nils Petter Molvaer who I was excited to discover was on ECM, a label I had been following since the early 1980’s. ECM was a great source of inspiration and I started following a whole load of Norwegian classical and folk musicians through my obsession with the label. Some of my faves are Trygve Seim (who is so underrated, listen to Sorrow from Different Rivers, it’s as good as Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis, and has a vibe of Jon Hassell about it too) and I like the voice of Sinikka Langeland who has the most amazing control quite like the Bulgarian singers I so love. Also there’s this superb album by the pianist Jon Balke called Siwan which is a collaboration with Jon Hassell and this incredible Morrocan singer Amina Alaoui – I could go on!!

Oh and I have always loved Hanne Hukkelberg and her first 2 albums were genius. I saw her show in Denmark in 2009 at the Spot festival and it wasn’t amazing but it was great to hear her sing live.

Sweden: I love Stina Nordenstam of course and would love to work with her. From Sweden also I am friends with Wildbirds and Peacedrums and Emil from Loney Dear who are two of my fave bands ever. I also have been a fan of Soundtrack Of Our Lives over the years. I also signed recently a young Swedish artist called I Break Horses which is the work of a woman called Maria Linden. And re: Denmark, I love Efterklang and I have Rasmus from that band to thank for introducing me to Peter Broderick, now signed to Bella Union! Peter also plays in Efterklang. I like Taxi Taxi, The William Blakes, and of course I am working already with Danish bands The Kissaway Trail and Chimes and Bells… So yes I am close to Nordic music!

What have been the most exciting Nordic bands in the last year or so in your opinion?
I really love what Wildbirds and Peacedrums are doing, Chimes and Bells too of course, and I am super-excited to get the new Kissaway Trail album out there to people in March as it’s a helluva fantastic LP.

What kinds of aspects do you think manage to set Nordic music apart from other sounds?
It seems that technically the musicians are insanely good but rather than do what say the Japanese do with their technical abililty (i.e show it off) the Nordic musician looks to express themselves in a very intuitive way. I think the culture has a massive part to play in this, as many modern artists take Nordic folk traditions and imbue them with the influences of Americana and European traditions. It often creates intereresting results. and Nordic musicians rarely seem to be starting to play music ‘to make it big in the industry’, they’re doing it because they have to.

How did you set about selecting the specific three bands for the Feb show? What gave those bands the edge over the others?
I was just looking for a good mix – a balance of music rather than one thread. I took a long time listening to everything on the radar but the three I chose I felt would make an exceptional night of live music. It will be exciting, and uplifting and something I am really looking forward to.

Surburban Kids With Biblical Names

Radio Dept were the first Labrador Records band that I got into. I’d just passed my driving test so I spent much of the Autumn of 2004 driving around Grimsby in my rubbish old Nissan Micra, basking in the fuzzy warmth of their debut LP Lesser Matters. Back then I had no idea about any of their label mates, in fact the copy of Lesser Matters that I bought from my local Virgin Megastore had been licensed to and released by XL in the UK. It could quite easily have been them that I’m writing about now, I suppose, save for the fact the rest of their roster is terrible. So I did some ‘surfing’ (This was 2004, that’s what we called it) and happened across Labrador’s website. It was like a treasure chest of indie-pop goodness waiting to be found. Since then I’ve been hooked and hopefully after reading this piece you will be too.

I was going to write some kind of potted history of Labrador Records but, as summarising their last ten years of work would do them a bit of a disservice, I’ll just point you towards Labrador 100: The Complete History of Popular Music. It’s a compilation of the best tracks on Labrador releases from 1997-2007 which has a very informative booklet with it, providing a much better biography of their activities than I could ever conjure up. Go get it. Instead I’ll focus on a handful of records that, for me, encapsulate exactly what Labrador Records are really about and why I love them so much. I’ll do it in a chronological order too, history fans.

Club 8 – The Friend I Once Had (1998)
One of label founder Johan Angergard’s own bands (Along with Acid House Kings and the Legends), this was their second album (They’d released one for Siesta, a Spanish label in 1995) and it’s a fantastic record. It kicks off with ‘Everlasting Love’, two minutes and thirty seven seconds of pure sunshine, and finishes with the dance floor filling ‘Missing You’. In between, there are tracks  like ‘I Wish You’d Stay’ and ‘Better Days’; songs about lost loves and loneliness that somehow manage to be comforting and uplifting. The kind of thing you can sulk to when the girl you fancy blocks you on MSN. I’d imagine.

