Record label lovin'

[alan nagsworth]

The more broad-minded and intrigued amongst us (fuck you, close-minded, uninterested types!) are as equally into the actions of record labels as the bands that they sign.

Labels like Matador, Planet Mu, Warp and Tigerbeat6 all float my boat, especially Matador for their increasingly great ability to spot the talent among the weird and the conventional alike, and Planet Mu for their obscure, stupidly-named glitchy-weirdy electronica, and their recent admiration for grime (Virus Syndicate, fucking come on!).

So what're your label(s) of choice?

[wherearethespoons]

I have a lot of respect for Tru Thoughts because of the sheer talent from such a small amount of artists (http://www.tru-thoughts.co.uk/artists).

[drberbatov]

Asian Man Records and Hydrahead generally churn out good shit

[Neville Chamberlain]

Never really gone in for one particular record label, but I've bought an awful lot of stuff from Recommended Records over the years to cater for my arty avant-rock needs! Oh yes!

http://www.rermegacorp.com/

Crass Records, Bluurg and Organ have are all essential sources too...

[Regular Chicken]

On the dance side of things, these are great labels:

Get Physical
Kompakt
BPitch Control
Ed Banger Records

For post rock stuff, this is cool:

Constellation

[NoSleep]

Never really gone in for one particular record label, but I've bought an awful lot of stuff from Recommended Records over the years to cater for my arty avant-rock needs! Oh yes!

Thoroughly seconded. I used to trek up to their record shop in Wandsworth Road, and after, when it became These Records' base (with the some of the same guys running it).

I'd like to put in a word for Sublime Frequencies, the Sun City Girls' "world music" label. Their approach is to present raw field recordings of local musicians alongside the sounds of their environment, as well as selections from local radio stations and recordings they have found on cassettes and vinyl in their travels. Much of the latter is an attempt at capturing the flavour of local variants of pop music before the advent of MIDI keyboards reduced the sonic variation to the equal tempered western scale and a few presets.
Their DVDs are also wonderful, providing no commentary, but allowing you to view the music in context, from local folk musics to urban pop combos.

http://www.sublimefrequencies.com/default2.asp

[Tom The Funkee Homosapien]

Sub pop records is absolutely amazing giving the world many great musicians such as Nirvana, The Shins, The go! Team and many more.

[wherearethespoons]

Sub pop records

I might be wrong, but didn't they put out the early Looper stuff?

[Tom The Funkee Homosapien]

I might be wrong, but didn't they put out the early Looper stuff?

Yes they did they were with Sub Pop for two years i think.

[alan nagsworth]

Yeah Sub Pop is great, that new Shins album is fantastic! Rough Trade's another good 'un. There's some gems in there, like the Unicorns, Super Furries and Oneida, and more recent stuff like Brakes and 1990s.

[Ciarán]

I haven't really got into the new Shins album yet, but I loved the single 'Phantom Limb' - I must give it a listen again.

There are too many great labels to mention. We're talking labels with a specific sound or identity, yes? I love late 60s/early 70s brit-folk/reggae period Island. (Just pointing to my ancient thread on the subject.) Which reminds me I must buy 'White Bicycles' the Joe Boyd biography. I've got the accompanying album, so may as well buy the book.

[CaledonianGonzo]

I went through a period during the 'big beat' years of buying just about everything that came out on the Wall of Sound label.  For the life of me, I've no idea why.  Though I did meet label head Marc Jones and he was a thoroughly good bloke.

These days, I find you can't really go wrong with anything that comes out on Soul Jazz (reissues-wise, at least).

[inuyasha]

Dischord records and Touch and go/Quarterstick records.

[Lee]

Couldn't pass through without mentioning the following: (in no order, except the first one, which is the greatest record label and CD-duplication company in the world)

Dual Plover (Nora Keyes, Suicidal Rap Orgy, Justice Yeldham, etc)
Digital Vomit (although I am biased there - me, Solypsis, Big In Albania, etc)
Trunk (re-issues of lost soundtracks and music, "The Ladies' Bras", etc.)
Ghost Box (Belbury Poly, The Focus Group, etc)
V/Vm Test (V/Vm, Fast Lady, Rank Sinatra, etc)
Golburn Poultry Fanciers Society (Rank Sinatra, Maladroit, some great compilations, etc)
Barry's Bootlegs (Cassetteboy, The Manor Boys, DJ Rubbish, etc)
Clean Cut (Twocsinak, Freeze Puppy, etc)
Wrong Music (Shitmat, Twocsinak, Nudist With Laptop, Monopolka, etc)
Hirntrust Grind Media (again, biased - me, Hardoff, Maruosa, etc)
ZTT (a Horn called Trevor)
Brainwashed (Brain In The Wire comp, etc)

[alan nagsworth]

Yeah you can't beat Wrong Music, Ebola is fuckin' evil. And Barry's Bootlegs is another classic.

[chand]

Man, there's so many labels which I find are an excellent stamp of quality, many of them already mentioned here. I'll always love the whole ethos behind Constellation, there was a time when I bought everything that came out on there, and I still do occasionally (this week I bought the fantastic new Vic Chesnutt record which Constellation released, featuring various alt-rock luminaries including Guy from Fugazi and Silver Mt Zion.

At the minute I'm finding a fantastic amount of great stuff is being released on Important Records; they've put out prodigious amounts of stuff recently, including but not limited to; My Cat Is An Alien, Jessica Rylan, Merzbow, Acid Mothers Temple, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Black Magic Disco, Larsen, (r) Grails, etc etc,. I haven't bought a bad record from them yet.

