Label Focus

FracturedSpaces Records

Website: www.fracturedspaces.co.uk

Myspace: www.myspace.com/fracturedspacesrecords

Specialism: Industrial, ethno-, ritual- and dark ambient, noise, drone, experimental, avant-garde, power electronics, martial, neofolk 

Releases: 5 so far with more in production.

FracturedSpaces is a very young label; very young and yet already sharp of tooth and canny of wit. Founded by long-time scene devotee Simon Marshall-Jones, it seeks out the strangest, most thought-provoking industrial, ambient, noise and neofolk from around the globe, although to thus pin labels on its roster is a demeaningly reductive exercise. Suffice to say if you can describe it as truly ‘avant-garde’, Simon will have heard it, mused on it, and possibly even signed it by now.

One feature of this label destined to stand out is the truly wide-ranging nature of its quest for the best experimental music. Even in the handful of releases the organisation has put out so far, there are representatives from Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, and the Middle East, and 2009, as we shall see, will see collaborations with artists from the USA and Russia. Another key to the label’s success so far is its dedication to immaculate presentation; its releases land on your doorstep in 4-panel digipacks that demand to be touched, whilst FracturedSpaces online presence is slick and attractive. How to achieve such towering scope within a scant few months was just one of the things I was very curious to find out from Simon…

THE BOSS

Hi Simon, how are things?

Good, very good...

 

FracturedSpaces is a relatively new name around the block; how long has the label been active now, and what have been the major events in its development so far?

FracturedSpaces hasn’t been around for long – only since June of last year in fact. As for major events in its young life, the biggest one has been to see the realisation of an idea that began life in October ’07 and, concomitant to that, the slowly growing reputation that has accrued to the label in the intervening period. This is the first time that I have got myself involved in anything of this nature, and as a result it’s been a mightily steep learning curve over the last 15 months. It’s had its ups and downs, but altogether it’s been an exhilarating ride.

 

It’s a difficult time to be working in the creative arts; what inspired you to begin the label? What convinced you that you could succeed in this field?

The initial concept was born out of an idea I had for an exhibition of my paintings I was planning in my current hometown – I thought that as well as the paintings themselves I would commission a musician to create a ‘soundtrack’ to the works, as a way of instilling an appropriate atmosphere for the viewer. I approached the Norwegian dark ambient artist Svartsinn to write the music and he agreed – however, as is often the way for these things, neither the exhibition nor the soundtrack ever came to anything, BUT out of that was formed the idea of starting a label. Concurrently, I had renewed my friendship with Justin Mitchell of Cold Spring records, and he, along with Jo Maxwell, has both helped and encouraged me in making FracturedSpaces a reality. Along with those people stands another great person, that of my wife Liz – without her I wouldn’t have achieved as much as I have in such a short time.

 

Before you began FracturedSpaces, what was your involvement in metal? Are you a businessman who has decided to make a go of his passion, or are you a musician who has branched into the business? Or something else entirely, haha.

First and foremost, music is my absolute passion – it’s been an important part of my life since my teens in the mid-seventies, starting with my discovery of the Krautrock scene through classic Tangerine Dream, Can, et al, through punk when that exploded and then onto things like thrash and death metal later on. Whatever period of my life, music has figured prominently in it somewhere. I also used to play guitar (extremely badly, I have to admit) and played in several inconsequential bands in school and art college, mostly of the ‘let’s form a band, talk about it lots but not actually do anything about it’ variety. I stopped playing guitar, much to the relief of the entire world, when I was disabled through a stroke 12 years ago – although I have recovered 99.9% of my mobility my left hand rebelled and I still can’t hold down a chord. So, the label is in many ways my way of keeping my hand in the music scene, so to speak. And it’s totally run on passion for the music.

 

How did you happen upon the name of the record label? What is its meaning?

