Each month, we are focusing on a record label founded by an active digger. This month, Julien Lebrun from Hot Casa, the french label created in 2002 with Djamel Hammadi. This hot label is behind many releases by forgotten artists with a speciality for uncovering rare vinyl gems but also new talents. Julien talks about his passion : music, from west African road trips to French backstages.

When did you start digging records?
Djamel and I come from a Funk family culture. My brother introduced me really young to Soul and Funk but I can say that I was introduced to “digging” through Hip Hop culture: we had to find the unknown loop, the rare record that nobody could find or had already used. It was the perfect link between all the soul culture from the past and the turmoil of this present culture. At the beginning of the 90’s in Paris, labels like Pure or Big Cheese were also organizing great underground soul parties, they played amazing rare soul records and, as a teenager, you tried to be part of it. So we were a small crew of collectors who ran all over record fairs, started travelling to London or NYC to dig, trying to professionalize ourselves, organizing parties in locals clubs such Café de la plage back in 1995. We also travelled to Japan to sell French jazz, would wake up early to go to flea markets in the outskirts of Paris or in the East Village in NYC. DJs like Gilles Peterson or parties like Giant Step in NYC during the 90’s had a big influence on our generation. The principle of playing rare grooves was also part of the digging process or mentality: finding the perfect and unknown LP.

What Lps did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
My brother introduced me really young to Funk, so it was mostly mainstream artists like George Clinton or Roy Ayers. But the first records I bought were all the James Brown productions: Lyn Collins, Marva Withney… then we went further and further with soul 7 inches, traveling to the Camden Town market in London to buy rare jazz and soul or waking up early to attend the Paris (Porte de Champeret) record fair.

Did you have a particular style or favorite period?
Latin, Brazil, jazz, soul, funk, and all the funky breaks from the world that is the beauty of music, Soul is everywhere from Peru to the Philippines.

Are you still digging, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
The word digging can represent many things: a guy going to a record shop or an antiques market can say he is digging, but he is just buying records! The quintessence of “digging” is to find rare unknown records that have a good sound, melody or break.
Yes we are still digging, we can consider that as a drug addiction or a psychological addiction. Djamel and I traveled a lot in Africa these last years but we also went to Brazil or India in the past. Even though it has become harder to find good quality records, we still continue to look for rarities. Ebay and Discogs have changed the rules these past ten years, it’s funny to see all those new reissues done by “Youtube diggers“. It’s a lot, easier to discover new stuff nowadays. I remember the English soul compilation bootlegs in the 90s, it was the only way to discover some new stuff at that time, now everything is easier and that’s cool because it opens this “culture “ to a bigger crowd. The thing the new generation needs to learn is just to be curious.

Djamel Hammadi in action !

What was your first release on Hot Casa?
Our first release was a 7 inch by Franck Biyong, an artist that we met a few years ago at the Cithéa, a soul jazz club piloted by Superfly’s Manu Boubli where we used to DJ. He was also performing there and we understood that he was the man behind a first release in NYC, on Lenar records. The idea was to produce him in France, so we organized a home made recording session that had a limited release of 500 copies. It was sold out in a few months and was the beginning of a long work with this artist until the beginning of 2010.

How did you meet Djamel? And what did you have in common? And what were your differences (background, vision…)?
We met each other in 1997 during a radio show hosted by DJ Bronco for the Generations 88.2 radio station when the radio was still really independent and played real soul and Hip Hop. We found the same affinity and approach about music, we became friends and became resident DJ’s in Paris, we organized funk and soul parties and became resident DJs in various trendy places making a loving out of it. I think we played 150 gigs a year between 1999 to 2005. Nineteen years later, we still have the same passion for rare grooves, rarities, and music altogether.

Why did you choose this name: Hot Casa?
We didn’t want a name with groove or soul, everybody used it in the 90’s, we wanted something unique that had never been used. The idea of the label was to do it ‘home made’, with our connections, faith in soul, we don’t have big studios or money but we wanted to become producers. “Hot” was a common name in the jazz history, the radio Hot 97 in NYC was really popular also in the 90’s with Hip Hop and soul shows, the word “Casa” because it had a universal dimension to it. Our good friend Louis Davis with whom we started producing and collecting was also half nicaraguan and it was a joke between us.