Ronderlin – Wave Another Day Goodbye (2002)
Eeee! Just talking about this album makes me feel a little bit giddy. Wave Another Day Goodbye is an album I discovered relatively late but it’s become one of my favourite records in the history of ever. Pitched somewhere between early REM style jauntiness, Smiths-esque broodiness and Belle and Sebastian-ish loveliness, Ronderlin’s one and only release with Labrador is a pop gem. ‘Reflected’, the second track on the album, is literally one of the best pop songs ever made.  By the end of it you’re in a state of near euphoria, shouting “OUR LOVE WILL LAST MORE THAN A DAY, MORE THAN A DAY!” at an empty flat and wanting nothing more than to listen to that song for the rest of the day. That’d be a crime against the rest of this wonderful album though, which I’ve neglected just so I can write about one song. Go and listen to the whole thing, yeah?

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names – #3 (2005)
Probably my favourite Labrador band, Suburban Kids With Biblical Names’ debut album is a masterpiece. With hints of Magnetic Fields and afrobeat, (That’s what the Guardian said anyway, but they also reckoned that the Courteneers had African influences too, rather than just shit ones) #3 is the most consistently brilliant pop record you could ever hope to own. First track ‘Marry Me’ is perfect Valentine’s Day mixtape material; a love song that won’t make you want to go on a killing spree.  The rest of the album is filled with instantly memorable pop,  from bouncy anthem ‘Parakit’ to the downright unfathomable ‘Noodles’, and is exactly the kind of record that should be getting played on radio stations throughout the land. But it isn’t, sadly.

I could go on but I’ll stop here, before I end up writing about every single album ever released on Labrador. I strongly recommend you listen to the following albums as well as the ones I’ve already mentioned:

Acid House Kings – Sing Along With The Acid House Kings
Irene – Apple Bay
[Ingenting] – Mycket Väsen För Ingenting
Tribeca – Dragon Down
Radio Dept – Lesser Matters

Needless to say, don’t stop there. You can stream most Labrador releases on last.fm so I’d recommend you have a look on there.  Great.

To break up the monotony of me going on and on, here’s some rubbish questions that I asked Johan Angergard (Labrador head honcho and member of Acid House Kings, the Legends and Club 8).

What’s the most frustrating thing about running a record label?
Most of the time everything is nice, inspiring and fairly smooth. Sure, if someone writes something bad about a band on Labrador I can get a little irritated and I might start thinking things like “once I no longer have this label, this idiot is going to get it”. But, I do forget very fast. Most people have really bad taste in music and you can’t expect to win over them all.

Obviously you’ve achieved loads over the last eleven years, but what do you think the label’s biggest achievement has been so far? And what ambitions do you have for the future?
The biggest achievment, and surprise, is that you can actually make a living on forcing your taste in music upon other people. I don’t have the widest taste in music and I only sign bands based on how much I love their music. If they’re going to sell or not is never something I take into account, so it’s a bit strange that this label actually works.

Labrador bands seem to spend a lot of time touring in mainland Europe but rarely make it over to the UK. Why is this? Is it the bands’ personal choice or are there other factors that don’t make it a viable option?
Because they’re expected to sleep on people’s floors and be happy to get a payment of two beers and a package of crisps?  I don’t know. But we don’t sell much in the UK so i’m sure that’s one of the reasons.  And I watched an episode of some kind of NME chart on TV a couple of years ago and that helped me understand why it might be difficult for us to have popular artists in Great Britain.

If you had to describe the label in four words, which ones would you use?
Uncompromising, hearty, honest, anti-macho.

I remember Radio Dept doing a tour of Peru and now it seems that Club 8 have been to Brazil! Do your bands have a big following in South America that you know of?
Probably not. It’s one of those places where we don’t really sell a lot of records, but the bands attract huge crowds. So it could possibly be that a lot of our bands are huge there and i don’t have a clue.

