From Bossa Nova pioneers to Disco 2.0 newcomers, from Jazz Funk legends to cult soundtracks, they have released in just over a year several releases drawn from the large spectrum of their musical tastes. It’s time for them to explain their choice and go back to their own roots…

When did you start digging records?
Olivier: When I was a kid, they were selling vinyls at my local supermarket in the surburb of Paris, and they had turntables so you could listen to them, so I started buying 7” and 12” EPs and then LPs. It was mainly pop stuff from that time: A-ha, Dire Straits, U2. At around 10-11 year old, I also went deep into metal with Iron Maiden, Metallica, etc. I also bought records by groups from the French alternative scene like Les Bérurier Noir. I also had a lot of tapes, bought or duplicated from the local library – I still have these. My tape desk is still working and I’m even buying new cassette-only music, now that this format is hip again. Then by my mid-teenage years I switched all in one go to jazz (with Art Blakey), hiphop (with De La Soul, Ice Cube & Public Enemy) and soul/funk (with James Brown). I was influenced by the emergence of hiphop in my neighborhood and thanks to my city library and also to Radio Nova which was a key radio for me at the time, I had access to music. I discovered Paris’ indie records shops (Tikaret, LTD, Crocodisc, etc.) and I never really stopped buying records. By the end of the 90s I added electronic music on top and this mix pretty much what I’m still listening to.

Matt: I started buying records around 10-11 years old. I’d buy mostly 7”. One of the earliest one I remember buying was The Buggles’ Radio Killed the Video Star at my local supermarket. That was probably around 1979. Then I bought the early 80s music that was big at the time: Culture Club, Michael Jackson, Wham. I remember having a shock when I first heard “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash. I also remember buying the 7” of Malcolm McLaren, “Buffalo Gals” around that time. But that was it in terms of new releases. I didn’t like the 80s sound so I bought a lot of 60s, 70s music like Earth Wind and Fire, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd. I was constantly digging deeper. Also my best friend was very advanced in his music taste so he guided me a lot. He’d listen to stuff like Steely Dan, Art Blakey and Miles Davis at 13 years old so I got into Jazz at that early age!. We were also Pat Metheny groupies. We had our ECM phase and then with Acid Jazz came in and I went into Rare Grooves and JBs. Another big shock around that time was Gil Scott Heron whom I discovered in 91 thanks to a Super Disco Brake compilation I’d bought. I was lucky to see him live in 92 and that was fantastic.

What LPs did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
Olivier: I think it was U2’s “Rattle And Hum” and Dire Straits’ compilation “Money For Nothing”, both in 1988. I discovered the songs “Helter Skelter” and “All Along The Watchtower” on “Rattle And Hum”, and I was very surprised when I discovered the original versions. All the more for “All Along The Watchtower”, because before discovering the Dylan song, I first thought it was actually by Jimi Hendrix! For Dire Straits, it was the beginning of a new addiction that lasted a few years and I bought all of their tapes. I don’t listen to them anymore and by the time my musical tastes evolved, I came to hate them, as one usually does with their teenage tastes! But I still have them. I have some kind of affection for them.

Matt: My father was into Rock’n’roll and Rhythm & Blues so I remember a Chubby Checker album as one of the earliest LP I bought. The first second-hand album I bought was Barry White’s Rhapsody in White album in the mid 80s. That’s when the series Magnum PI was popular and the opening music of the series which was inspired by “Love’s Theme”. My first LPs are at my parents so I don’t get to play them but I’d like to take them back one day

Do you have a particular style or favourite period?
Olivier: I have a strong Black Music basis, ranging from hiphop to jazz, funk and soul, to which you can add a lot of electronic music. Then I like some leftfield stuff revolving around punk, experimental, ambient drone…

Matt: I listen to a lot of different styles but I would say it tends to be mostly Black Music, whether it’s Funk, Soul, Jazz, Hip Hop, Afrobeat. For the last five years I’ve been mainly listening to Jamaican music: Ska, Rock Steady, Dub. and also to a lot of Philly Soul and Disco. I like to think in terms of city and/or era. For instance what were people listen to in 1968 in LA or in 1978 in Berlin or New York without necessary put barriers between genres. I try to recreate the mix of pop, jazz, disco, rock that was going on at the time.

