Our friend, David Barbarossa, caught up with Stuart Leath from Emotional Rescue and Emotional Response for a chat about the labels.
Stuart is one half of Emotional Rescue and Emotional Response, two labels in one effectively, and alongside co-label-owner, Chris Galloway has released some rather fine vinyl over the last 6 months or so. Official and fully licensed re-releases including Sons Of Arqa (with one specific track mixed by the god-like, Adrian Sherwood who we featured recently) and Bob Chance on the Emotional Rescue side of things and new records by Timothy J. Fairplay and Alan Hurst on Emotional Response. Stuart and Chris have also recently launched their website which you can visit here. But read the interview first to get a taste of what the chaps are about.
And here’s what the label say about themselves:
Emotional Rescue is a reissue record label to highlight lost, obscure or forgotten music that we simply feel deserves a wider audience.
All releases are fully licensed from the artists, remastered and repackaged using the original source material, where appropriate.
Who are you and how did you get here?
Ha, I’m not sure how to answer that. The Ether!?
Would you like to mention any friends, family or DJs that played a special part in your musical outlook?
Well I didn’t grow up in a musical household, but I guess being the youngest of 3 kids meant I was exposed to quite a lot of music that influenced me. I also spent the first 10 years of my life living between England and the States so I think that played a part in my music education as such. We’re talking ’69 to ’79 here so by the time I was old enough to notice, I had a sister who was into disco and brother who was into rock and it definitely played it’s part in rounding my musical outlook.
When I finally moved back to England permanently it was the start of the music that came after punk, so 2 tone, Dexy’s, The Police, The Jam etc… and then onto Siouxsie, The Cure etc… A massive influence, though, was indirectly through helping my mum in her pottery business. She would be spending many, many late nights in the garage and would always have John Peel on the radio to keep her company and when I was dragged out there to help out, I would get to hear all the music that never got in the charts. There has been a lot of myth building about John Peel since he passed away. A lot of the records he played were pretty extreme and close to unlistenable as he was always pushing the margins however with that, once you got used to it, you’d soon realise that every third record or so was really amazing; and the reason you realised there were was because of the extremes he went to musically.
What about the first gigs and clubs?
I Iived equal distance from Portsmouth and Brighton so from the age of 14/15 me and some mates would catch the train to see all sorts of bands from my first gig with the Thompson Twins (in ’82 when I was 12!) through to The Damned or PiL…
Then around ’86/’87 we could get in to the first clubs as we looked a bit older, so I got to hear a bit of the tail-end of the Rare Groove thing, but all that changed in 1988 when we went on a Thursday night at The Zap in Brighton. It was still a Goth club, but on this night they started a fledgling Acid House night and after that everything else after that seemed a bit retro!
Why start a label in the first place, let alone two! What made you decide to make the leap from music fan to label owner?
It was just something we wanted to do. I had dipped my toe into record releasing before and had known Chris for years. He ran Soft Rocks and their labels and one day we started talking about doing something outside of the disco/house spectrum and it came pretty naturally from there. We were literally talking about the type of music we’d would do if we had the chance, so we thought lets try and do something together and different.
The releases so far already have a distinct sound. Is there a defined idea for the music?
No defined sound at all except that we like it and have managed to license it with the right people. I must admit I have a massive soft spot for that British dubbed out post-punk and new wave sound so I’m a little worried I’ll end up doing quite a lot of that! For the tracks, well you’re right, the idea is to try and give something different. It’s a lot about showing a history of an artist to people and maybe taking and releasing someone who you wouldn’t expect to hear in that context.
How do you find out about these records that you’re reissuing on Emotional Rescue?
All over really – digging in shops, friends, DJs and even the internet.
How do you feel about bootlegging?
Well clearly it is a contentious point as I’m sure most people have a few in their collections for one reason or another. While I have got them in the past because I didn’t think I’d ever buy the original record, now I avoid them completely as it seems the safest option.
It’s a personal choice though as people today want instant gratification. You can see why there is a market for it. I think it’s quite known that some DJs and dealers are teaming up with distributors to put out all those cosmic/disco classic LPs you see, but hopefully people will decide if it’s done for the love of music or not. You can walk into a store and see something like that recent Richard Schneider bootleg and I have that vain ego pang as things like that can take a while to find and you value owning them, but I’m not sure how much I can judge.
What does piss me off though is when something I’ve licensed is bootlegged, which has just recently happened. Now that was infuriating as it takes a lot of effort, time and money to find the artist, license the record and then remaster it ready for pressing, just for someone to stick out a recording off vinyl that is more about them boosting their DJ career or even ego etc.