Has there ever been a time when you’ve thought about quitting while you’re ahead?
No. The future lies bright ahead.

by Stephen Carlton (AKA Jam On Bread)

mp3:> Jam On Bread: ‘I Heart Labrador Records’

Jam On Bread on MySpace
Labrador Official Site

As Full Time Hobby celebrate their 4th Birthday this year, TLOBF scribe Simon Tylers had the opportunity to put some questions to label co-founder Nigel Adams about the past, the future and what FTH is all about.

Why did you originally start the label?
Wez and I were working for a big independent label, Mushroom Records (I was directly working on Infectious as part of that). The label was being bought out by Warners and neither of us were keen on the idea of working with a major label system plus we both felt it was time to do something ourselves.

What is the label’s ethos?
Primarily working with music we really love.

How do you pinpoint potential signings?
They come from lots of different sources. We have an A&R scout constantly bringing in new music for us to hear but a lot of music comes from varied sources such as the PR companies we work with, agents, word of mouth from labels or managers we know in the US. Most of the time is a tip from someone we know and respect.

There doesn’t seem to be such a thing as a typical Full Time Hobby band. Is there anything, apart from them being any good, that you look for the artists to do for you?
Specifically it has to be music that really moves us and that’s not really restricted to any particular genre. As a broad term I suppose you could call it eclectic independent music, terms like ‘alternative’ and ‘indie’ are so devoid of meaning nowadays. It really is limited by what music we love and as we have fairly broad tastes that could be folk, indie pop, electronica, instrumental hip hop, experimental rock etc etc

Is there anyone notable that you’re willing to admit you passed up on?
Not really, no one we regret not having worked with at least.

Is there an album or an artist that you wished you HAD passed on?!?
Not at all.

If push came to shove, what would be the best thing you’ve done to date?
I’d hate to pick one artist over another as we truly enjoy working with them all, so maybe I’d say the Dream Brother compilation? It took a long time to put together but we were really pleased with the end results and we ended up working with Tunng and Micah P Hinson as a direct result of that.

Does it have an effect on the label when something like the Hold Steady critically take off?
Certainly, it can only be a good thing as the label’s profile raises and that helps all the bands we work with.

How do you now view Radio 1 picking up on Malcolm Middleton’s We’re All Going To Die and touted it as a potential Christmas number one? It seemed, from this distance, to be taken out of your and Malcolm’s hands somewhat.
The idea for Malcolm to go for a Christmas number 1 came up in a casual chat with him last Autumn and once the idea got out there it quickly propagated, mainly due to the wholehearted embrace of the song by Colin Murray on Radio 1. It definitely took on a life of it’s own but I don’t think that was a bad thing at all, it got a lot more coverage for Malcolm for a song that was on his album anyway and made a few valid points, about the meaning of Christmas, the vacuity of the current charts and also Malcolm questioning existentialism. Not bad for a three minute indie pop song.

How do you see the current state of the industry?
It’s in a massive state of flux but great music continues to be made and will be listened to. Record labels are having to diversify and run much tighter operations but there are ways to still get by. I’m not sure about the widely touted subscription model for the future of the industry though.

The title of ‘Not Doing It For The Quids’ is a Creation Records reference – is that the sort of status you can see Full Time Hobby achieving?
Yes, definitely. Creation in it’s early days had a massive impact on me as a music fan, as did Sub Pop and what I learned about the early days of Elektra. The idea of gathering together all these great musicians and helping them find a platform to get their music heard always appealed to me, and those labels that did that in different ways or against the odds were particularly appealing.

Who’d be your three current dream signings?
Very hard to say – from the past? My Bloody Valentine, Love, Mark Lanegan when he started out solo off the top of my head but there are a lot of others.

Which new bands are you most excited about?
We’ve just signed a new band from New York called School Of Seven Bells. It all happened suddenly about a month ago and so it’s just sinking in that we’re lucky enough to be working with them.

What’s coming up for the label?
We’ll have lots of new albums next year by artists already signed to the label. Tunng are starting work on their fourth album (third for us) that will see the light of day in August. Malcolm Middleton will have a new album out May time, as will White Denim. There’ll be plenty more but that’s enough to be getting on with for now.