 
Comme ça…

Are you still digging’, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
Olivier: A lot! In Paris and everywhere I travel to. Certainly too much, budget-wise, space-wise… I’m actually re-organizing my vinyls and the question of ‘where does it all lead’ comes to mind. So I try to focus on my core tastes and be selective and straight to the point. Because it certainly won’t stop. In terms of what I buy, I’ve always bought new releases, I’m not really a digger of vintage music with original pressings. I prefer to buy what will be considered gems in 20 years! That’s what I did for 90s hiphop: I bought all these records when they first came out. Now I do the same with electronic music. And I also fill the gaps in my soul and disco collection.
Matt: I buy records on a weekly basis. I used to buy a lot of LPs in the 90s and 00s, mainly Jazz, Soul and Funk. Now I tend to buy more CDs than LPs so I don’t go for the very obscure expensive stuff. More like high quality reissues or classic albums I don’t have. Unlike Olivier I never buy new music. I always wait five to ten years if not more to see an album will stand the test of time. Many albums don’t survive the initial hype very long.

What was your first release on WeWantSounds?
Matt: It was a great compilation of French music from the Nouvelle Vague. We’re big film buffs and there is some incredible music made at the time with composers like Michel Legrand or Georges Delerue. That precise moment when French realized there was something more exciting than realist chanson. Same with Brigitte Bardot, France suddenly woke up and realized there was something more sexy than Raimu or Danielle Darrieux.

Why did you choose this name Wewantsounds: is it a statement?
Matt: We wanted something simple, catchy and straight to the point but without any indication of a music genre or specific era. We thought that Wewantsounds was fun and catchy. We imagine all these zombie-like music lovers cropping out after dark all starving and chanting “Wewantsounds”!

What could be your editorial/artistic direction?
Matt: We focus on the music we love trying to add interesting pop culture angles in the mix. We try to bring high quality music in an accessible way. We’re always puzzled to see that many people outside of the hardcore music circles tend to listen to the same thing because they don’t have all the keys to access the more interesting artists. There are a lot of “if you like this, you‘ll love that” out there but it tends to be very commercial.

 
Monika
Secret In The Dark (The Juan MacLean Edit)
 

What could be the label’s leitmotiv?
Matt: Listen to this cool music, you may not have heard about but you will love it

How do you decide on the choice of reissues?
Matt: There are no rules. We get excited by an idea and we just dig. Most of the time it doesn’t lead to anything: Either we discover it’s been done already or the rights are locked away or there is no real potential but sometimes we hit gold. In terms of concept, it varies. Sometimes it can be led by an artist, sometimes we want to chronicles a label, other times an era or style of Music. We tend to make the decisions organically as we go. We listen to a lot of music so we ping pong a lot of ideas back and forth: do you know this artist? Have you heard this track? What about reissuing that album? We should do a compilation around so and so genre etc.

And what about new artists?
Matt: We both ran labels in the past doing artist development. That’s actually how we met working on Palestinian hip hop group DAM ten years ago. Unlike reissues, artist development requires a lot more muscle and efforts as you deal with the artist, the manager, the touring agent etc. It’s a long chain and things can get more complex. Also you need to be able to sign the right artist who’s got enough of a fan base but the bigger they are the bigger the advance will be. Add to that other costs like tour support, marketing and promotion and the bill will be huge before you start marking a profit. It’s a gamble. With reissue, you won’t probably hit gold but it’s safer and the entry ticket is cheaper. Saying that, we’ll probably try, once we’ve grown to a size that allows a bit of risk taking.

