Best of 2013: 16 Labels

In 2013 we were given more reasons than ever why record labels really matter. The glut of new producers needed sorting and supporting, the ever-oscillating sales of vinyl needed bolstering, and dance music’s tentative re-entry into the mainstream needed careful managing. Luckily, it seemed that there were more great labels and label-heads on hand to deal with these problems than ever before. It’s been a phenomenal and varied year in the world of dance, and here White Noise wants to pay tribute to the people behind the artists who make it all happen.

A good label can be many things: it can be a stamp of good taste, a reliable source of fresh tunes which earns the trust of the listener. A label can also be brought success by a discerning A&R man, who diligently picks out talented fledglings and nurtures them to greatness, or spots the glittering gem in a mire of soundcloud also-rans. A good label can be a stable which defines a style, whether local or global, better than anyone else – or even creates a home for exploring brand new sonic territory. It doesn’t even have to be all about the music: some labels are appreciated because of the care they put into their packaging and cover art, marrying great music to bold aesthetics. In 2013 more labels opened their doors than ever, while a few stalwarts clung to their positions among the industry's very best.

Before we begin, it’s worth spreading the word about a few labels not on the list that are looking promising for next year: the likes of Argot and Nous have been offering quality releases with a tight grip on quality control, while Sued has upped its output of superb techno EPs. Elsewhere new imprint Berceuse Heroique has had a memorable first year, with excellent slices from MGUN and Gesloten Cirkel pressed onto high quality 12”s. Another new label which attracted our attention was Fifth Wall, a Brooklyn-based imprint whose steady stream of roughneck techno has carved out a singular sound, demonstrated memorably on Divvorce’s Used Experience EP. Finally props go to Berlin’s Leisure System, who scored two home-runs this year with Visionist’s grime-trip Snakes and the blistering Tetrahymena, which marked the welcome return of electro vets Dopplereffekt.

Following from those worthy runners-up, we now present WN’s favourite labels of 2013:

16: R&S

Tessela - Horizon

‘In order to dance’. Many will recognise the slogan emblazoned on R&S’ vinyls, a statement of intent which has held true across the label’s lengthy career. R&S held onto its reputation as a dance institution this year by branching out, offering a more diverse range of records than ever before. While not all of these hit the mark (albums from Vondelpark and the promising Airhead proved blandly sentimental), R&S’ year was still far more hit than miss. They excelled in the singles department with superb offerings from Lone, Tessela and Paula Temple, while Welcome To Mikrosector-50 gave the delightful Space Dimension Controller some room to really let his imagination run wild. It was the most impressive year since the label’s recent relaunch, proving without a doubt that the old horse still has legs.

Essential Releases:

Tessela – Nancy’s Pantry

Lone – Airglow Fires

Space Dimension Controller – Welcome To Mikrosector-50

15: Mister Saturday Night

Dark Sky – In Brackets

After a debut release as impressive as Anthony Naples’ anthemic Mad Disrespect, many labels would spend the rest of their time desperately playing catch-up. Not so with Mister Saturday Night, a label run by the men behind Brooklyn’s popular loft party of the same name. The imprint showed their versatility through an impressive second year, with Lumigraph, Hank Jackson and a returning Naples demonstrating a tougher, noisier side of MSN, while Dark Sky and Alex Burkat’s releases plied an unparalleled softness.

Essential Releases:

Anthony Naples – Moscato

Dark Sky – In Brackets

Lumigraph – Yacht Cruiser

14: Wicked Bass

Innershades – That Girl

Kiev’s Wicked Bass stepped their game up a notch in 2012 with the release of Huerco S’ sublime No Jack EP, but all three of the label’s 2013 offerings show an imprint going from strength to strength, summoning the rawness of the lofi house scene without ever sacrificing a fierce lust for the groove. Two of this year’s releases come from big new talent Innershades, whose Dancemania-indebted That Girl turned into one of the year’s most compelling anthems. Elsewhere newcomer Raw Music Theory pumped out a scintillating debut EP, backed with ace remixes from fresh blood Greg Beato. Wicked Bass’ year was all about new talent, and they clearly had it in spades.