Full Time Hobby website

So, it’s Moshi Moshi’s 10th anniversary…
Yeah, in October it will be 10 years from our first release.

How did it all start out – who were the first bands that you worked with?
There were three of us that started it. Two of us worked at labels, one was doing press and we had the normal frustrations of working for other people. We wanted to release things that we liked so we decided we’d get on with it, and do it. Spent ages trying to think of a name. We persuaded this band, Sukpatch, to do a 7” with us, and we just got on with it. We got a nice review in the NME, so that was encouraging. We knew vaguely what we were doing, because we’d worked in record companies and, you know, it’s not really rocket science, the whole process. We did try to do it properly, though, rather than completely amateurishly. It took us quite a while to really pull our socks up. Probably the Bloc Party single, and Hot Chip, were when it started getting a bit more serious.

So did you “quit the day jobs” at that stage?
No. There’s only two of us now (and I’ve got an assistant) but I still work elsewhere. Michael [McClatchey] does it full-time. It’s about 4 or 5 years now that it’s been more full-time, for Michael, at least, but it still doesn’t make much, or really any money – at least at the moment. In the last three years it has been a lot more “grown up”, though, I’d say.

Presumably when running a record label there is a balance that needs to be worked out between pragmatically considering whether or not a band is going to sell, vs choosing bands and releasing things just because you love them. Do you follow your heads, or your hearts?
We have to consider everything. Because we’re only a tiny company we can do things really cheaply, which means that we can still do things that might be a little more artistic, as opposed to commercial. Keeping costs down helps, obviously. But you do have to think like that anyway, y’know. We have dropped bands. You have to make similar decisions to bigger labels at certain points. It’s tricky.

So it’s always a balance, but I think to a certain extent music is a weird thing to work in, but the whole thing is: music should mean something to people, and if it doesn’t really mean anything to anyone it’s pointless it existing, so it kind of has a natural balance. You find something you love, and it might only sell a thousand records, a thousand albums or something and you just decide whether you can do it, whether you’re going to not lose money, or whether it’s going to take too much time to make it worthwhile because if you were to do it it would be cannibalising other bands you work with.

But we do release things that we love, we don’t just find things that we think are going to sell and then even though we don’t like them, do them anyway. That never really happens… Only a couple of times, maybe in the past we’ve had things a little bit more like that, but they just… they never work anyway, really.

Because your heart isn’t in it?
Well yeah, and I think people [can] tell, y’know. The whole thing about Moshi Moshi being all about “Truth and Beauty” is kind of drunken bullshit in a way, but at the same time it’s something that I wholly believe in as well. It’s always best to do something you love – people aren’t so stupid that they can’t tell. It just means that you can always hold your head up high and be proud of what you . Which, mostly, we are. We’re mostly completely and utterly proud of the stuff that we’ve released, and we all love it and think that the artists are all brilliant and talented people that deserve to be “worked” well, you know?

How do you identify acts that you want to sign?
All sorts of ways. In my day job I work at a major label, and have done for 14 years doing A&R, so we’ve got lots of contacts – people we know that will tell us about things. We use MP3 blogs a lot too. You find music the same way that any fan does really, but you’ve just got to try to be there a bit quicker, and just listen to things in an open-minded way. Some people like music that they hear, and after repeated listenings they’ll get into it, but I’ll always look at what gives me a “hit” in new music. The thrill is finding something new and exciting. I think naturally I’m predisposed for doing what I do, really. You just listen to everything that’s recommended that you think might be good, you’ve just got to be open to good new music.

Are there any “ones that got away”: bands that you would have loved to have signed to Moshi Moshi but, for whatever reason, it didn’t work out?
There are ones that we’ve lost, like Hot Chip and Architecture in Helsinki, Late of the Pier, Lykke Li, that we’ve done singles with. We would also have loved to have carried on working with Kate Nash. But they’ve got managers, and we don’t have the budgets to compete with people. A couple of acts that I wish we’d done things with, where we probably should have tried harder: I saw Foals once and didn’t quite “get” them, and the second time I saw them realised they were brilliant but it was too late. Also Vampire Weekend – I wish we’d had a go at signing them. We sort of spoke to them about doing a single but then someone else I knew was already speaking to them so we backed off. So those two, recently when I hear them I sort of slap and kick myself. We also tried to do a Klaxons single but we didn’t manage to do that. But there are fortunately not too many.