Olivier you have made the selection for your DISCO 2.0 set. What is your role in the label? Is it dedicated to the more contemporary sounds?
Olivier: Thanks to my various jobs in the music industry – running a label, free-lancing as a music PR, working at Radio France and now writing as a journalist, I’ve always been deeply immersed in the music scene: getting new releases, checking out bands, going out to concert venues & clubs. So my aim is to be a curator scanning through the richness of these new scenes, French or international and creaming the best. There are so many incredible young bands and new trends that are bubbling under that deserve to reach a wider audience. We want to go beyond reissues and bring music to people purely on the basis of high quality, whatever the era it comes from.

From Bossa Nova, via Nouvelle Vague …. You have released thematic reissues like Bossa Nova or Sunday Mixtape: why this choice? Are there any others to come?
Matt: We’ve been all submerged by tons of music since the rise of Internet. When your work have something to do with music, your friends and family always ask for advice on some fresh or just good music, because everybody is lost in the flow. So we try to address this need: bring some nicely packaged music curated by connoisseurs for special occasions like Sunday morning mix. There is a big hype around playlists at the moment and we try to give it our own twist with a very selective yet accessible touch, for our compilations to be timeless trips. As we get more established, we’ll do more. We have projects in the pipeline and you can expect some soon in all kind of different genres, from modern punk to sextapes!

 
Afrique
House Of The Rising Funk
 

At the end of 2016, you released “Feeling Good”, a compilation from the Mainstream label, focusing on spiritual jazz, funk and soul. A second set is coming out in June focusing more on the jazz sound. How did you get the access to this catalog?
Matt: I love all that jazz-funk sound from the early 70s and was buying albums from CTI, Flying Dutchman, Groove Merchant, Prestige, Muse. One day in the early 90s I bought two Mainstream LPs in a second hand shop and just loved them. I’d never heard of the label but everything was cool about these: the music was amazing: funky and earthy and you had all these great session photos on the sleeve with this cool producer, Bob Shad, surrounded by young dashiki-dressed black musicians making this outstanding music. In the mid 90s when I started working in the music business I managed to get the contact – from Eddie Piller I think – for Shad’s Daughter Tamara who had inherited the catalog (Shad died in 1985) but I quickly heard that Sony had acquired the back catalogue from her, so I never pursued the idea. Then, last year, I found out it was still owned by Bob Shad’s family, who are none other than comedian producer Judd Apatow and his sister Mia and we got along really well.

Do you also plan to dig the more rock and psychedelic albums of this same label?
Matt: Yes there is some great music on that side as well, although the Big Brother/Janis Joplin master had been sold to Columbia. There are also some great jazz albums from the sixties in the catalogue as Shad ran Time Records as well. There is a beautiful Sonny Clark album for instance. We’re going to reissue this amazing 1967 album by Mauricio Smith called “Bitter Acid”. The title says it all. It’s a fantastic groovy Latin album mixing jazz and boogaloo produced y Joe Cain, very much in the Cotique/Tico vein. Our good mate London Latin DJ John Armstrong will write some new sleevenotes.

