ROB CHADWICK talks to the duo behind the new Nottingham label SheWolf…
SheWolf is a fresh label straight out of Nottingham. Strongly related to minimal imprint Shrink Records, this takes a deeper, more soulful house route, as debut release, The Vintage EP, shows. We caught up with the EP's producers – and SheWolf label owners – Romulus Schwartz and Nick Lawson to find out more…
Where does the label's name come from? It's not your typical dance imprint name…
We don't believe labels should always have names that say exactly what the sound is about. We want to keep people who are new to the label guessing what we're about. It's not as if we'll be putting anything out other than quality deep house, but portraying a certain an air of mystery is always nice. I mean if we called it "the deep, sometimes jazz-influenced house label" it wouldn't leave much to the imagination. We also feel it allows us to work with other parts of the creative sector, in our case photography. A lot of our design work and covers will be examples of interesting photography by Christopher James. He's as much a part of the label as either of us. Anyway, the name SheWolf came about after Romulus made an unreleased track with the same title – and if you're interested at all in Roman mythology, you'll know that Romulus and Remus, sons of Mars, were raised for a short time by a she wolf.
You're related to Shrink Records. Why have you decided to take a deeper route with SheWolf?
Shrink was being sent a lot of really nice deeper house that wouldn't really fit with the 'techy' Shrink sound. We were moving in a much deeper direction so we decided that the SheWolf concept would be a much more appropriate platform. We were also slightly concerned that Shrink could become diluted and may potentially confuse our audience.
Keeping with your deep agenda, the first track on the EP, Daphadandilly, is certainly that. What were your ideas behind the track?
Daphadandilly was created at the height of the summer last year when the UK experienced a brief heatwave. Although I'm a big fan of the summer months, I don't fair very well in extreme heat so I normally stay indoors. I spent hours trawling through old records, films and documentaries and came up with a collection of interesting samples. I frequently steal bits from old Blaxploitation films from the 70s, which are often set in hot climates. I think the haziness of that heatwave really comes through in the track, mainly as a result of the vocal samples and low-slung programming. The idea to include references to child's play came from hearing the children down our road playing outside. I'd play the track back and hear the kids playing over the top and it worked really well. The sample I used is taken from a film and not a recording of these children. I like using obscured vocal samples as it provides a bit of soul and a human connection that some electronic music really lacks.
The name kind of says it all with second track, Jazz Collector…
What can I say? I was listening to a lot of really nice independent hip hop my friend Ryo (Cult) was using for DJ sets and mixes. I came across one of his old mixes that contained a nice sample about a guy who collected jazz records. In fact, he liked to collect anything. I played around with some key samples and just let the track take shape over time, which is getting harder these days as I'm always rather busy in the studio working on new Pollyy material. This track gave me a chance to have a break from all that and play some live instruments while running around recording in my little live space.
Labels are going through a sticky patch at the minute, but do you think the future will be brighter in 2010?
Wow, that's a toughy. We certainly know how hard it has been over the past few years trying to make anything happen and trying to make money for the labels to survive. But I can honestly say, regardless of which way the industry goes, we'll still be here doing what we love (and hate sometimes), looking for that sound that defines us and keeps our heads above the water. After watching an interesting Panaroma the other day about free downloading, I'm still undecided on the whole thing. It's great exposure for artists, but it's not that great for labels. Sometimes when we hear people say they download for free it feels like they could almost literally be taking money out of our pockets. It's all quite scary. But vinyl is a real objective of ours for SheWolf. We feel the physicality of plastic lends itself very well to the music we love. You just can't beat a needle on a record – it's where we've come from as DJs after all.
What are your plans for the label?
Other than our plans to press vinyl, we just want to become established and put out more music. We have some really great artists lined up for both full releases and remixes, along with some tasty artwork, so we can't wait to get it all out there. The Wherehouse? in Nottingham is also a really interesting venture that we are involved with. We put on deep house and techno music in a really raw warehouse setting on the outskirts of the town centre. It's a great underground party with a great vibe and it's something that Nottingham has needed for a long while. So far we've had Matt Tolfrey, Inxec, Wolf+Lamb and Ryan Crosson at the Wherehouse? as well as the Shrink second birthday. We've got some really exciting parties lined up over the next few months, including some future SheWolf artists…