Essential Releases:

Innershades – That Girl

Raw Music Theory – Raw M.T.

Innershades - Gravure

13: Tri Angle

Forest Swords – Thor's Stone

The inimitable Tri Angle may have had a quieter year than last year’s musical masterclass, but each of the imprint’s releases was still a compelling invitation to the enigmatic darkness of Tri Angle’s sound. Genre-defying newcomer Fis closed the year with an intriguing offering alongside The Haxan Cloak’s heavyweight Excavation LP, yet Tri Angle’s biggest coup of 2013 was undoubtedly the return of the singular Forest Swords, whose album Engravings surpassed even our lofty expectations.

Essential Releases:

Forest Swords – Engravings

The Haxan Cloak – Excavation

Fis - Preparations

12: 100% Silk

Les Level – Fever Baby

Amanda Brown’s 100% Silk released an awful lot of music in 2013, perhaps too much, but the hit-rate was still more impressive than almost any other stable. Not Not Fun’s little sister is a dream for fans of retro house and synth-fed live jams, and this year gave us some gorgeous albums by Octo Octa and Coyote Clean Up, while Les Level, Bobby Draino and Bobby Browser were responsible for just a handful of the imprint’s run of ace EPs across the year.

Essential Releases:

Octo Octa – Between Two Selves

Les Level – House Of Need

Bobby Draino – Brain Drain

11: Opal Tapes

Patricia – Plural

Teeside’s Opal Tapes continued their unrivalled dominance of the cassette game in 2013, with an enviable slew of releases that straddled the worlds of noise, ambient and techno. OT’s quality control is always admirable, but some of its releases this year shone particularly bright, including those of Lumigraph, Karen Gwyer and Shapednoise, alongside a stellar debut for the more floor-focused material of Patricia. The latter garnered so much praise that label-head Stephen Bishop is launching the new Black Opal vinyl run next year, which sets expectations high for another bumper release schedule in 2014.

Essential Releases:

Patricia – Body Issues

Manse – Lying In Wait

Karen Gwyer – Kiki The Wormhole

10: Warp

Oneohtrix Point Never – Chrome Country

Sheffield’s venerable music outpost has surfed electronic music’s vanguard for almost fifteen years, and in 2013 it was the imprint’s ability to welcome talent both old and new which secured its ever-growing reputation. New albums from electronic legends (and label stalwarts) Boards of Canada and Autechre were worthy standard-bearers of the Warp tradition, but it was new work by the likes of Mark Pritchard and Oneohtrix Point Never which proved the imprint’s most exciting new releases.

Essential Releases:

Oneohtrix Point Never – R Plus Seven

Boards of Canada – Tomorrow’s Harvest

Mark Pritchard – Lock Off

9: White Material

White Material EP Clips

While Brooklyn’s White Material have released less this year than any other label on this list, their position is secured by the quality of those two EPs and the strength of the label’s aesthetic. Starting out peddling self-described ‘working man’s techno’ in 2012, this year saw WM come to prominence in the underground scene, their limited-issue releases quickly reaching exorbitant prices on discogs (though a series of represses is apparently on the way). It’d be easy to pass it off as a case of the hype machine gone wild if it weren’t for the brilliance of their records: this year saw Galcher Lustwerk follow a superb mix with a debut EP that twinned gorgeous deep house grooves with languid spoken word accompaniment. Later came White Material, a collective statement that defined the label’s sound in four concise, compelling excursions into 4/4 territory.