You will reissue two albums from the Mainstream catalog: Buddy Terry and Harold Land. Can you tell us more about these?
Matt: Beside the compilations, we thought it would be great to start reissuing original albums. The great thing with Mainstream is that the archives have been carefully preserved and the label still has most of the tapes and session photos. It’s like a goldmine and you can do a lot more. Buddy Terry is an amazing deep jazz album.I knew of Terry from his playing soprano sax in this amazing Art Blakey track called “Song for a Lonely Woman” which is a personal favourite of mine – it’s from the same sessions that produced “A Chant For Bu” famously sampled by A Tribe Called Quest. Anyway Buddy Terry recorded three albums for Mainstream and “Awareness” is the first one, recorded in 1971. It’s an amazing album that ticks all the boxes especially since Strata East co-founder Stanley Cowell is on there and it has a very funky version of his cult standard “Abscretions”. There is also an incredible line up accompanying them: Buster Williams, Cecil Bridgewater, Mikey Roker. It’s both funky and spiritual and you wonder why Terry didn’t get more exposure after these Mainstream albums as they are all amazing.
The Harold Land album is a personal favourite. We’re huge fans of the Harold Land-Bobby Hutcherson Quintet which made incredible music between 1967 and 1971. Land was older than Hutcherson and he was from the first bop generation that came up in the 40s/50s. He’s on the legendary 1955 Max Roach Clifford Brown quintet album which Bob Shad produced by the way. But in the 60s, following the Coltrane revolution, Land found a second life as this extremely inspired modal saxophonist and the association with Bobby Hutcherson, who was at the forefront of the post-bop scene of the late 60s, was a match made in heaven. The created a unique sound which was influenced by Coltrane but it was something else. This Mainstream album from 1971 featuring the rhythm section from Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi Sextet (Buster Williams and Billy Hart) is their absolute peak. It’s very sophisticated music but very melodic and serene at the same time. We’re going to add a bonus track “Dark Mood” which was briefly released on a Mainstream compilation in 1974 but this is the first time the whole session will be reunited on one CD. And we’ve got some amazing session photos and have even gone back to the original picture to reconstruct the front cover so we’re very excited about it.

 
Alice Clark
Never Did I Stop Loving You
 

Dope classic of the soul, the Alice Clarke album has already been reissued, but rather cheap way. Do you plan to make a beautiful reissue, with why not unreleased tracks?
Matt: It’s a cult classic that should be up there with the Roberta Flack and Aretha Franklin albums. We are thinking about it but as it stands the specific cheap version you are referring to is a bootleg so we’d probably wait before reissuing it.

Nowadays, there are many labels which follow the deluxe model, more quality with lavish packaging at a higher price bracket… At same time, there’s also a more commercial LP market, with majors and mid-price labels releasing their back catalogue. Is it the (re)creation of the old market for the LP?
Matt: Probably but it’s a good sign as it means that the market is expending and diversifying. There is even a third tier for huge boxsets containing books, LPs, Memorabilia. Digital is great but it tends to become like radios especially since streaming is taking over from download. In the future you’ll just tune in to a few playlists to discover stuff and hopefully you’ll go and buy the record if you really like something. There is a cool edge about vinyl, the turntable, the object, the sleeve. It has become a lifestyle accessory. You will soon get turntable buyer’s guide pages in lifestyle mag if not already.

There are more and more reissues of back catalogue LPs, and more and more record labels (major or indie) are now releasing their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
Matt: There is a risk and you can never predict what’s going to happen. Trends are fickle. Ten years ago everybody wanted iPods, now it’s turntables. I think it will depend on the younger generation who didn’t grow up with the object. If some of them can be converted to the object then it will keep growing.

Have you received many negative answers from right owners on some of the LPs, artists, unreleased tapes, you were trying to reissue?
Matt: Yes we’ve had all the usual scenarios. The ones who don’t answer at all, those who answer but want a big advance, those who re ok but don’t want to give you the vinyl rights and those who say they are not interested. And you’ve got all the other ones who play the game and give you the tracks without problems. Which are the ones who end up on our releases you could say.

 
Harold Land
In The Back, In The Corner, In The Dark
 

What are your next releases?
Matt: On top of the ones we mentioned above, we are preparing a 70s London compilation with DJ Scratchy Sounds who was DJing with the Clash in the late 70s it will be a thrilling sonic mix of punk, garage, dub and R&B with a unique 70s London feel. We are also thrilled to announce the release of an incredible OST by Dave Grusin from “The Friends Of Eddie Coyle” a very cool gangster film directed by Peter Yates (Bullitt). Dave Grusin also composed the music for “The Three Days of the Condor” which is the more famous one but Eddie Coyle recorded two years before is even better. It never came out at the time so it will make its LP debut 45 years after the film was released! We’ve got the master tapes which sound amazing. It plays like a long hypnotic jazzy funky suite.

