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Re:mote Induction Feature
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Sprawl was started as a night of musical exploration in an internet cafe to fill the void perceived by Douglas Benford and Iris Garrelfs. With each having their own musical projects, Si-{cut}.db and BitTonic respectively, it was a natural progression to create the Sprawl Imprint to release their own work and that of those that interested them. We spoke to Si-{cut}.db about the Sprawl nights and Sprawl Imprint.
Re:mote Induction : Could you start perhaps by relating the history, (when, why, how, long term goals etc.) of Sprawl, first as a club and secondly as a label and then, in addition, describe your role at Sprawl?
Si-{cut}.db: I met my Sprawl partner Iris Garrelfs aka BitTonic about 5 years ago I think. 4 years ago, struck by the fact that there seemed to be no venue suitable for the music we liked, Iris and I decided we needed an outlet for our own music and also to showcase artists doing something different...we hit on the idea of doing an event in an internet cafe - because it had a different atmosphere and facilities - originally in Victoria, London. The club at that time was monthly; then we moved venues to the more central Global Cafe, and last year we became a weekly event, which was really exciting. Then went back to monthly... We've put special Sprawls on in Leeds, Brighton, and played at places like both "Monastry's of Sound" (Normandy). Hitting Amsterdam this month... my role is programmer, dj and recording artist. Also "ideas" person - such as the Chinese Whispers, Broken Voice ones and now a the new 'Hmm' project - electronic musicians tackling traditional hymns! Iris as BitTonic has a lot of input as well, such as the with another thing we are doing 'Groundswell' - a live showcase and possible TV thing about basically modern music ignored by the media!
We have no goals expect maybe exposing the global network of underground electronic music to the General Public...And not to go bankrupt!
Re:mote Induction : How closely are the label and club linked? Which, if either, takes priority?
Si-{cut}.db: They both go hand in hand. The club came first, and the label seemed a natural branch.
I hate to use the word "branding", but I think that if people experience the club and buy a Sprawl record they are kind of buying into a freedom of attitude and something that doesn't quite fit into the usual genres: is it dance music? It's too loud for ambient and I hate the word 'chill' - just because it indicates a "switch off of the mind" or relaxing. I do THAT when I'm asleep. Personally, the music has to be stimulating and have an element of the new; this explains my general boredom lately with anything breakbeat orientated - it's no longer an experimental area...that's not to say I'm madly Techno...I just want to hear artists "pushing the envelope" of software...in an accessible, but not bland fashion.
Re:mote Induction : What are the benefits of running your own label? What are the difficulties? Do you encounter resistance?
Si-{cut}.db: The only benefits are that we can set our own agendas - release just what we want to hear, maybe what we would buy ourselves, artistic freedom also with our own personal recordings. And the satisfaction of getting a little money back. The difficulties are with our lack of genre - we get constantly put in the "downtempo" sections of dance mags, when I think most of our stuff is fairly "up". The resistance is always there - and maybe we are one of the few people that realise that the UK scene is pretty stale at the moment, but then again we have/are moving into a more experimental area which is not covered by the media really. The fact that there are artists globally making a living from new approaches is fairly ignored by everyone else - the Scanners, Kaffe Matthews, Jim O'Rourke's of the world...UK sales are always "reluctant" - thank god for people like John Peel and Mixing It who are willing to expose this stuff, I say...even the Wire is a toughy to get a review in sometimes though!
Re:mote Induction : You yourself have released work on the Sprawl Imprint. Have you had experience in releasing your work through other labels?
Si-{cut}.db: I have had odd things released by other labels - mainly in the 80's when I was more pop orientated, er, less mature shall we say. I'd describe those experiences as "skirmishes" with the major label ethos, publishers as well.
But through out that time I've always had a record run by myself releasing my own stuff, as an outlet for the more wayward material - the Suburbs of Hell label was that, morphed into Sprawl Imprint I guess...but we've endeavored to release other artists, nurture them even. I did quite few lucrative remixes under different guises in the early nineties for various other label-affiliated things too. My only other experience nowadays is the odd track on a compilation, and now with the Tennis material (with Benge of Sub Rosa/expanding) on German label ECR... I'm supposed to be doing material with Scanner for his label - we've done a few tracks, but I think Sulphur (Scanner's label) is looking at me collaborating with other artists too.