The Wave Pictures

So you tend to get the ones you want?
Well, generally. We’re not perfect though! Dirty Projectors might be another one. Fuck Buttons as well, that’s another band that I love at the moment. They’re incredible, I really like them.

There doesn’t seem to be a typical Moshi Moshi band. Do you have any template for what you think of as “your” kind of band?
It’s all styles, stuff we like. I mean generally lots of things that have gone before. I think that’s just the nature of the music that I like, you know? But our tastes in music are really broad. I’d love to do some bassline garage stuff because we quite like that music, and I used to do a lot of that in my day job. There’s no genre that we don’t enjoy, to an extent. I don’t know much about emo, and probably wouldn’t do anything on that , or heavy metal, or classical music, but other than that, pretty much anything is game, really. It’s just stuff we like. We’ve both got really broad tastes in music.

What are some of your favourite bands that aren’t on your label?
Current stuff – Dirty Projectors… There are a few bands that I want to go and see at my first ever ATP (the Pitchfork one), like The Hold Steady, who I love, Yeasayer, Vampire Weekend and Jens Lekman. I really like Bright Eyes. A lot of weirder house music, as well, sort of stranger, druggier dance music.

What sort of stuff did you listen to growing up?
Well, I’m very ancient… I’m 38. Acid house was probably the first big musical youth movement for me. Michael was much more of an indie shoegazer than me, he was more into My Bloody Valentine and things like that. But really acid house was my first thing. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was my first “favourite band”. I didn’t, personally, get into guitar music until later, and then things like Pavement – they were another seminal band for me, them and Flaming Lips will always be in my top 10.

I always think that all of these things are pop music, in a way. It’s pop music that’s just more left-field: creative pop music that isn’t like manufactured pop. I don’t think anything on Moshi’s being super serious, you know? Not that I don’t think it’s serious, but… I just think it’s music that anyone can appreciate, if they are being open-minded when they listen.

I just get frustrated when people compare us to Fierce Panda, or something, or when they say, y’know, “uber-hip, trendy Moshi Moshi”. It just annoys me – I’d rather we were successful than trendy. I’m not trying to find music that is only appealing to hipsters or something. I believe all this music is great, and people should hear it, you know? I want to find this music and make it successful and give the bands we work with good careers.

You’ve just put out the Moshi Moshi Singles Club compilation. How does the distinction between the main Moshi Moshi label and the Singles Club work? Are they very separate?
We hadd stopped doing singles for a while because it just cost too much money, and we just got a bit bored. There were many more artists that we wanted to get involved with that we could do albums with. We set this up [the Singles Club] so that it was as cheap as possible. For example all the releases have one colour on the art work, we do limited runs, and we don’t do CDs. We lose a little bit, probably, on each release. The idea was that we’d do a compilation every 18 months that would hopefully make back some of the money we’ve lost.

It’s not really separate, musically, it just gives us a bit more freedom to release more music, and do things with people that we know we might not get to do the album with, but that we really like anyway. We can hopefully give them a good start, which also helps keep our name out, and enables us to work with bands that we really like. So it’s not separate in any philosophical way, we just set it up so we could get more out, and work with more bands. It means we can be a bit more adventurous than perhaps we would otherwise be.

It has worked brilliantly, I think. I’m really happy with the compilation. I know everyone “tushes” Kate Nash, but I stil think she’s great . She’s a great young artist: she’s – what? – nineteen or twenty, she’s writing all her own music and doing everything pretty much on her own terms. She’s gone on to be hugely successful really without selling her soul or anything. I mean, people may or may not like her, but I think it’s a bit foolish or mean to slag her off as being some sort of annoying pop girl. She’s actually a young person with a load of character that’s succeeding in having a career doing what she wants to do. I think if anything she should be applauded for it. She should really be seen as quite an inspirational person. Obviously “Caroline is a Victim” might not be her greatest moment, but I think it’s a bit rude of people just to say “oh she’s execrable” or whatever word they use to describe her, cos I’m still proud of releasing the record with her on the b-side, and I think she’s a good artist.