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
Matt: “Nightclubbing” by Grace Jones but it’s already been done! It’s the meeting of so many talents: Chris Blackwell’s flair to reinvent Grace Jones as this ice-cold 80s diva, the unique blend of reggae, disco with a zest of punk played by the Compass Point Studio musicians, Grace Jones personality filtered by Jean-Paul Goude’s groundbreaking visuals. It suddenly grabbed everybody out of the 70s. It’s a 4 dimension masterpiece.

Olivier: There’s a French artist called Sig, who wrote the OST of his own indie movies, Louise (Take 2) and Sansa and worked with virtuoso violinist Ivry Gitlis. He’s a modern day hobo, travelling light all over the world and playing with musicians he meets along the way. In 2002, he came back from a long photo trip to India, where he had played and recorded some music. He finished the music in his Montmartre flat, which was completely empty except for a keyboard, a cello and some African percussions. It features famous Swiss trumpeter Erik Truffaz and his musicians. It’s a beautiful dreamy trip that was only released on CD, without a barcode, because Sig didn’t want one. I was the PR for this record, and although it was a tough one to push, it was a tremendous life experience working with Sig. He called everybody “my brother”. I still listen to it on a regular basis each time I need an escape. It doesn’t age. I’d love to bring this treasure to people’s turntables!

Each month, we are focusing on a record label founded by an active digger. This month, Miles Cleret from Soundway Records, one of our favorite labels around! From their amazing compilation series to beautiful reissues and great new tropical acts (think the mighty Meridian Brothers!), Miles Cleret’s choices and opinions are clearly worth checking!
 
 
 

When did you start digging records?
Properly when I was a teenager I guess – my dad was a digger (Jazz & Soul and 50s RnB and Rock & Roll mostly) so there were plenty in his house when I was growing up. It was hard though as money wasn’t an easy thing to get at the age of 14 but back then (the 80s) you could get good stuff in little record fairs and market stalls and there were just tons of record shops everywhere – even outside of London. The age of expensive rare records hadn’t really begun apart from the mega-fans who collected the big names in Rock and Pop (of which the UK had a lot). I wasn’t looking for rare stuff then though – just music that seemed exciting and new.

What Lps did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
Well not the very first records I bought – they were mostly really terrible pop records from when I was about 10. There was a store in the UK called Woolworths and you could buy discounted ex-chart 45s for about 20 pence so I’d spend all my pocket money on them for a few years until I was about 13. I remember buying most of the Beatles albums really cheaply on Spanish editions on a holiday in Barcelona when I was about 13 at a record store that was closing down. That changed my musical life a lot (my dad hated the Beatles so never had those records in the house) and then David Bowie, The Clash, the Cure and and then when I was about 14 or 15 I got into bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Hawkwind, Gong, The Grateful Dead, Caravan, Traffic etc – and yes I still listen to those LPs but I didn’t for a long time until recently – they have a way of transporting me back to my youth. Then I got into funk, jazz, hip hop and reggae and electronic music a few years later and dropped the guitar sound for quite a few years.

Do you have a particular style or favourite period?
No, not really now. I have pretty wide ranging tastes from the 1950s right up until yesterday. I know I don’t like much really heavy Thrash Metal, Goa Trance & also commercial pop etc to name a few styles. For quite a few years just before Soundway started in the late 90s I was pretty entrenched in records (mostly jazz, funk, soul, afro & latin) made between 65-76, but at some point or other over the last 20 years I’ve been into Detroit style techno, underground House, Psych-Rock, Prog-Rock, Synth-pop, Electronica, Boogie, Disco, Soca, Reggae, Dub and more. I just love hearing new kinds of music and I would get really bored if I stuck to one area exclusively. That kind of happened with West African music for about 8 years – I still love it and collect it but had to get out of solely listening to that stuff after soaking myself in it for all the comps we did back then.