Essential Releases:

Galcher Lustwerk – Tape 22

White Material – White Material

8: Keysound

Wen – Commotion

After almost fading away for a few years, grime has been on a very exciting upswing of late. The fresh new producers are undoubtedly to credit – free to produce without making sonic space for an MC’s vocals, the likes of Beneath, Wen, Logos and more have been charting strange, seductive territory in their lethal new grime hybrids. Yet these disparate producers are brought together by a few key voices in the scene: one is undoubtedly Slackk, whose Grimetapes blog continues to be an inspiration, while the other is Dusk and Blackdown’s dependable Keysound imprint. Keysound has been on ruder form than ever this year, with great EPs from Etch and Wen bookending the year and debut albums from E.M.M.A. and Logos. The latter’s Cold Mission was a particular triumph, and alongside the label’s vital This Is How We Roll comp, capped off what might just be the best in the label’s six year history.

Essential Releases:

Logos – Cold Mission

Wen – Commotion

Various Artists – This Is How We Roll

7: ava.

Damiano Von Erckert – The Dude Loop

You might have guessed from our recent label profile that we love Damiano Von Erckert’s ava imprint. In 2013 ava sailed through another beautiful year, pushing their signature house sounds all drenched in soul. Murat Tepeli spun gold on his Fee Fi Foe Funk For Me EP (backed by a monster Prosumer remix), but ava’s year belonged to label-head Von Erckert, who released not one but two stellar albums: his misty-eyed collaboration with beatmaker Tito Wun and his debut proper, the sublime Love Based Music.

Essential Releases:

Damiano von Erckert & Tito Wun – Mr. Pink, What Have You Been Smokin’?

Murat Tepeli – The Fee Fi Foe Funk For Me EP

Damiano Von Erckert – Love Based Music

6: Trilogy Tapes

Anthony Naples - Busy Signal

Will Bankhead’s impossibly tasteful Trilogy Tapes imprint completed its transition to vinyl this year, with stunning leftfield releases drawn from old talents and new. Tuff Sherm and Anthony Naples produced two of the label’s most compelling listens since MM/KM, while the likes of Eomac, Levantis and Rezzett brought that crunchy lofi sound in inimitable style. 

Essential Releases:

Anthony Naples – El Portal

Tuff Sherm – Burglar Loops

Levantis - Believe

5: Crème Organization

D’Marc Cantu – Alternate Frequency EP Clips

DJ TLR’s fantastic Crème label ran through a kaleidoscopic 2013 with all guns blazing, never once letting slip either their wild energy or their strict quality control. Almost all of Crème’s 2013 offerings were gold, with Willie Burns, D’Marc Cantu, Xosar and Simoncino peddling their distinct brands of off-kilter house, while floor-focused work came courtesy of Legowelt and Innershades. As if that wasn’t enough Crème went further– christening Orgue Electronique’s addictive Henry Saiz remix with a white label release, and offering a searing EP courtesy of The Exaltics. Then of course there’s R-Zone, the Crème-affiliated imprint which let out a quickfire schedule of top-notch ravework across the year under its own anonymous banner. Every year we think that TLR can’t possibly keep up the pace, and each year he proves us wrong. Here’s to an even madder 2014.

Essential Releases:

D’Marc Cantu – Alternate Frequency

Innershades – No Stopping

R-Zone – R-Zone 06

4: Hyperdub

DJ Rashad - Every Day Of My Life

In its nine year history, Kode9’s Hyperdub has yet to have a dull year. The label has managed to hold onto the bleeding edge of electronic music for nearly a decade, and its enviable position was held fast in 2013. The last twelve months were particularly bountiful on the album front, with superb long-players coming from talents as diverse as DJ Rashad, Jessy Lanza and Walton. It’s not just Hyperdub’s forward-thinking music which deserves plaudits, but also its dedication to showcasing female talent. Alongside Lanza’s sterling debut, this year saw great LPs from label-stalwarts Laurel Halo and Ikonika, who, alongside the likes of Inga Copeland and Cooly G, show that Hyperdub is interested in breaking more than just sonic boundaries.