Re:mote Induction : Do Sprawl have many relations with other labels and if so, what are they and how are they beneficial?
it's nice that the releases seem to seep all over the world - we get reports of them being played in New York galleries, and I know they get played in Japan too
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Si-{cut}.db: In London it's good there are a few labels with some common ground: Worm Interface, Leaf, Law & Auder, Ninja Tunes, Lo, spymania, Planet µ etc. I have a lot of respect for their attitudes and I know how difficult to balance releasing good music without compromising to commercial values, but then you can create a niche for yourselves which it is difficult to escape from i.e. Ninja = breakbeats. We have had nights dedicated to some of those labels, which are great fun. We do exchange information between these labels; I often think we should create some kind of network with our common ground: we all know how crap the mainstream is, how blinkered. You have to bear in mind that London has 'set' kinds of clubs - house, drum and bass, "retro", hip hop and there's not much else. Time Out for instance insists that you sit in one of those pens...there is no "eclectic" or "experimental". It took us three years before they even listed us in Time Out!
Re:mote Induction : How does Sprawl sign a band. What are it's criteria. What makes a Sprawl artist? What does Sprawl offer an artist?
Si-{cut}.db: Finding an artist is through having a demo sent to us, or hearing another release on another label. What makes a Sprawl artist? In a phrase: interesting rhythms and/or textures and/or melodies. A certain individuality I guess. Someone like Freeform has a track record as well, which means a "proven fanbase" (arghhhhhhh! Record company speak!). We offer an organised outlet for their material, but not much in the way finances though! (we can hardly pay ourselves); also no contractual ties and a release helps raise their profile for their work in the way of remix opportunities, gigs, Djing...sadly I get very few demos I like from new acts nowadays. More please!
Re:mote Induction : Could you explain the concept (and the origin thereof) of the Chinese Whispers release? How difficult was this to organise? how did you select the artists? Are you pleased with the results? Any plans for future project of a similar nature?
Si-{cut}.db: The idea was to create a circle of artists all constructing tracks from samples they received from the other artists like pass the parcel. This was interesting in that there was no original track, hence no original composer, just a relay of remixers starting off with Stereolab donating the first samples to the Sons Of Silence, who made a track, passing on their own samples to Ultramarine, who pass theirs onto Mike Paradinas and so on. None of the artists heard the previous artists track/remix and did not know who they had got the samples from! (they could only guess). It ended with Stereolab being handed back a bunch of samples ten remixes later, and they finished of with a remix of their own. This was a nightmare to organise - (a) because the project was always waiting on the previous track to be finished before the next could begin and (b) some artists had to be dropped because of time, it was agonising synching everyone up; to this day I feel awful about dropping Andrew Weatherall and Luke Vibert....! Some of it was like pulling teeth - I had secret dat swaps in coffee breaks at my company (I had a day job at the time), covert dashes in the lift. Stressful. Then Dot records accused me of stealing their idea, which was the icing on the cake. Coincidently, they had a similar idea but there were striking differences: i.e. the Dot one had an original track, the remixer were NOT working blind and they didn't go back to the original sampler provider...and theirs was hugely longer too, and without being rude, very similar "dot" sounding, where as ours was quite eclectic I think, like a musical journey. Selection of artists was based on (a) our taste and (b) availability (i.e. being in this country, for instance), pure and simple. And also who did the previous track was borne in mind for the next candidate to create a contrast or compliment. I was very pleased with the project - and it sold quite well thank god - but I think it was very "of it's time" and I would choose different artists now...
Re:mote Induction : Asides from Chinese Whispers, you appear to have issued another eight releases to date, could you tell us something of each of them? How the artists came to be with Sprawl and future Sprawl expectations of each artist.
Si-{cut}.db: The releases go something like this:
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2) "Behind You" - si-{cut}.db. Scanner on production. Fairly self explanatory - I wrote and arranged/programmed all material at home and we then downloaded it in Scanner's studio. A couple of tracks I just e-mailed him a midi file....!
3) "Pantunes Music" - originally this was going to be released by Doug Martin and myself: like the Phoenix Jig material it was all for our label Pantunes, but we decided to just call ourselves that. We had done the P.J. album, and a load of 12"s; then spent almost 18 months - 2 years putting this baby together. You can hear the hard work I think!
4) "Bovine Revolver.ep" si-{cut}.db. vs. Scanner...a magnificent 12" I think; we just cut loose and improvised over some arrangements, and I think the spontaneousness works... we have a few more tracks coming out on Scanner's Sulphur label, plus some other planned collaborations...
5) "Chinese Whispers" - various artists remixing each other (see above), includes Sons Of Silence, Ultramarine, Mike Paradinas, Stereolab, Freeform, Slang, Bedouin Ascent, Si Begg, Subtropic, T-Power ...a buffet of beats and electronics. John Peel played every track I think! The album that single-handedly caused XFM to call time on it's DJs "artistic freedom"...!