Are you still digging, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
Yes but nothing like as much as I used to – I have kids now so I’d be neglecting them if I was digging as much as I used to (I am in Indonesia as I type though about to go digging in Java for three days starting tomorrow). I try to be less obsessive than I used to be and let stuff go occasionally if I don’t DJ with it (Can’t afford not to really) – Personally I believe it can be un-healthy to obsess too much on the collection – you can never have them all so best just to enjoy the music and get your fix from the musicians and people involved in the music scene (easier said than done with some records though!). I also move around a lot and we have been out of the UK a bit recently so I don’t currently have a record “cave” – most of my records are in storage.

What was your first release?
“Ghana Soundz”: Afro-Beat, Funk & Fusion in 70s Ghana…
 

 
Gyedu Blay Ambolley
Simigwad
 

Why did you choose this name, Soundway? what does that represent?
It’s the title of a track by a band called Wrinkar Experience from Nigeria and was quite a big hit in West Africa in the 70s on EMI. The name just stuck as I was listening to it a lot in Ghana when I was starting the label and it kind of sounded right.

Among your first releases were the Ghana Soundz series which gained cult status. How did you work on it? how did you prepare that? Was it a longtime project?
It took about 2 years to do the first Volume. I went travelling in Ghana with my wife in 2001 and at the end of the trip had a couple of days digging records in Kumasi & Accra. The stuff I found was mind-blowing to me at the time. I’d spent a few years previously getting into afro stuff after all the American jazz, soul & funk etc and would try and find records in the UK at record fairs etc but it was hard to find and this was before the days when you could really get much real African stuff on ebay or the internet (with some notable exceptions). There’s an English collector named Duncan Brooker who works with Strut and he had been in Nairobi working when we were about 18 – he came back with some incredible 45s and some Kenyan presses of Nigerian recordings that he traded and sold at the time, but Ghana stuff was invisible – especially the ‘afro’ stuff. So I went back to Ghana on-and-off for a year just really going deep into looking for records, artists, producers and decided to do a compilation of non-highlife music. It was a great time and I was lucky enough not to have any competition from other labels for the styles i wanted to license at the time so I could take my time and really concentrate on it without there being any other people there from outside Ghana doing what I was doing or looking for records. Records would sit on the street with second-hand dealers and in stores for months without being bought and were cheap so there was no pressure to buy quickly – nobody really wanted them apart from a few Ghanaian collectors who helped school me. Hard to imagine now. There were also still some ‘recording studios’- relics of the 80s, where a shop would have a big collection of vinyl but would use it to record custom-made cassettes for customers – the internet killed most of them off a few years back. It was all just trial and error and great times getting to know people like Ebo Taylor, K. Frimpong, K. Gyasi’s son, Dick Essiebons and Kwadwo Donkor and hanging out with them at their homes and prising the stories and the pieces of the jigsaw from them over time.

After those you released a whole bunch of other records in the same mould such as the Kenya Special record. Has this become your trademark? Which one was the most fulfilling?
Ghana Soundz and the Nigeria Special series were the most fulfilling because the music was all so new to me at the time. I had no kids then so time wasn’t an issue and when you start a label and you’re young you have to keep pinching yourself that this is what you’re actually doing as a job. Its just so exhilarating and fresh and records you had no idea existed were popping up on an almost daily basis. That is still the case on certain projects but as the label gets bigger and bigger you can get bogged down in the administration side of things which is not something you need to worry about so much when you only have a handful of releases in your catalogue. and you’re starting out.

One of the lesser known parts of your activity is record-digging. When did you go to Africa first for that purpose?
In 2001. I was in Ghana, Benin, Togo, Ethiopia & Nigeria a lot between the years 2001-2005.
 

