Spotlight on Huntleys + Palmers
It's actually quite incredible how a label that young can be that essential - but Huntleys + Palmers just doesn't seem to be a label like any other. With a back catalogue that includes the debut releases from hotly tipped producers like purveyor of fine polyrhythms Auntie Flo or the enigmatic bubblecore pioneer SOPHIE, there isn't much that the UK-based imprint can be doing wrong - it seems as if H+P has developed a bit of a speciality for breaking new artists. Since the induction of the label to our distribution roster at the end of last year, it's been quite busy for Andrew Thomson, the mastermind behind the brand: in 2014, we've seen him curating fantastic efforts from prodigies like Petwo Evans, DrumTalk, Mamacita and more. Don't worry, if you don't know any of these yet... they'll be household names pretty soon, anyways - but here's a nice little radio playlist to get you started. As a primer for the label's next strikes, we also decided to offer our web shop patrons a discount of 20% on all available H+P releases. This offer will be valid until Friday, November 14th - a perfect opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the smartest dance sounds around.
Here's what label honcho Andrew has to say about his latest discoveries: "being big Cómeme fans and supporters, we brought most of the artists to the UK for the first time. DJs Pareja left behind some unreleased tracks after their first visit which forms their set of bangers. DrumTalk sent us some early demos around the time his first remix was out on Soundway. It was clear we were approaching things in a similar direction and after some to-ing and fro-ing, playing some parties together, the tremendous Time emerged. Then, there's Mamacita: we first heard of her through a mix Alejandro Paz recorded for our podcast series, after which she then featured on the Auntie Flo album. This release was a long time in the making for various reasons, but with music this timeless, it was well worth the wait. Our first 12" release after several 10"es was the Chapter 1 sampler which allowed us the opportunity to work with and introduce several artists at once. I'm very proud of this release and the various sounds and artists who are represented... we booked rRoxymore on Oni Ayhun's recommendation, hooked up with Carisma through DJs Pareja, met Cruffy via some demos and Prophets is the first collaborative release from our long term buddy, Esa along with Ali Ooft. Chapter 2 is coming soon! Petwo Evans is the new project of a couple of guys who've been about for a while under various guises. They made this release by banging on the drum from the inside of a tumble dryer! As friends of Brian, I'm really pleased they thought of H+P when considering labels for this superb release. Which brings us to WRONG STEPS: it's also a new project by an artist who played alongside Brian and Esa at a festival in Portugal. It took ages for us to get around to check that demo, but I'm very pleased that we finally did, amazing amazing stuff! Our next release will be "Mechanical Turk" from Mehmet Aslan, out on November 17th: we met him through his friend Miajica who booked us to play at their party in Basel. We got on famously that weekend and were very pleased to receive a bunch of edits and various other tracks the following week (a few of which we've released on our Highlife edits label). This release combines a few of his older original material, alongside an up to the minute reworking of a track by this fantastic Romanian band called Kasparov Not Karpov."