6) "Horizontal" - Puppy. aka Dave Hodgson. English but works at Microsoft in Seattle. A fairly straight techno release, but what makes Dave's stuff is his distorted textures...as we said in the press release, "like Orbital scoring a Lynch movie". A favourite with my girlfriend!
7) "Me Shape" - Freeform. aka Simon Pyke. We were aware of Simon's stuff on Skam, Law&Auder, Warp etc. I think he has his own sound and style, which makes him a bit of a square peg, which is good! Funky, clanky and abstract. His sounds avoid a lot of pitfalls and remind me of kind of seventies experimental jazz as well...
8) "rate of Living" - si-{cut}.db. a number of tracks I worked on over a year or so. as always, I think this album has a different approach, more melodic and colourful with drill and bass leanings, can't really understand the Vibert comparisons; I didn't use a sampler at all...I wanted a kind of clinical toys r us approach! thank god for Pro Tools. I think it's pretty accessible...I think I'll have to go back to my experimental/minimal roots a bit for the next one...which I plan to record at home for the first time.
9) "welcome to the Pailindrome" - osymyso. our latest; I'm not a big fan of the sampledelica ethos, but mark nicholson, who has also released stuff on spiky and eye q, avoids the usual breakbeats/jazz and constructs a funny collage of melody and British pre-occupations, and it stays listenable and unpredictable...a favourite on Peel, Nightingale, Lamacq and Radio 3's Mixing It, so that's an achievement...he's actually been asked by Nightingales and Blue Jam's producer to do a special session or mix...so we're all chuffed, especially when HMV wont stock it because they say it's too leftfield! Now I'm mad!
10) "Under Construction" - this is Iris's project, my Sprawl co-partner, she's had tracks on law & auder's 'female of the species', our broken voice, and I'm really looking forward to her album debut.
11) "Hmm" - a special one we are currently working; versions of traditional hymns by some very eclectic artists, currently the best on the electronic music scene. These include david toop, snd (mille plateaux), carl stone, ann shenton (add n to x), jim o'rourke, pita (mego), kit clayton (scape/dropbeat), antye (laub), pole/stefan bekte, thomas brinkmann, to rococo rot, 'd' (soul static sound), atom heart, Paul Schütze, wang inc
(sonig), farben, kreidler, ritchie hawtin, terre thaemlitz, matthew
herbert, patrick pulisinger, minit (australia)... a lot of the names have
agreed, it's just trying to get the blessed tracks out of them now!
Unbelievably Brian Eno is also interested as well...he's promised to try
and work on something for us!
Re:mote Induction : I'm confused by the catalogue numbering of the releases, why do they start in the 20's?
Si-{cut}.db: The answer to this is very simple, they are a continuation of my old label, the suburbs of hell's label number, since the first few releases were supposed to be joint releases, for technical reasons...it's that boring!
Re:mote Induction : Would you care to discuss the Sprawl artwork? How do you feel cover artwork interacts with the music? Do you think the artwork reflects the mood and nature of the music? Who's been responsible for the art/design and how do you feel it is developing? Sprawl Logo?
Si-{cut}.db: I am a trained graphic designer and spent 12 years of my life designing magazines and the odd record sleeve. Hence most of the sleeves are done, very cheaply I may add by me...the freeform and osymyso albums were not my designs, which was good because they have their identity more. Our logo has always been ragged/rugged but functional I think, like the music maybe; I think design today is so good, even on mainstream recordings, that it is good to see something which is not too slick, in this age of rotating website logos etc, 3d packaging. Dfuse, our website hosts, have a lot of input too with our flyers and website, which keeps us slightly professional looking.
I come from a slightly punk ethos I guess; I don't think there is much point in copying a warp style, ninja/mo wax or even ole peter saville, because we don't sound much like them...the puppy album, which I did, I really liked, confused people because it looks as if the booklet is missing...and pink spots? Designers today, without a doubt, are influenced by Japanese graphics. That and Tomato who have cornered the market with their style...if only Underworld weren't such a sad group...that's the contradiction to me.
Re:mote Induction : You seem to cover a broad spectrum in guests at your Sprawl nights, what does this variation provide for the club? how do you select/approach artists? Do you get many approaching you? Does the club experience much in the way of technical difficulties? Who's sets have you especially enjoyed?