Fubura Sekibo
Psychedelic Bab
 

How was Nigeria when you first got there? What’s your best record digging story in Lagos?
Nigeria is huge and so full of incredible music it still astounds and surprises me now. I first went there in 2002 – Strut had just put out their Nigeria 70 comp and I’d been in touch with Quinton Scott so had a few contacts from him. There were amazing records there then but much harder to find than in Accra – Lagos is a big big place with terrible traffic so getting around the city is a problem. Its just a vast metropolis but those places always have great records if you look hard. I travelled out of Lagos a few times as well but again you really need to live there to get consistent record hauls – it’s not the sort of place you find stuff immediately in so all the Nigerian dealers and collectors are the ones who usually get the best stuff. For this reason (and because they are very good) Nigerian records have gone bananas price-wise recently though so you need to mortgage your house or be very rich these days to be able to buy from the dealers. I was lucky to get a lot of great records before it all went sky-high. I once found a box of mint Afrodisia 45s (50 different titles) whilst visiting the house of a retired producer who had subsequently become pretty wealthy in the pharmaceutical business. Its very hard to find 45s in that kind of condition over there and some of those titles I’ve never seen anywhere since. When I asked him how much he wanted for them he said I could just have them all and that he no longer wanted them. Finds don’t come much better than that.

You are responsible for remarkable selections, reissues, as music from Siam, or Nigerian disco… How do you decide on the choice of reissues/issues?
Just what we have time and money to do and feels right really – music that I like – it’s no more exact a science than that. But I do like to try not to rush things.

You released a great selection of highlife, but there wasn’t a big echo in the press (in France anyway). How could you explain this?
I guess you mean the “Highlife On the Move” compilation? It got some good attention but I think 1950s highlife is not particularly hip for journalists right now – maybe will never be. I think that was a very important compilation to make though. Its the genesis of the afrobeat story so it will be a solid catalogue title for a few years to come – not one that blows up at the beginning but chugs along nicely. I think it looks and sounds beautiful as well.

Family Atlantica, musicians from both sides of the Atlantic

 

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs you were trying to reissue?
One or two – mostly by people who believe they can out-perform the market and sell hundreds of thousands of copies more than all the other releases in the same genre! There are some big egos out there and the music industry has more than it’s fair share- always has and always will. Most people (95%) are cool though – but occasionally some do take a bit of convincing. Some are also worried that they don’t technically have the rights sign a master contract as they signed the rights away when they were young. Others have no such worries at all!

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?
I think it’s possible yes. There are certainly a lot of people who buy vinyl because either they think it’s cool (often these people are just rich and don’t actually ever listen to music properly) and or because they see it as a good investment, which it often is these days. I think it’s inevitable that many of those people will offload it all in spades in a few years and the market could see a glut of cut-price titles. The whole vinyl speculator thing is a pain in the arse to be honest. Its just people with money buying up stock and then letting it back out at way over the odds – and these are people who can afford to sit on it. It’s not necessarily a bad things for labels as they sell out quickly on limited runs but it just means the vinyl market is controlled by investors and real music fans with not enough money to keep up can’t get the releases they want for the right price. Simple economics I guess but I never really thought it would hit the new vinyl world in quite the way it has.

You are not only focused on « old » Lp, compilations. What is the best deal/business: to make reissues or to produce/coproduce new records?
New records are a better thing to do for me personally right now but not necessarily always the best business in the short term – it’s a commitment and emotional investment in the music scene right now. Re-issues and compilations may sell quicker in the short run but over time for a label I think new releases and building catalogue in that area is the best way to go. Also we run a publishing company that publishes much of our new output – This is potentially a far better way to pay the bills in the long term but it takes time and is far from always predictable. People’s attitude to old music is that it’s somehow validated by time – they have a solid idea about the 60s or the 70s or the 80s (or now the 90s) in their heads that’s been confirmed by hundreds of books, documentaries, social commentaries and articles in a way that whats happening now isn’t. Some people play safe and wait or tell themselves they only like music of a certain era – it’s very much like vintage fashion. The idea of music existing in a far-off pre-internet time (and somewhere more exotic) makes many people trust it more somehow especially if it’s a bit wonky, loveable or low-fi. Of course music can be very evocative of a certain time and eras go in and out of fashion with different generations. Occasionally records turn up that are meant to look old and people aren’t sure. There was a Caribbean calypso-funk 45 a few years ago that was made in 1999 but sold as a 70s record – I remember a few people going nuts over it but then were upset when they found out it wasn’t old – the music remained exactly the same but the provenance had changed so it became less ‘real’ somehow in their eyes.

