Heres someone you may not of heard of but should definitely keep an eye out for.
David Kenney, label boss of Audio Parallax Records, a great little net label based in the UK pumping out some great disco house tunes catching the eyes of many DJs around the world.
We had a talk to David about APR, Newcastle, Melbourne and much more, He was also kind enough to whip up Butter Mix 003.
01. The Isley Brothers - Footsteps In The Dark (Vins Edit) [Unreleased]
02. Vins - Low E [Audio Parallax Records]
03. Softwar - Pizza In The Ether [Jolly Jams]
04. Chapter Three - Smurf Trek (Reekin'struction by The Revenge) [Z Records]
05. Matthew Kyle - Do It Charlie [Diner City Sound]
06. Thompson Twins - Doctor Doctor (JP Source Rediagnosis) [Unreleased]
07. Blamma Blamma - Beyond 17 [The Walls Have Ears]
08. 78Edits - Space Talk [Audio Parallax Records]
09. Hotbox - All The Way Down [Audio Parallax Records]
10. Velvet Hammer - Party Down (Reekin'struction by The Revenge) [Z Records]
11. Fantastic Man - Look This Way [Wolf Music]
12. Sleep D - Lazin' (Demo-n) [Audio Parallax Records]
Butter: Reading through your bio, you state that APR is "a community as much as it is a label", can you elaborate on this?
DK: A few years ago I got myself a free account on Soundcloud, mainly to try and promote myself as a DJ and also because the ‘social’ element appealed to me – I’m a bit of a Facebook junkie. I started exploring and within a few weeks of using the site it became clear that there were a lot of hugely talented artists out there that were just doing their thing, making dope tracks – not fussed if people heard them or not. I’d always dreamed of running a label – and while I was well aware that I could never make a living off it, I just really wanted to share some of the stuff I was finding.
Anyway, you see a lot of artists getting hyped for a track then vanishing after a few months. A lot of labels will pick up an artist, put out a track then move onto the next. I don’t like that. I can understand it, from a business point-of-view, but when you know you’re not going to be making any money you can look at your business model a bit differently.
I aim to build a roster and stick with it – help artists develop in any way I can. All our roster artists remix each other’s tracks, talk pretty regularly on Soundcloud and the social networks etc – Matthew Kyle does a lot of A&R work for us too. As well as all that, we have artists designing each other’s artwork – and in the future we’ll be developing the ‘community’ model further. I trust these guys, and I love what they do – and I’ll release pretty much anything they send me...
DK: A few years ago I got myself a free account on Soundcloud, mainly to try and promote myself as a DJ and also because the ‘social’ element appealed to me – I’m a bit of a Facebook junkie. I started exploring and within a few weeks of using the site it became clear that there were a lot of hugely talented artists out there that were just doing their thing, making dope tracks – not fussed if people heard them or not. I’d always dreamed of running a label – and while I was well aware that I could never make a living off it, I just really wanted to share some of the stuff I was finding.
Anyway, you see a lot of artists getting hyped for a track then vanishing after a few months. A lot of labels will pick up an artist, put out a track then move onto the next. I don’t like that. I can understand it, from a business point-of-view, but when you know you’re not going to be making any money you can look at your business model a bit differently.
I aim to build a roster and stick with it – help artists develop in any way I can. All our roster artists remix each other’s tracks, talk pretty regularly on Soundcloud and the social networks etc – Matthew Kyle does a lot of A&R work for us too. As well as all that, we have artists designing each other’s artwork – and in the future we’ll be developing the ‘community’ model further. I trust these guys, and I love what they do – and I’ll release pretty much anything they send me...
Butter: We've noticed a couple of solid releases out of Melbourne on APR, you must be diggin the sound coming out of here?
DK: Absolutely man! There are some spectacular producers and DJs coming out of Melbourne; I’m a huge fan of Griffin, plus Andras Fox and Ben Houghton blow my mind with everything they do. Since releasing the first Andras Fox EP I listen pretty regularly to a few of the shows on RRR, we don’t have a lot like that here in Newcastle. Plus, I think you guys just have a really good attitude to music. I’d love to come out there one day.
Butter: How would you describe the scene and sound coming out of Newcastle?
DK: Newcastle has a really healthy scene – we have two big Universities so in term time there’s plenty of competition for the more commercial nights, which allows the real decent nights to thrive. We have a ‘super club’ plus a whole host of underground venues – you can find Laurent Garnier in a warehouse, Ricky Reid on a roof terrace, or parties on rooftops or in cinemas. It’s a great place to be.
Butter: With a majority of labels in the last couple of years moving all records digitally, and at a very high rate (for better or worse?) how does APR stand apart from the rest?
DK: I think a lot of labels focus on a specific genre for their output. That’s fine, but how many DJs have you seen lately that JUST play Deep House records in a set, or exclusively at 110bpm? Not many. I want to cater for DJs rather than genre’s, covering everything from Slo-Mo House, to Re-Edits through to Downtempo and Deep House. I think that makes sense these days.
Butter: What’s have you got planned for APR in 2011?
DK: Currently we’re putting out 2 releases a week digitally – we have masses of quality stuff to get out there, and we’re kinda trying to build up momentum ahead of pressing vinyl over the summer. That’s the biggy – we’ll be putting out a few vinyl-only EPs initially (limited press four trackers), and moving onto full artists releases by the end of the year. It’s a big and very important step for us – a lot of people still don’t take digital labels seriously (which is fucking stupid in my opinion) – so vinyl will be a benchmark for APR, but more than anything, a lot of the guys on the roster want to see their tracks on vinyl – and we do as we’re told man!
We will also be launching our ‘experimental’ sister label at some point this year – Parallax Audio. This project has been on the cards for a while; we initially planned to launch at the same time as Audio Parallax. That didn’t happen! I think once we slow the digital release schedule down I’ll put some serious effort into it. In other news, we’ll be putting on a few more PYRMD parties over the summer here in Newcastle, and we’ll be producing a range of APR merch for our online store – t-shirts designed by the roster artists (no APR logos...)
Butter: What artists are doing it for your ears at the moment?
DK: Generally speaking my iPod is filled with demos or masters of APR tracks, so in all honesty I don’t get a lot of time to listen to non-label related stuff. I’m a huge fan of The Revenge, OOFT, Red Rack’em, Rayko, James Johnston and Alex Agore (to name a few). I just discovered Gatto Fritto – so I’ve been downloading a lot of his stuff. Label-wise, too many to mention! Hotbox and 78Edits are two artists that are really going places, and Gareth Cheshire, NY*AK and MannMadeMusic just keep getting better and better. Andras is hopefully writing tracks for a second EP as I write this – I can’t tell you how excited I am about the prospect of hearing those...
Butter: Tell us about the mix you put together for us.
DK: I don’t have a great deal of time to spend behind the decks anymore, so this was really really fun. I wanted to avoid putting together an APR promo mix – Gareth Cheshire just put one together for the label which along with mixes by Matthew Kyle and myself are available through our Soundcloud. Instead I just gathered together tracks I’m digging at the minute – old and new – along with a few APR cuts. It’s primarily re-edits, with a few originals. I think it bridges the gap between my own tastes and the labels ‘sound’ pretty well, although my personal tastes are pretty eclectic – so if I’d recorded it a week earlier you might have had a few slipknot tracks in there...
Links:
that low e track… wow.
ReplyDelete