Essential Releases:

Walton – Beyond

Jessy Lanza – Pull My Hair Back

DJ Rashad – Double Cup

3: Livity Sound

Pev & Kowton – End Point / Vapours

Pev, Kowton and Asusu have been quietly building their Bristol stronghold for the last two years, but it took this year’s superb compilation for us to take stock and realise just how brilliantly consistent the label’s output has been. Each club-tooled release seems better than the last; a blend of raw dancefloor know-how and inventive textures which never fail to hit the sweet spot. Besides four of the label’s best singles coming quick and strong over the year, their eponymous compilation showed just how singular Livity’s vision is: three distinct voices combined in a raging, vital roar.

Essential Releases:

Various Artists – Livity Sound

Pev – Aztec Chant

Pev & Kowton – End Point / Vapours

2: Houndstooth

Akkord - Hex_ad

No label in recent memory has had a stronger first year than Houndstooth. Helmed by Fabric and Rob Booth, what Houndstooth lacked in anonymous underdog appeal it more than made up for in quality releases, with a staggeringly impressive collection of records coming over the last twelve months. Houndstooth’s guiding vision is a dark, vigorous vein of dance that mines the UK’s rich tradition while never taking its eyes off the future. Call Super offered two EPs of sublime techno that kept us dancing through the cold, while UK dance history was dealt two monumental tributes in the hi-def dread of Akkord’s self-titled debut album and the raucous grit of Special Request’s Soul Music.

Essential Releases:

Call Super – Black Octagons

Special Request – Soul Music

Akkord - Akkord

1: L.I.E.S.

Florian Kupfer – Feelin

Like it or not, Ron Morelli’s L.I.E.S. is here to stay. The Brooklyn imprint released over twenty records in 2013, and while they weren’t all to everyone’s taste, the label released more music we loved than any other this year. Whether it’s the expanding scope of their lofi aesthetic, the compelling fusion of experimental sounds and dancefloor muscle or the label’s dedication to pushing new talent, L.I.E.S. undoubtedly ruled the roost in 2013.

The wonderful Music For Shut Ins compilation closed a year which, somewhat hypocritically, actually saw L.I.E.S. aim more for the dancefloor than ever before, with sterling EPs from Voiski, Legowelt, Delroy Edwards and Terekke among many, many others. The year also saw a new dedication to the long-player in the L.I.E.S. camp, with brilliant work from Gunnar Haslam and Marcos Cabral, all capped off by KWC 92’s phenomenal Dream Of The Walled City. And then there are the anthems: Kupfer’s blissful Feelin, the excellent title track from Samantha’s Vacation, Greg Beato’s murky Gimme A Light – any label would be hard pressed to have a better year than L.I.E.S. did in 2013. Despite the enormous amount of hype surrounding the label, in our view there’s no imprint currently more worthy of attention.

Essential Releases:

KWC 92 – Dream Of The Walled City

Florian Kupfer – Lifetrax

Various Artists – Music For Shut Ins

Terekke – YYYYYYYYYY

Voiski – IAI Movement 

Best of 2013:

* Best Labels of 2013

* Best EPs of 2013
* Best Tracks: 85-26
* Best Tracks: 25-1

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Simoncino - For My Father

Label: Crème Organization

DJ TLR’s Crème imprint has always been a singular voice in house and techno music, but their A&R department has been on a roll of late. With excellent recent offerings from Innershades, Legowelt, Xosar, and D’Marc Cantu (not to mention the ace R-Zone series), the Dutch imprint now welcomes Italian house wizard Nick Anthony Simoncino to the stable for a gorgeous EP of polished, dreamy analogue house.

EP Clips

Fresh from the synth-led mystique of his recent LP on the tasteful Mathematics imprint, Simoncino kicks off with a beautiful beatless mood-setter. Interval I only has two elements: growling bass and iridescent, heavenly synths, but it makes for a striking opener, adroitly setting the stage for the wistful club tracks to come. The hardest and most impressive of these dance offerings is served off first, as the propulsive Tape I gets underway with a tense drum machine workout and seething bass pressure. It’s in the high-end, however, that the track achieves its blissful singularity, as feathered synths caress stuttering kicks and dubbed-out claps. Tape II is more reflective, the soundtrack to contemplating the horizon from a space station, as gentle synths play over a detailed field of bleeps and clicks.