Do you have favourite artists that you work with? Who would you say are the next up-coming artists that our readers should look out for?
Personally probably Hot Chip are my favourites, I think they really fit what we’re trying to do: they’re a challenging pop band and they make great music. They’re a brilliant live band too, and are now actually appealing to an awful lot of people. New bands: probably Slow Club, who we’re managing and releasing, and The Wave Pictures. I don’t know if they are “new” enough, but I’m really excited about them. They’re one of the most exciting bands in England at the moment. He’s a truly genuine creative force, Dave Tattershall, I think he’s one of England’s greatest living songwriters quite easily, and they’re a brilliant unique band that are operating completely in their own world, just doing what they do. I really hope that people are going to understand them and appreciate them. At the moment we’re just looking for other new things like them, but they are the two latest ones. Other ones that are around: Hot Club De Paris got a new album coming out on Moshi, then there’s a new Tilly and the Wall album out at the moment but I guess they’re already known about, so really Slow Club and The Wave Pictures are the two newies. The Slow Club are getting better all the time and they’ve got heaps of charm and talent as well.

They play percussion with bottles and things, don’t they?
Yeah, not so much bottles any more, but they’ve got a chair as part of the drum kit. They’ve got some great new songs. The Wave Pictures just blow my mind. You should try and catch them live – they’re something to see.

We will do. Thanks very much for talking with us, and enjoy the rest of your day.
Thanks, keep in touch. Bye.

Links
Moshi Moshi [official site]

The conclusion of our week long celebration of Wichita’s 7th birthday, a chat with co-founder and label boss Mark Bowen. We cover his early career with Creation, his advice on starting a new label as well as what the future holds for his good ship Wichita…

What were your key ideas and focus behind starting Wichita?
No grand plan really. We just wanted to do something simple and small and work strictly with artists that we completely believed in. We had and still have only one rule “no wankers”.

What were your days at Creation records like? Can you see any similarities between them and yourselves or did you set out to avoid being a carbon copy and make the same mistakes?
Amazing times. It had always been my favourite label and to work there was a dream come true. The fact that my time there coincided with Alan signing the biggest band in the world just made it all the better/more surreal. If the label’s share anything then its a desire to work with artists that can have long careers who get better and better over time.

What’s your favourite and worst Wichita release to date?
Hmmmmmm. Can’t really answer that one. Every release is special for its own reason and has its own emotional attachments. I guess that as we have complete control over who we get to work with we haven’t ended up with a worst release. I’ll defend all of them!

Are there any records that you wish you could have released?
Tons and tons and tons. We never got to work with Death From Above 1979 sadly and that will be a permanent regret.

As a label boss. How do you feel about internet piracy? Do you lose much sleep over it or see it as something that simply just happens.
Don’t know about losing sleep but obviously its been one of many issues that have meant that its harder and harder to sell records and it was never easy to begin with. Against that. We could never have been this label if the internet hadn’t existed so……

Are you part of the MP3 generation or do you still buy CD’s or vinyl?
I have swung right back to vinyl I’m afraid. Sad but true. Have no issue with digital though and treasure my ipod.

What advice would you give to anyone thinking of starting a label?
I would always say dont unless you have simply too much money to care if you lose it all. If you’re insistent though then make sure you only work with things you believe in 1000 percent because every day will be a struggle.

What do you look for when signing an artist? With the current Myspace craze you must get swamped daily with band submissions. Do you find the bands, or do the bands find you?
Bit of both I guess. The world is pretty small these days and if you treat people well and fairly then word tends to get out. Finding new music (even if its old) is still my main thing though and I love to look for stuff. The crunch is if me and Dick hear/see something and think that it could have a long career.

In all your years in the music industry. Which artist that you’ve worked with has made the biggest impression on you?
Martin Carr (Boo Radleys/Bravecaptain) my best friend and a musical genius.