What could be your editorial/esthetic line?
The label DNA could be Afro Soul from past to present. Djamel and I are both from a jazz and soul background and from a Hip Hop generation, these are our roots and both of us were in love with Afro Soul. We have this common goal of spreading underground soul culture, trying to share our passion of unknown and beautiful music with others. Without being pretentious, it was about going further, avoiding the easy way, make obvious choices just because they would sell better.

Roger Damawuzan and Les As du Benin
Wait For Me

Djamel and you were both DJs before creating Hot Casa. Does that give your label a special color?
Everybody knows that the dancefloor has its own rules and they can be different from the records that you like to appreciate on your sofa. Because we are still DJs, we unconsciously try to link those two worlds with a series of edits that brings nu beats on old rare grooves and can open a younger audience to this kind of music. This was the idea behind the Afro Soul edits and remixes when we asked DJ Vas, Umoja or Alma Negra to share their vision of 70’s sounds. We are also friends with Nickodemus, Rich Medina or Osunlade and really appreciate this movement, where you can mix Fela with new afro or electronic breaks. On the Melllotron radio show or on 22 tracks, we try to playlist tropical news to remain connected to the new scene. The label is not only about reissues, it is also dedicated to production and remixes.

Is that the reason why you chose to release 7 or 12 inch singles?
Yes 7 and 12 inches are more dedicated to the DJ audience, the format is really important. It’s a way of paying tribute to the past and perpetuate the tradition. In this era of dematerialization and streaming, we keep fighting even though it was hard in the beginning of 2000 to release vinyl. Even if we are living with our time, we put our music in digital, Spotify or Deezer and we also DJ USB. On the dancefloor the most important is music, skills and sound quality.

How do you decide on the choice of reissues?
First of all, the fact that it can be licensed. We don’t bootleg even though it can take years like for Francis The Great in Cameroon the Ivory Coast Soul compilations. Obviously other criteria are the music itself, the rarity, the history and the cover artwork.

Which Hot Casa reissue are you the most proud of?
Pierre Antoine, because it is physically and musically rare. Afrobeat had its own music standard with Farfisa and Rhodes synths, but Pierre Antoine backed by the Vis à Vis used a piano which gave a perfect fusion of jazz, soul, funk, and traditional Ivorian and Ghanaian horns, kind of a quintessence of the best musical elements.

Orlando Julius
Disco Hi-Life

One of your specialties is to produce forgotten artists, rare records… Is it something still possible in 2015?
Finding unknown and rare will be more and more difficult due to the fact that the generation of producers have started to become old or the dust on the record itself. Reissues are long sellers, we’re not as worried as for new albums. For a new artist if it has not worked after 5 months, you know it will be hard. For reissues, they can sell forever.

Recently, you were in Togo. What did you find there? Could you tell us more about that trip…
We are working hard on a Togo Soul compilation with an aim to release it around spring. I went there twice, first to find records even if Djamel had already a lot of the selection, and a second time to finalize the licensing process (agreement, money, interviews, photos). Our dream is to make a movie or a short documentary about all this process because Togo is so beautiful, its people, history… and the musicians and producers that I met are so powerful and beautiful that the “world” has to see them. It will be a 13 track compilation about the Soul and Funk scene in Togo from 1971 to 1981 with amazing music from deep soul jazz to crazy psyche funk synths at the end. We had the chance to work with Roger Damawuzan that we also reissued and featured on the Vaudou Game album. He helped us find a lot of the musicians and producers for contract purposes.

After supporting the Setenta band for a long time, you produced other new bands among which Vaudou Game in 2014. They became really famous. Were you surprised by this success? And does that give you other ideas for the future?
We didn’t work with Setenta on their third album, they decided to do it by themselves, but it was a beautiful adventure. We traveled to Lituania, Ireland, etc., and went on stage with Erykah Badu in Amsterdam. The Vaudou Game story has been amazing since the very beginning and we are very happy to work on a second record due for release in September 2016. They toured all over France and Europe, they did more than 120 concerts last year and were one of the bands that toured the most last year. They deserve it and it helped us a lot, because living of the only sale of records is very hard nowadays. They also had a smash hit which crossed all the regular borders, they had a “pop” destiny with a really underground Afro Funk style all recorded analog with a pure philosophy : Togolese speaking. And the day the speaker on the big national radio sang it live, we understood the song, the sound of the band had worked and marked their time.
Working as an independent structure is way cooler because you bring the artist in the project, we almost co-produced sometimes to be fair with them and shared the profit. We want it to remain a family adventure. Most of them understand that the music industry has crashed and that we need to find a solution, new ways of producing records.