Batida feat Sacerdote
Bantu
 

Are they two different jobs?
New bands are obviously more demanding and the process of promoting new records is much more involved – compilations and re-issues often sell themselves – so yes a little bit.

Dexter Story looks like a vintage record, just like Ghana Soundz. What is this project about, and how does it fit into your catalogue ?
Dex is a very experienced musician who has played on a lot of amazing musicians’ records from Kamasi Washington to Gaslamp Killer and way beyond. He is from Los Angeles but like many people over the past ten years became obsessed with classic Ethiopian and East African music. The Wondem project has it’s feet rooted in the 1960s, 70s & 80s music of that region but is also extremely modern in many ways and not just a straight retro duplicate – that was what attracted me to it.

Could you tell us more about Fumaça Preta and Batida. Is there a « luso » connection ? How did you discover them ?
Fumaça Preta are a band that again struck me because of the way they took wigged out Brazilian psychedelic rock from the 70s but melded it with bits of acid house, punk and metal in a way I hadn’t really heard anyone else do. They reference a ‘smorgasbord’ of musical styles from Funaná to Funk but wrap it up in their own unique, lysergic way. Alex the drummer is a big time record collector who co-runs a store in Amsterdam called Vintage Voodou – he sent me the demos and I was hooked immediately.
Batida is an electronic dance act from Lisbon run by DJ Pedro Coquenão. He grew up in Angola and so was immersed in the sounds of classic 70s Angolan music all around him which he sampled and incorporated into his sets. These morphed into the Batida live show that features dancers, live musicians and slide shows – he entertains and educates people in equal measure at his gigs. I heard Batida on a compilation that came out a few years ago on Crammed by the Radioclit/Secousse crew and got in touch with Pedro tyo see if we could work on an album.

Meridian Brothers, Bomba Estereo, Los Miticos Del Ritmo, Family Atlantica, again another branch of Soundway, more South American. What could be the meeting point of all these releases?
I guess they are all in some way referencing the music we re-issued on compilations and re-issues and so it was an obvious progression – I think we’ll get further and further away from that in time though and already this year we are signing some acts that have nothing at all to do with South America or Africa.

 
Meridian Brothers
Doctor Trompeta
 

Can we mention a certain eclecticism in terms of catalogue? Is it more difficult to be well received, well identified, by the media and record shops or is it in fact a force?
Again I think it’s harder in the short term – Many journalists and distributors/stores just want to put you in a one genre box and keep you there but I couldn’t think of doing that – As I said before I have very wide tastes musically so want to keep moving and surprising rather than getting stuck in one place. Its tough sometimes but as the catalogue grows people start to get it. Major labels can do it so why not independents?

What could be the label’s leitmotif?
Music from Planet Earth : Past, Present, Future.

What are your next releases?
New Albums by Fumaca Preta (Darker and more introspective than the first maybe) & Family Atlantica (featuring Marshall Allen and Orlando Julius). Psychedelic pop from Flamingods with “Majesty” – I saw these guys in a tent I was DJing in at Glastonbury last year and was blown away – a whole band of multi-instrumentalists who met in London and the Middle East. This is their third album and has shades of early Pink Floyd, Os Mutantes, the Beatles & Sun City Girls, crashing into Les Baxter and Martin Denny. Then we have a new 45 by Chico Mann, Kenya Special Volume 2 , re-issues of People Rock Outfit and Jay-U experience from Nigeria and some edit 12s. Later on in the year I hope the new Ondatropica album will drop alongside some more new signings and re-issues etc and a comp of Nigerian Disco and Boogie.

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
If I tell you that 100’s of other people will try and do it first!
 
 

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