What does the next 7 years hold of Wichita? Where do you see the future of the label? In the short term, are there any interesting new signings we should look out for?
I would gladly settle for same again please. I’d like to think that in seven years people will still value music enough to pay for it in whatever form it takes. We have two records coming next year and coincidentally they are both going to be pop classics. Honest. Debut albums from Los Campesinos! and Those Dancing Days. Both going to be instant classics even though the bands have a combined age of about 50! Kids today………..

Links
Wichita [label website]

To conclude our celebrations of Bella Union’s 10th Anniversary we were privileged enough to be given some time to bother the label supremo, Simon Raymonde. We discuss a Cocteau Twins reunion, his influences and, the main question for the coming year, who will win the Premiership next season.

Which artists did you look up to when you first started playing music?
My very first heroes when I was 15 when I got my first bass were the Sex Pistols, Public Image Limited, Elvis Costello, The Clash and The Slits. Then when I was 18/19 I got into Wire, The Buzzcocks, Pop Group, Birthday Party, The Fall, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Television…

What was your key ideas and focus behind starting Bella Union? Was it always going to be a label for multiple artists or just somewhere for the Cocteau Twins to release material?
The initial idea was for it to be a place for our own stuff but we split up soon after we had spent ages designing the logo and thinking up the name so we figured we may as well as put something out. It sort of just grew naturally that way. I didn’t really have a plan, still don’t really…for the first few years, it was a little odd because I was in partnership with Robin from the Cocteau’s too and the early direction of the label wasn’t totally guided by me. Since 2001 its been fine as Robin decided to concentrate on his own music and moved away to France..

Bella Union, at the moment, doesn’t seem to be able to release a bad record! Does that increase the pressure on you to find artists of a high calibre?
Well in a way I guess it would if I let it, but I think just more people are paying attention now. I think we have been releasing pretty good albums for quite a while, and I like to think I have been getting it right slightly more often than wrong.

Did you ever believe the label would get to its 10th Birthday? How have things changed in the industry since you’ve started?
I didn’t imagine we’d make 10 records let alone 10 years. The whole thing’s flipped on its head in the last couple of years. All the prophets of doom have been proved right in one sense in regard to downloads and how people expect to buy their music today and the shift of power seems to be changing weekly rather than yearly. With Myspace and YouTube the presentation and marketing of the bands has changed enormously. The access for me as a label to hear and communicate with artists globally has changed a lot and this is of great benefit to me. And I think there are some wonderful bands out there, maybe they were always there but Myspace has increased the coverage.

Where did your fascination with Texan music start? Can we expect further releases from the American heartland?
I guess from my visits to SXSW festival alerted me to some good stuff, but mostly it came from signing Lift to Experience. Through that relationship I met some cool people like Jetscreamer and the Midlake boys..etc it seemed like there was a real energy and passion in the Denton scene and while Explosions in the Sky are from Austin, these bands all seem to me to have that “we have to do this or else we’d die” attitude which more often than not, means that these folk are creating music from the heart not the head. I don’t have any idea if I will sign any more Texan bands, I have nothing on the burner just now..i hope so…

What’s your favourite and worst Bella Union release to date?
Hahaha, of course that is not a question that is possible for me to answer!! There are a few that haven’t done very well in terms of sale, but I would still stand by them musically! I have regrets over signing Trespassers William, but not because they weren’t any good. I have loved working with most of our bands but certainly there are the ones that have done well, like Midlake, the Dears, Stephanie Dosen, Dirty Three, Kissaway Trail, Fionn Regan, Lift to Experience, Laura Veirs, Devics, The Czars that have all been treasures.

Are there any records that you wish you could have released?
I would like to have released the latest Of Montreal album, a Patti Smith album, but mostly no regrets no!!

You’ve worked with some fantastic artists over the past few years; James Yorkston, The Duke Spirit, Clearlake and, more recently Stephanie Dosen. When producing a band or artist, what do you look for? Do they approach you or do you only contact artists that impress you?
I don’t really contact bands at all, but I will only work on things I like because I don’t have much spare time and if I am gonna do a decent job I need to feel happy about being away from the office for all that time….so the ones you have mentioned were all dreams to work with, as was the Fionn Regan album I mixed. I like to find people who just need a little help in direction or confidence, bands who have an identity already, but maybe are not quite there yet in terms of what they want to do… I am not the sitting at the back kinda producer, more of a sitting around the piano chatting about what a great drum sound that is, or how to look at a song with a fresh attitude…