How do you find brand new talents? On the internet? On stage? Through friends?
We have been booked the Reservoir club in Paris for the last 17 years we stay connected with new talents. We also check bandcamp or Juno frequently as well as cool radio stations like Le Mellotron.

And who is the next?
The next will be Shola Adisa-Farrar, a female jazz singer from NYC who lives in Paris now. We had the idea to connect her with our good friend and talented pianist Florian Pellissier with a view to explore an original fusion of instrumental Hard Bop and her beautiful voice. A really beautiful ten songs album called “Lost Myself”. It will be released in April.

What could be the label’s leitmotif?
Afro Soul & Tropical quality funk, good melodies, good philosophy, easy to manage, vinyl quality, no bootleg, interview the artist as much as possible.

What is the best deal/business: to make reissues or to produce new records?
The reissue market is a growing business especially with the good sales of vinyl these last few years but I think that with artists you can have a bigger audience in terms of promo, visibility, radio, licensing, media interview. Reissue is a niche market, dedicated to people who want a collectible, with new records it’s more dangerous but you can have a bigger audience, Vaudou Game made more than 110 concerts this year, in every city you have a radio, newspaper that spreads the info.

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?
Like every music, quality will make the difference, sadly some labels still do bootlegs or shitty covers without any info and multiply unnecessarily the numbers of reissues on the market.

Vaudou Game
Lazy Train

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs, artists, unreleased tapes, you were trying to reissue?
It had never happened over around 50 licensing requests that we did since 2006, until last month with Ofege, the famous Nigerian band.

What are your next releases? And could you give us your feeling about each…
We are very excited, because we have almost 8 albums scheduled for release this year including a “Togo Soul 70” compilation with Afro Soul & Voodoo Soul from 1971 to 1981 including 13 tracks that we finished to license, finalized the interview, the translations, photos… It was a beautiful and long work but we’re very proud of it and we start to work on a documentary about it with a Kiss Kiss Bank Bank campaign to organize a release party in Lomé with some artists included in the compilation who still perform and play.
Francis The Great: After the success and the so incredible story of this kid from 7 years old who recorded an album, his parents decided in 1978 to produce a second volume. So we reissue his second album that we will called “Maboya”, and due to the success of the first volume and the timing of the original version we’re going to add an instrumental unreleased version, a radio edit and an edit for the DJs.
Keni Okulolo: A super rare record and brilliant one from The nigerian Bassist, who played with everybody from Fela, to Orlando Julius, to Joni Haastrup, to Tee Mac… and we had an unreleased one a bonus track. The original was sold 800 dollars last month. It’s good to share this one!
Tee Mac: a brilliant Nigerian flutist, we are going to make a best of his brilliant afro funk and good disco tracks. It will be taken from his 1978, 1979, 1980 discography. A beautiful trip between rare afro soul to Afro Funk.
Shola Adisa-Farrar: a jazz singer from Us who lived in Paris since few years now and that we produce with Florian Pellissier Quintet, who’s one of my best friend too and it’s easy to work with, focus on good music, hard bop and few soul references
Reissue of a French Afro Pop band called “DjeuhDjoah & Lieutenant Nicholson” that we produced last year and we want to deliver on vinyl format as well included three new tracks. As I said, we are going to work on a Vaudou Game second album, during this spring for a release party in September! We are very excited on that on too.

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
We have few dreams. But we are looking for a rare album Of Orlando Julius called “Love Peace And Happiness” produced on obscure label Jungle. Baba Orlando doesn’t have any copies ! The last one was sold around 1000 dollars… If you have any tips we are open. But it will be a beautiful story that we started ten years ago with Orlando and his wife that I consider as a true members of my family.

http://hotcasarecords.com

 

Check Julien Lebrun Top5
 

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’