The EP is classily polished from start to finish, as the celestial strains of the short Interval II lead into For My Father’s brooding closer, Tape III. Another cut aimed at the dancefloor, here those blissful synths are matched by a darkly patient bassline, a perfect counterbalance of optimistic introspection and shadowy dancefloor know-how. Simoncino’s releases hardly ever miss, and For My Father is no exception, a beautiful collection Chicago-indebted house at its most thoughtful and elegant.

7.5/10

R-Zone - R-Zone 06

Label: R-Zone

In a recent Mosca review, White Noise questioned how much enjoyment of music relates to our faith in an artist’s name rather than the sound itself. If a favourite producer puts out a release that is somewhat lacking, does your knowledge of their previous quality output make you ‘try to get into it’? On the other hand, if an unknown producer offers something which shows promise but doesn’t hit the sweet-spot on first listen, are you less likely to give it a second chance? Of course, the construction of reputation and a musical personality is nothing new to any musical genre, but the idea poses a specific problem in the dance domain. This is because many dance producers put out multiple releases a year, either from a genuine overflow of inspiration or, more problematically, from a need to stay relevant, so the chance of respected artists putting out substandard material is higher than in many other genres.

These producers borrow from the techniques once only the reserve of popstars and Hollywood starlets. The DJ and producer becomes a personality beyond his music. Where once dance cover sleeves depicted abstract designs and text, now they often prominently feature the artists' face. Where once people danced in a club with their friends in a state of abandon, now everyone faces the DJ, deified in his raised booth for all to see. Music production is in danger of becoming a personality cult, a state that it has long avoided. Everyone wants to be the name on listeners' lips, the sound in their ears, so the process of building and maintaining a public profile, even if that profile is grounded in mystery and anonymity, grows paramount. The worst effect of all this is that a producer's desire for a trendy name and can sometimes supersede the most important factor in any release: the quality of the music itself.

Considering this question, the Crème-affiliated R-Zone series has been a particularly refreshing label since its inception earlier this year. The imprint eschews names, drafting in a range of known and unknown producers to release anonymously under the R-Zone banner. The idea itself is exciting, if not entirely without precedent, yet it is the quality of these releases which is most compelling. Their anonymity only brings this into sharper contrast: judged purely for their musicality, these analogue jams run the gamut from rave to house, and September’s sixth entry into the series was the most exciting to date.

Rebecca In The Hall / Romijn Rave / Night Level II

Rarely is an EP as explosively consistent as R-Zone’s latest, with each of its three tracks proving utterly essential: boisterous, floor-focused tunes which explode out of the speakers on first listen. Rebecca In The Hall pounds with the power of a freight train, opening over a scifi wash and a dislocated diva cry. With only the barest of kick-drum introductions, a showstopping bass coil threatens to lay waste to dancefloors, adorned by jittery synth-notes and angular percussive interruptions. It feels like one of those powerhouse tunes which the rest of an EP can only hope to imitate, but by this point R-Zone 06 is only getting started. Romijn Ravine jacks just as hard on a darker tip, as stumbling break cuts and hardcore stabs duel with a raucous bassline that’d top the pH scale.

With its first two tracks the EP’s modern house trappings keep threatening to overflow into full blown rave/ hardcore territory, but it’s on stunning final cut Night Level II that the release reaches its destination. It takes the form of a moodier number forged from pregnant synth washes and loose breaks, all reigned over by a sturdy bass bounce which lends the dark atmospherics a rock-solid club core. R-Zone 06 is a staggeringly on-point trio of club-destroyers, and the label’s dedication to pure music, unhindered by reputation and hype, is only cause for further acclaim.

8.5/10