Very Friendly have kind of operated in the same areas, releasing insane amounts of stuff I've really liked, including a couple of the same artists as above. I've found a load of quirky interesting bands on the Finnish label Fonal, which is one of those more kind of collective-minded labels like Anticon which has a kind of feel to it. I'm forever buying stuff from other reliable purveyors though, like Lex, Leaf, Stones Throw, Ipecac, The Social Registry, Load (Load make reliably hefty noise records), Mush, Anticon, Kranky, Temporary Residence, VHF, Southern Lord, Smalltown Supersound, Alien8, Ninja Tune, Type, Domino, Thirsty Ear, and probably loads more I can't think of. Oh, and Warp, obviously.

[boki]

I've really enjoyed everything The Teknoist has put out on his Ninja Columbo label so far (a Dolphin/Teknoist split album, a split EP, a Teknoist 12" and Scheme Boy's debut EP), definitely worth a look if you like your gabba with a fair ol' bit of invention.

[phantom_power]

Yes they did they were with Sub Pop for two years i think.

i thought they started on jeepster, or do i just think that because of the belle and sebastian reference?

[Steve Thompson Dance Mix]

I'd have to agree with the Ghost Box label as well. An intriguing mixture of spooky and nostalgic electronica. I love their in house style of design as well. Like those old Penguin classic novels.

[Paaaaul]

i thought they started on jeepster, or do i just think that because of the belle and sebastian reference?

They were on Jeepster in the UK, Sub Pop in the US.
Everybody's right, nobody loses.
Hooray!

[gustav]

Asian Man Records and Hydrahead generally churn out good shit

Got that right about Asian Man. I ordered 25 cds for $25 except it really came out at $40 odd, but still the cds that i got were brilliant. Alkaline Trio, Screeching Weasel, The Queers et al. Love that label.

Also as far as punk rock goes you can never go wrong with Fat Wreck Chords and their skate punk/mellodic hardcore sound. And No Idea Records is good for very gruff sounding melodic punk.

[Famous Mortimer]

Asian Man are super-nice guys, they sent me all sorts of free shit when I ordered some CDs from them.

[Ciarán]

Fave labels:

Motown
Stax
Atlantic
Trax
Postcard
él
Heavenly
Invicta Hi-Fi
Mute
Some Bizarre
Philips/Fontana
Harvest
Vertigo
Elektra
Rough Trade
Stiff

All fairly obvious really...

[The Boston Crab]

Roule



Crydamoure



Ed Banger

[The Region Legion]

Anything on Screwgun Records is good, it's Tim Berne's own label so only for his music and those associated with it, but a 100% success rate is worth a link.

Also, John Zorn's Tzadik is often worth a gander, and Mike Patton's Ipecac Recordings may be full of great stuff, but I'm not as familiar with it.

[drberbatov]

Asian Man are super-nice guys, they sent me all sorts of free shit when I ordered some CDs from them.

sweet, Mike Park is one of the nicest guys in the music industry - his solo stuff is pretty damn good as well

[alan nagsworth]

There's some good stuff on Ipecac, although I feel on rare occasions, Patton puts out stuff by artists he's chummy with rather than finding interesting new bands. Doesn't happen often, but eh I'm getting bored of Patton so my opinions on him are gettig lazy.

[Emma Raducanu]

Fat Cat because they're heavily into Icelandic ambience and look at some of their artists:

Sigur Ros
Mum
Max Richter
Animal Collective
Vashti Bunyan
Sylvain Chauveau

all picked from a very small number of other brilliant musicians. I bought a fat cat t-shirt to celebrate this but have never worn it and when people learn of their brilliance, it'll go up in value and then in three years time, rodney, I'll be a millionaire.

[Steve Thompson Dance Mix]

I love Max Richter. I have his 'Blue Notebooks' album. Sublime stuff.

[lazyhour]

Fantastic idea for a thread.  It's so lovely to discover record labels that chime with your tastes and spirit, and that you feel you can trust to deliver the goods.  I'm surprised no-one's yet mentioned Drag City or Thrill Jockey.  Two of the greatest labels in the world, and they are both based in Chicago.

Some favourite Drag City artists:
Gastr Del Sol/Jim O'Rourke/Loose Fur/David Grubbs
Smog/Bill Callahan
Will Oldham/Bonnie Prince Billy/Palace/Palace Brothers/Palace Music/Palace Songs...
Alasdair Roberts
Ghost
Papa M/Aerial M/Pajo
Stereolab
The High Llamas
Silver Jews
John Fahey
Joanna Newsom
Edith Frost
Cynthia Dall
Faun Fables
Pavement

Some favourite Thrill Jockey artists:
Bobby Conn
Tortoise
The Sea and Cake/Sam Prekop/Archer Prewitt (Archer's album "Three" is amazing prog-pop)
The Fiery Furnaces
Mouse on Mars
Nobukazu Takemura
Chicago Underground Duo/Trio/etc
Oval
Town & Country
OOIOO
Aki Tsuyuko
Isotope 217

Looking at these lists, I think Drag City takes the lead.  Thrill Jockey probably issues more challenging stuff, though, and that's got to count for something.  I can honestly say that if I see a cheap CD on either of these labels, I take a chance on it.  I can't recall ever being disappointed.

Domino used to be one of my favourite labels, but they seem to be signing any old shit these days.  Really makes me sad, as I've bought so many Domino releases over the years - I don't want them to go down the wrong path!  Geographic is a spin-off from Domino (run by Stephen Pastel?) which I think captures their spirit of old.  Releases include Bill Wells Trio, Empress, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Nagisa Ni te, Teenage Fanclub & Jad Fair.

Jagjaguwar and Secretly Canadian are blossoming into really really good labels, I think.  Other names that make me happy when I see them on the back of a CD include Majikick, Rumraket, Ghost Box, Leaf, Trattoria, Childisc and Mego.  Oh, I do love record labels so!