Do you have the same view on edits?
Truth is I’ve never had a problem with edits and I’m not just saying that because Chris is one of Soft Rocks who were known initially for their edits. I always saw them as being a valuable tool when I first came across them, which was basically making records or parts of records that were hard to use into something more interesting or enjoyable.
I’m talking the good ones, which often were the original labels I came across like the Idjuts on Noid or Moton, Better Days and of course the Black Cock series – when you could find them or the old NYC Edits that you could get from Vinyl Mania or Dancetrax back in the day. Today they’re not really on my radar as we’ve been swamped for some time now and that means a lot of mediocre rubbish and even edits of edits are coming out. I’m waiting for the time when they go back to being occasional and something that’s really needed and worthwhile.
However, what I find more annoying is all the stores calling the bootlegs ‘reissues’ or ‘represses’ when nearly everyone knows they are not. It’s become the standard thing to say and it’s wrong as it’s legitimising them and is actually mis-selling. See, a can of worms that one!
How did the Emotional Response hook-ups happen?
Emotional Response is different in that it gives us a chance to work with people you know or who’s music you love. It’s open about what we put out, we’re not going to be defined by styles or BPMs. Obviously Chris has his house label Vibrations and has Kinfolk for his other stuff. If we want to put out a house record we will but it won’t be bang bang bang, 3 in a row. It would be a one-off that fitted or a remix of something we’ve put out. We have got a nice group of friends out there that we’re going to do stuff with – some known and others not yet. It’s good so far and has come from various sources.
Obviously Chris has been involved with the Soft Rocks productions for a while now – are you planning on staying behind the scenes or can we expect to see some tracks from you in the future?
I already have. The Brujo Magic release is an edit we did, but it was as much out of necessity than anything else. It wasn’t intended, but came about when Wadada sent me a version of Brujo that was really short, but had this amazing bottom-end on it. I realised this had to be the one we released so I hooked up with Piers from Soft Rocks to extend it. It really seemed to work so when needed we are doing this again. We don’t plan to promote ourselves above the original artist as this was not the point of starting the label.
But for Emotional Response, yes one of the things Chris and I talked about right at the start was doing something together. This grand idea was to form a proper band and us to be like svengali producers or something… but that might just be the beer talking. Things are happening slowly – there’s no rush. He’s in Brighton and I’m in London. In fact I’m based in the often maligned South London but through parties like World Unknown and producers like Cage & Aviary, there is definitely something good going on down here and I’m tapping into that so you’ll have to wait and see!
Do you have any plans for parties for the labels?
When we started we said no but a few of the artists have mentioned it so maybe label nights will happen. Emotional Rescue is unlikely as it would be hard to get that sort of set together, but for the new stuff, well I’d like to do something. Jason has just been over on tour with Innergaze and Steve Summers but a set-up would be different for his Alan Hurst project so that might well rule it out, however, we have some things coming out from some producers in Dusseldorf and I am thinking of doing a launch out there for it. Lets just say wait and see as there’s talk but how much comes to fruition is debatable!
Here’s a rough release schedule for both labels too:
Emotional Response:
- Alan Hurst – Nzambi LP – ERS001 = Summer 2012
- Timothy J Fairplay – Somebody, Somewhere EP – ERS002 = Summer 2012
- Secret Ciruit – Tropical Psychedelics LP = Summer 2012
- Alan Hurst – Remixes EP = September 2012
- Grackle – Meditation EP = October 2012
- Musiccargo – LP = October 2012
- Grackle – Meditation Remixes EP = November 2012
- Nick Nicely – Wrottersley Road 12″ (incl Oscillation Remix) = December 2012
Emotional Rescue:
- Jaki Whitren & John Cartwright – International Times LP = Summer 2012
- Kevin Harrison – Fly EP = September 2012
- Cosmic Hoffman – Space Disco 10″ = September 2012
- Pink & Black – Sometimes I Wish EP = October 2012
- Dunkelziffer – Collection 2 x LP = November 2012
- Suns Of Arqa – Muslimgauze Remixes LP = December 2012
- The Jellies – The Conversation (incl unreleased dub mix) = February 2013
Thanks again to David Barbarossa for conducting this interview with Stuart. David runs the Wild Combination night in Glasgow. Join up and have a look at David’s Wild Combination Facebook group for an idea of what to expect at his night and to share great music.
And, after you’ve done that, to find out full info on the labels and hear the music, take some time to look through the Emotional Rescue and Emotional Response website.
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