For our next imprint of distinction we look a little way over the Irish sea to Belfast, and a crew that began a club night focussed on live collaborations at a lovely little venue called The Menagerie Bar. One thing led to another, as it so often does, and not too long ago those events spawned a record releasing organisation that has already caught our eyes, or ears, despite only having put out a handful of releases to date.
Reset Industries, the label in question, has a sound that’s difficult to define, varied as it is, but at the same time pretty easy to summarise. Great electronic music that references a plethora of genres and styles, as the most recent EP to come from this camp went down well on our review pages we thought it would be interesting to invite one of the three honchos- Kab Driver, Brian Greene and Defcon- to answer our six questions. The latter obliged, here’s what he had to say.
Defcon – Reset Industries – UK
Describe your imprint’s output.
Generally – colourful, soulful electronic music. We’re into the jazzier, more musically-dextrous side of things, but there’s no pre-defined style or tempo range. Our releases so far include cosmic hip-hop, footwork-referencing IDM and garage-y ‘post-dubstep’ sort of stuff. So stylistically, it’s all over the place. I think that’s the whole point for us, actually – we’ve no real desire to repeat ourselves as a means of carving out a niche or establishing an aesthetic. We’d rather aim for as much variety and originality as possible.
What would you say makes it different?
We try to create an atmosphere of inclusiveness, accessibility and humour around everything we do. Those aren’t often qualities you would necessarily associate with many leftfield electronic labels… But I think it comes across in our artwork, in the way we promote our events and in the basic pop sensibilities at the heart of a lot of our music.
What is it that makes you keep looking for new talent to expose?
I don’t know if we’re really driven by the idea of unearthing undiscovered talents and selflessly helping them on their way to recognition… We’re motivated more by the basic need to be involved in music all the time, by the joy of working on interesting projects and the sense of creative fulfilment that comes from that.
The label project grew very naturally out of our club night and just seemed like the logical next step in a never-ending process of keeping ourselves happy and active, creatively. We always have people in mind for future releases, that just comes with the territory of listening to a lot of music and knowing quite a lot of other producers. We haven’t had to actively hunt anyone down yet, so there hasn’t been much hard graft on the talent-spotting side.
What’s the label’s pinnacle achievement so far?
The label’s still in its infancy, so we wouldn’t lay claim to any monumental feats, as yet… Having said that, the new EP from !tems is looking very promising indeed. A lot of work has gone into shaping it into a quality finished product.
If people were going to hear one release from your camp, what would you prefer it to be?
Well, I’d like to say the first release on the label – Defcon’s In Binary Shrines, cos that’s mine…
But, nah – it has to be the new !tems EP – Time Swap. Kris is a seriously talented dude, we were all blown away by the strength of his productions from the moment we first heard them.
His sound appealed to us straight away as something that fit perfectly with the aesthetic of the label, and I think we all felt a natural affinity with him and his music from early on in our interactions with him. It’s a very original and fresh-sounding record that encompasses a lot of the different things we’re into – jazz-funk-soul samples, interesting rhythms and textures, clever production… it’s all there. So it’s a good representation of where we’re coming from as a label.
All being well, skip forward five years, where would you like things to be?
If we’re continuing to put out exciting music in five years time, which people are happy to pay for, I’d be chuffed. It’s not easy to keep a small label going on a budget, and there’s such a glut of tiny, independent labels springing up at the minute – it seems unlikely they can all survive and prosper… But so long as the passion is there we’ll all be involved in making and releasing music in some capacity, far into the future. So we’re quietly optimistic!
Recent stops
USA – Touch of Class – Michael Tello and Ray Zuniga
