Each month, we are focusing on a record label founded by an active digger. This month, Quinton Scott, the man behind Strut Records, talks about his passion since more than thirty years and goes back on his choices, reissues as new stuff.

When did you start digging records?
I started buying vinyl seriously around 1983.

What LPs did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
My first love was early ’80s electro. I would travel from the suburbs to Central London and fight through the bomber jackets at the counter in Soho’s Groove Records to get the latest imports. I still love that era. There are brilliant records and some DIY efforts which have dated really badly but that whole period had a particular innocence and is still very special.

Do you have a particular style or favorite period?
1970-1973 was an incredible time for music but my personal favourite is probably around 1986-1987. You would hear a real variety of sounds in London clubs and warehouses from rare groove to boogie to Washington DC go-go, hip hop and early house and it just felt like a very open-minded time for music.

Are you still digging’, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
Yes, definitely. Running an indie label doesn’t make you rich and I have two growing kids these days but any spare pennies still go on the vinyl.

What was your first release ?
I started a dance reissues label before Strut called Harmless (still going through Demon Music) and we started that in ’95 with a compilation of Masters At Work’s remixes called ‘Masterworks’. With Strut, I kicked off with an Afro-funk / Afrobeat collection compiled by Brighton DJ Russ Dewbury – ‘Club Africa’.

‘Jungle Funk’ by Nkengas

Why Strut ? What does that mean ?
It’s a funky walk! You’re feeling good and you’re struttin’ down the street. It’s obviously inspired by funk records that used ‘Strut’ in their titles too. I was obsessed with The Meters so ‘Cissy Strut’ was probably coming to mind…

What could be the label’s leitmotif?
“Put the artists first and make amazing, lesser known original music available to everyone”. We try and present our albums to appeal to any music fan – it’s personally satisfying to take the music away from over-protective collectors and DJs who feel like they somehow own the music and make it available more widely.

What could be your editorial/aesthetic line?
There’s a broad philosophy of back catalogue dancefloor music that has influenced today’s generation so Strut covers everything from undiscovered “world” fusions to disco, post-punk and industrial music to early house.

How do you decide on the choice of reissues/issues ?
It can happen in a variety of ways – I may spot a gap in the market for a particular album, one of the collectors we work with regularly may have an idea or we may just get approached by someone that we have never worked with before. For an album to work, it needs to be a unique idea with global potential, preferably with an interesting back-story. I think we generally know instinctively straight away if an album will work as an idea or not.

What is the best deal / business : to make reissues or to produce / co-produce new records?
On the whole, compilations are a much safer bet for us – once you know your market, you have a fairly good idea which ones will work and how many they will sell. With artist albums, it’s much more risky. Our work with Ethio-jazz legend Mulatu Astatke was really successful all the way through and set him up as a major world music star. The Souljazz Orchestra too is an amazingly hard-working band – the most super-organised and focused group I have ever worked with. The problem comes when things don’t go right. Touring may not happen at the right time for one reason or another, visas get stuck in the system, recording costs go way over budget. There’s a whole list of reasons why an artist project can become a nightmare!
 

‘Cha Cha’ by Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics

‘Watch We’ by Horace Andy and Ashley Beedle (Souljazz Orchestra Mix)

How do you find brand new talents ? Do you have a team who works for you, I mean who suggests new releases to you?
We’re lucky with Strut now that we get approached by a lot of artists and collectors / compilers – a lot of projects come about because of word of mouth. We do have regular collaborators; collector Duncan Brooker is a core part of the team and is an endless source of amazing rare music and musicians like The Heliocentrics and Ben Abarbanel-Wolff (man behind the Ebo Taylor and Pat Thomas albums) are always great to work with. But, new releases can just as easily come from an in-house idea or a DJ / collector who approaches us out of the blue with a great project.

Strut often creates collaboration projects (Mulatu/Heliocentrics, Tony Allen/Jimi Tenor, Ashley Beedle/Horace Andy,…). What did you expect through these ? and what are the next moves?
We originally set up a series for this called ‘Inspiration Information’ and felt that it would be a really good way to bring in all kinds of interesting and unexpected collaborations and build them into a unique run of albums. In reality, some albums have worked better than others so we have increasingly focused the branding of any collaborative albums on the artists themselves. The next one is Ghanaian highlife legend Pat Thomas with Kwashibu Area Band featuring fellow legends Ebo Taylor, Tony Allen, Ralph Karikari and Osei Tutu alongside younger musicians led by Kwame Yeboah and Ben Abarbanel-Wolff.

For a long time now, you have been putting out multiple compilations emphasizing the « latin » scenes : Funky Nassau, Fania Selection, Haiti Direct or Calypsoul… In this part of your catalogue, you are adding a new project : Peru. What is the specificity of this scene ? How did you discover it ? Do you believe there was/is a connection between all these latin versions? The Peruvian link has come specifically through a partner label we are working with, Tiger’s Milk. The guys behind that are Martin Morales (ex-Outcaste and now a restaurant entrepreneur in London with the Ceviche group of Peruvian restaurants) and Duncan Ballantyne (ex-Soundway). They have already produced two superb comps, ‘Peru Maravilloso’ and ‘Peru Bravo’ and we’re working together on a fine new folk / electronic band called Kanaku y El Tigre.
For the Latin releases we put out, there’s obviously a direct link with the Nu Yorican sound of ’60s / ’70s and some of the Latin-rooted Caribbean bands of the same era – the issue for us as a compilation label is to come up with something different and fresh. We felt that there needed to be a strong overview of Fania on the market (Dean Rudland compiled a great set for us) and ‘Calypsoul 70’ was more of a general celebration of some of the rare funkier island sounds of the era spanning the Caribbean.