Si-{cut}.db: Doing the club weekly last year we actually hit a wall trying to (a) not repeat ourselves and (b) getting artists who we respected, either for their music or attitude. This is the basic criteria. It's also good to ask people who would not be normally asked to do such a thing - djing for David Toop and Paul Schütze is not really their specialty. This variation also makes the nite unpredictable, and provided us with a headache in that listing magazines have always found it difficult to pigeonhole us, which is one of our strengths. Quite a lot of artists do approach us, those are mainly new artists...but if we like their stuff, we give them a slot and pay them. There's usually technical difficulties with live groups - we don't really have room for whole drum kits; and the internet broadcast is always playing up - computer problems...! There are many sets I've really enjoyed, and others I could take or leave (...give people total artistic freedom and they really do abuse that sometimes!), but the ones I've liked recently have been Stefan from To Rococo Rot with 'D', Laub, Add N To X and Si Begg playing some real pop horrors, Apache 61, Scanner, Freeform....
Re:mote Induction : What, if there is such a thing, does an average Sprawl night entail?
Si-{cut}.db: A mad load of music, with pretty much all categories plundered but with leftfield electronica leanings, a wall full of colourful visuals projected from computer, a bunch of people standing around drinking with a few hogging the net computers too.
It's usually a good social occasion. Last two months have been gratifyingly over subscribed - you can always judge success by the length of the queue to the toilet! I can confess right now that I get pretty drunk, but have managed to contain the chaos that that creates for myself on a personal level... !!!
Re:mote Induction : The nights have just recently returned to a monthly event after a stint of weekly evenings. Could you explain the circumstances? How was the reaction to the weekly club and can you see this recurring perhaps again as a stint?
Si-{cut}.db: Whilst I am dedicated to the sprawl full time, the weekly did take up a lot of energy keeping momentum going. We had the opportunity in the summer of '98 to go weekly and thought we'd give it a go. Basically, we ran out of acts!
Without repeating the same djs too much it became quite difficult; we have changeable tastes
as well. Fickle even. It's a shame really, towards the end of the weeklies we had a lot people turning up, but the monthlies seem to be very popular (at least 100 or so people) at the moment. It's a lot of hard work promoting a weekly club, I can tell you - in terms of constant faxing and putting out flyers. I think we'd still be up for a kind of low key weekly thing, as long as it paid for our drinks... we have a good relationship with the Global cafe too, so at the moment things will be left there as a monthly still...
Re:mote Induction : How successful is the label's exportation/distribution?
Si-{cut}.db: The UK market seems very small. Two thirds of our sales seems to this market; then the US market is variable and Europe being our main area. It's very hard pushing new solo artists in all these areas, we're just hoping that they establish themselves. In the meantime it seems like our most successful projects are definitely the compilations - because they have a firm idea behind them and involve more high profile artists. On another level, it's nice that the releases seem to seep all over the world - we get reports of them being played in New York galleries, and I know they get played in Japan too, though we don't sell many there - the Japanese market is at a slump...
Re:mote Induction : Do you feel you are promoting/supporting a certain style/genre of music? If so what is it or what is its purpose?
Si-{cut}.db: A few years ago I would have said that we were promoting "Intelligent Dance Music". Maybe less so now....I have grown up with experimental and cutting edge dance music, so I think that the dance scene is always one of my roots, but nowadays less so the UK dance scene. I feel that Sprawl's roots are through German experimental (Kraftwerk to Can) into ambient and minimal (Eno and Glass say) through Detroit and then a touch of drum and bass.
Whoever is innovative. All the genres cross over today, and I detect a very
scientific approach to dub which is different and less lazy than the
eighties approach but takes on 70's experimentalism. What is the purpose of
experimental dance music then? All music has to work on one of these
levels: texturally, melodically or rhythmically (I have no time for
"lyrically" nowadays). Maybe culturally too. Its only in the dance field
that artists have really grappled with the possibilities of software - the
bedroom boffins as it were - and delivered something accessible and perhaps
"of it's time".
Re:mote Induction : What is the future for Sprawl? Are there any final comments or observations that you would like to make?
Si-{cut}.db: One of our great assets is being pretty open minded; currently we are about music, but we've had dealings with TV companies and are also broadcasting visuals and music from the club, on http://gold.globalcafe.co.uk. We want to develop our website, http://www.dfuse.com/sprawl/ to become a kind of music, art and social resource (!); obviously we need to make some money too! Anyway, to do this we'll be making our releases easier to obtain from the website, creating interesting pages as well that anyone, not just techno trainspotters, will want to see, and putting together interesting projects like "Hmm" and our gig series, "Groundswell". I am also on a mission to get good music exposed; so much of the mainstream is so stale and shortsighted. I personally would like to see more outlets for my and iris's music, and also to travel more with our music...
Re:mote Induction : Thanks for your time and all the best with Sprawl and all that you do.
Andrew Morrison
November 1999
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