In February 2019 my label Apartment was all but dead. I won’t expand on the reasons for this but some music was returned to people and I felt like I’d finally stopped jumping back and forth doing a will I / won’t I on what sometimes felt like an especially long-winded experiment in money gouging.
Covid and everything that goes with it is rarely framed in a positive light – and with good reason, to be fair – but it did save my record label and it brought about the TENEMENTS album which would never have existed otherwise. By the end of 2019 I knew I was going to continue putting out music and early in to 2020 (the last winter was so bleak that time did really stop mattering) I realised that it would also mark 10 years of the label, something that hadn’t crossed my mind for most of 2019.
NCW – NCW On NCW [APT13]
It would turn out to be a happy coincidence that the first release of 2021 would be the return of NCW, who had released the first record on the label in 2011. The oddball deep house of that first record was replaced with oddball deep techno, a 4-tracker that swamps around behind you, grinding right up against you with its distorted riffs and gargantuan kick drums.
TENEMENTS – Various Artists [APT14] feat: Americhord / Bea Brennan / Belacqua / Blusher / Caskré / Chase Smith / Jo Johnson / Johno / Other Lands / Rich Heebner / Senonix / Ten Years Lost
As the NCW record sat in the production line queue and I sat in my room during what felt like an endless full lockdown, I was left alone with my own thoughts long enough to try and figure out what else I could do to mark the anniversary of the label. Realistically, deciding to do a Various Artists comp and do some merchandise probably weren’t ideas I was slow to come by but considering the label had originally started out as vinyl-only (this was never supposed to be a big anti-digi stance, I just wasn’t bothered as long as I wouldn’t lose my bollox on the wax) I would have to decide would I release the compilation digitally or simply not do it all, because there was no way I could afford to press a 3×12 record release – and I also fancied running a release without some of the stress and headaches of releasing a physical-format album in 2020.
From vinyl-only to digital-only – a statement that easily surmises the last 10 years in running a small independent dance music label. We’ve all read enough on the current (or what are possibly permanent) difficulties so I won’t harp on about it anymore but with all the producers I approached happy for the album to be released digital-only and with a promise to give 100% of the profits to the artists, I gathered together a release I’m super chuffed with. Nearly everyone I asked immediately said yes, and I spent the next 6 months slowly allowing the album to come alive in itself.
I’ve always operated the label with an element 0f winging it. Demos landing in my lap by fluke, releases taking shape and then allowing them to get reshaped in the interim, shot-in-the-dark emails at producers, crossing my fingers that those I’m working with don’t run out of patience with me. TENEMENTS encapsulates all these elements. It also allowed me to put together an album that moved away from what I’d done before. I didn’t select artists who would automatically compliment each other, instead figuring out after I had all the music how they would then compliment each other. In my head its a techno album for walking to. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, do with the music what you will. As with every other release I’ve put out I don’t want to feel out of date in 6-12 months; trends and hype are the enemy.
Two of the artists featured on TENEMENTS, Bea Brennan and Senonix, were 2 of the first batch of people I contacted back in 2009 / 2010 but things never worked out at the time. I’m especially happy about having the 2 of them finally appear on the label, it brings everything full circle in a way I could never have imagined back then. I’m not going to go through everyone else on the release, but to say a huge thank you to everyone who said yes and came through. The album does also point to future plans for Apartment. I won’t say anything else on that…
TENEMENTS – Bandcamp
APARTMENT t-shirts
Finally, I’d like to give a special thanks to Andrew Burger. Andrew has been my designer since the beginning and his work has helped shape Apartment as much as anyone. Even if its just small descriptions of the music, or a vague idea I give him he has always managed to surprise me, and everything has always come out better than I had imagined in my head. I’m very lucky to have had him along for the ride, thanks a million.