‘You Think it Soft!’ by Lancelot Layne

Strut is involved in most of The Heliocentrics projects. What type of collaboration do you have with them?
We actually only work album by album with the Helios – there’s no long term deal. Jake, Malcolm and I will talk at certain points and the timing will just be right to start putting together a particular album. As collaborators, I don’t think there’s anyone to touch them in Europe – they’re all brilliant musicians and they just have a way of working with the legends that brings out the best from them and takes their music into trippy, progressive new areas. The sessions with Mulatu, Lloyd Miller and Orlando Julius were amazing to watch. Not least for the mixing process – Malcolm and Jake essentially have to piece together a big jigsaw of sessions to create their final versions with amazing attention to detail.

Are you still connected to the electro-disco scene, like Berlin touch for instance ? Do you have some similar projects?
Yes, we’re currently working on a project called ‘Subkultur’ which looks at the Berlin scene of the early ‘80s, some of the key artists like Mania D and Malaria!, one-off art experiments, a brilliant demo of Anita Lane and Mick Harvey doing an anarchic version of Sister Sledge’s ‘Lost In Music’ – there’s all sorts in there. The compiler is a musician who was at the centre of that scene, Mark Reeder, and Horst Weidenmueller, boss of Strut’s parent company !K7, started out filming in Berlin clubs and venues during that time so we definitely have the inside story.

What about the Celluloid years, do you want to make a second part of that, more focused on Braziloid ?
I would love to do another Celluloid / Braziloid collection but it’s one of those messy situations on licensing rights, unfortunately. Through doing the first compilation, we discovered that three different parties had claims to the label name and master rights and it all became extremely complicated with the licensing. So, I doubt another will happen, sadly.

You won Label Of The Year at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards… How is it to make a living out of a record label in 2015?
It’s definitely hard making it a viable business. Everything has to be right – the idea, the artwork, bringing the album in on budget and setting up a really strong marketing campaign globally. If everything falls into place, you can still make money but if any one part of that mix doesn’t work, it can all fall through your fingers very quickly.

‘Kyenkyen Bi Adi Mawu’ by K. Frimpong and His Cubano Fiesta

‘African Dialects’ by Peter King

You worked with Ebo Taylor, Orlando Julius and now Pat Thomas, and released a lot of african music compilation, including the great ‘Next Stop Soweto’ series! Is Strut the main african label at the moment?
I hope Strut plays its part but there are obviously many superb labels around today. I think our compiler Duncan Brooker certainly changed the whole market with his ‘Afro Rock Vol. 1’ compilation and our first ‘Nigeria 70’ collection around 2000. They were some of the first albums to dig deep into African archives and market the music to a much wider audience than the traditional ‘world music’ buyers which definitely helped to inspire other labels to form. Today, the variety of new and original African music out there is mouth-watering – Soundway, Analog Africa, Awesome Tapes, Sublime Frequencies, Now Again, Glitterbeat, Transgressive, Luaka Bop, Voodoo Funk, Hot Casa and of course, the DADDIES – Stern’s and World Circuit, among many others, including Superfly! All doing a great job. It’s an amazing time for record buyers.

You released a compilation of Sun Ra material with Marshall Allen. How did you get to work with him ? And what was the main aesthetic idea for that particular project?
That one came through the nicest man in the music business, Peter Dennett at Art Yard. He has worked with the Sun Ra catalogue and the Arkestra for many years and pulled the strings to make the album happen, linking us with the catalogue gatekeepers over at Sun Ra LLC. The thinking behind it was quite simple – Sun Ra had primarily always been the domain of the collector and there hadn’t ever been a well-marketed Sun Ra compilation. So, rather than going for a straight ‘Best Of’, we felt that a deeper selection curated by the current Arkestra bandleader Marshall Allen would be a strong direction to take. Marshall is truly inspirational for a 91 year-old and it was a huge pleasure to work with him and Peter.

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs you were trying to reissue?
Yes, we do often get knocked back, for different reasons. Artists may want to release the album themselves or may just not want to licence their music at all, our licence fees may be perceived as too low or the rights to a track may be complicated and locked in a legal battle.

From Marshall Allen presents Sun Ra And His Arkestra – In The Orbit Of Ra

There are more and more reissues of old LPs, and more and more record labels (major or indie) now release their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
There are a lot of releases but I can’t see it reaching saturation quite yet, no. Labels do a run of vinyl and many releases then don’t get repressed so there’s always new titles coming in to replace the ones that sell out. With the music, a lot has been reissued now but there’s many many great albums that are still untouched so I think the vinyl river will flow sweetly for a good while yet…

What are your next releases?
We have quite a lot coming – a previously unreleased Sun Ra concert from Amiens in 1973 for Record Store Day; new studio albums from Kanaku y El Tigre and Pat Thomas in June; The Souljazz Orchestra drop their best album yet in September; we also have a new compilation put together by Roger Bong, the man behind the excellent blog ‘Aloha Got Soul’ bringing together late ‘70s / ‘80s Hawaiian rarities. Then there’s the ‘Subkultur’ compilation and a new Sun Ra collection curated by Gilles Peterson on the way.

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
We have tried since Strut first started to work with Eddy Grant on reissuing the brilliant obscure funky oddities from his back catalogue. It won’t ever happen on Strut but, if I can be involved in making it happen on his own label Ice at some point, it would feel like a real achievement!

To go further

ANITA LANE & MICK HARVEY – LOST IN MUSIC (demo)

From ‘Subkultur’ compilation – forthcoming

PAT THOMAS – GYAE SU

SUN RA AND HIS INTERGALACTIC RESEARCH ARKESTRA – LIGHTS ON A SATELLITE

From ‘Planets Of Life Or Death: Amiens ‘73’