How have you embraced the internet revolution? Do you see downloading and Myspace as crucial to the future of the music industry?
Yes I do, but it’s a worry of course as to how labels are going to sell music and therefore fund new artists. You see now that no major wants to sign a new band. They’ll only sign a band they know can sell 20,000+ from day one. Which means there is little place for artist development any more, which is why I am here!!
Downloading is of course where we’re at but downloading albums is gonna have to change which will mean how we promote our bands will change. I don’t believe we will be promoting albums by bands soon..it will just be tracks. I am not sure what I think about it yet…

As a label boss. How do you feel about internet piracy? Do you lose much sleep over it or see it as something that simply just happens.
I hate it but the industry could have done something about it 15 years ago and didn’t, so we have to just get on with it.

Are you part of the MP3 generation or do you still buy CD’s or vinyl?
I buy CD’s and vinyl and I buy music and videos from iTunes. I buy about 10 CD’s a month. And I download about 3 albums a month. I know everyone is saying that the CD is dead but I am not 100% sure.

What advice would you give to anyone thinking of starting a label?
Think again. Be an agent, a secret agent or a booking agent. Or start a clothing label.

Any plans for recording any solo material yourself? Or maybe, as is the fashion at the moment, regrouping the Cocteau Twins?
No regrouping now…that’s not a good idea. I am working on some new songs for myself yes, finally after a 10 year hiatus!!
Can’t tell you much more than that just now, but if I progress with it, I will let you know!!

What’s currently on your stereo?
I am listening to the new Rufus Wainwright, Soy Un Caballo, a great singer called Heidi Spencer, Cocoon, Fink, Barth, Rien, Hanne Hukkelberg, Captive States, Lily Electric…

If your life flashed before your eyes, what three things would stand out?
- The moment my sons were born (I will count that as one for literary purposes, because otherwise it would be boring).
- The moment I kissed my girlfriend for the first time on the 33 bus.
- Getting bottled off stage in front of 40,000 rednecks in Kansas City supporting Metallica.

Can you see yourself still being at the helm for its 20th Anniversary? What does the future hold for Bella Union?
No not really because I think I would like to be doing something else by then… but you never know… The future in any music-related venture has to be uncertain. But I am not overly bothered about it. I love doing it today and cant see much beyond tomorrow.

And a completely, non-music related question, who’s going to win the Premiership next season? Do you think that Chelsea’s millions have made it harder for other teams to compete?
I think my team Spurs will win it. I don’t care a hoot about Chelsea’s millions really. They bought some really stupid players with all their money and who play like twice then never again then they sign players like Alex who are brilliant who are out on loan!! And I think Mourinho lost the plot last season though I quite enjoy watching his post-match interviews. Almost as funny as Arsene Wenger’s. Mourinho thinks there is a conspiracy by referees against Chelsea and Wenger can’t see anything that happens on the pitch unless it’s a sublime Arsenal move. They’re both terrible losers and friends of mine say that’s what makes them winners. But I disagree. Ferguson will see it how it is mostly, and he is the classiest of premiership managers. Martin Jol is pretty cool though, I like it when he is being asked a question where the only answer can be “Yes” and he says “No”. It seems to make complete sense to me. If Berbatov stays at Spurs and doesn’t get injured then we should win it by about 14 points. I think Reading will finish second and Sunderland 3rd. I think Roman Abraham-”lene”-lovich will get bored and sell Chelsea back to Ken Bates. I think Wenger will resign and Henry will leave and Fabregas too (I hope!! He is just TOO good!!! ) and Man Utd will have a mediocre season because Giggsy and Scholes will get injured and Darren Fletcher will be found out as “Not very good” and Real Madrid will sign good Ronaldo and West Ham will sign fat Ronaldo and Big Sam will be sacked by Xmas. I don’t really know what I am talking about, but I love Spurs and that’s all that you need to know.

Exclusive Bella Union material
Stream versions of the following:
Fionn Regan – Black Water Child
Beach House – Apple Orchard
The Kissaway Trail – Eloquence & Elixr
Stephanie Dosen – Daydream