In about 1990 I ran a fanzine called Fractured, devoted to the then-burgeoning industrial scene, which ran for a spectacular three issues, but which managed to garner itself a decent reputation regardless and was probably among the first such ‘zines around. It was devoted to outfits like Nurse With Wound, Current 93, Death in June, Psychic TV, Frontline Assembly, In The Nursery and similar, and also acted as a kind of focal point for people with similar tastes. I had always intended to start putting giveaway CDs on the cover once it achieved a sound footing, but it folded due to various reasons before I could get into that. FracturedSpaces the label is a continuation of the spirit of Fractured the fanzine, and once again it’s becoming a focal point for like-minded people.

 

Your scope is quite wide, covering all sorts of industrial, ambient, noise, folk, electronic and avant-garde releases; how do you decide which projects to pursue? What is it about these particular types of music that you are drawn to?

Explaining why I choose the acts I opt to release is a little bit like trying to explain why I like the colour black – it’s an intuitive liking for an intangible quality that escapes easy definition. For instance, I receive a lot of noise demos, which to many would indubitably sound exactly alike, and indeed most are just run of the mill and indistinguishable from each other – however, there are some, like Kadaver and Mystified, that elevate themselves above the murky waters and stick out brightly. These are the kinds of acts, of whatever genre, that I seek to release. It has to have some kind of quality, something ‘other’ if you like, about it before I will consider it for release.

 

This seems a good juncture to introduce your roster- could you tell us a little about each of the bands you have worked with so far?

Keplers Odd are three mad, hard-drinking Vikings from Gothenburg – Daniel Jansson (aka Deadwood, S.T.U.G 218), Magnus Moilala (Crest, Crest 218) and Kristina Persson (Viper Trail). Much of their sound is improvised around a basic compositional structure, worked out beforehand, and this explains in part why their sound is so raw. Daniel and Magnus were involved with the insane Swedish black metallers Blodulv, but both left when things started to get too much. Generic is the dark ambient vehicle of Adam Sykes, who used to run the IrisLight label, and his work was recommended to me by Justin Mitchell (Cold Spring). Generic was originally going to be the first release, but when I received the Keplers demo I was so blown away that I just had to have it as the debut CD, but nevertheless expect a few more Generic releases in the near future.

Osman Arabi first came to my attention through his apocalyptic noise outfit 20.SV and then I got to know him through MySpace. Not only is he a fine musician but an ace masterer too, so he is involved with FSR deeper than just as a musician. In fact he’s an integral part of the FSR machine AND a thoroughly decent chap.

 

Your first batch of releases have been particularly strong- do you have a favourite release of 2008, or is this not allowed?! How about non-FS records- what was your favourite of the year?

I don’t have a particular favourite FracturedSpaces release – they’re all equally good, each in their own way, and each admirably represents the aesthetics and ethos of FracturedSpaces. More to the point they wouldn’t have got a release if I hadn’t considered them good enough to start with. As for non-FS releases, two stand out from last year: Bleeding Heart Narrative’s "All that was Missing we Never Had in the World" (Tartaruga), simply the best debut album of classical drone I have ever heard; and Deadwood’s "Ramblack" (Cold Spring) – an extremely dark, demonic blackness that paints a fine picture of depression, oppression and stinking darkness.

 

From working with you as a reviewer/interviewer, I know that you have a great care for the reception of your artists’ work and are really interested to know what people think. Have you been pleased with the feedback they have received so far? Has there been any criticism of your releases which you have found to be unfair?

My ultimate concern is quality, a point I’ll elaborate on later – but like any venture in the music business, with so many labels and projects out there, it’s hard to stand out above the morass. So this is why I generally choose my releases very carefully – and so far, by whatever subconscious formula I apply, I have had nothing but positive feedback from reviewers. Obviously, this has given me the confidence to forge ahead with what I am trying to establish with FracturedSpaces, while simultaneously bearing in mind that I won’t hit the mark every time, but generally speaking I seem to be heading in the right direction.

 

Once you’ve heard something that interests you, how do you go about pursuing that band and making an agreement? Is this generally a smooth process or are there many difficulties?

Generally it’s quite smooth, as it’s always my intention to work WITH the bands so that we BOTH benefit from any deal. In fact, everybody I have dealt with so far has been excellent to collaborate with, and any difficulties experienced are usually technical and confined to the actual processes used to make the CD into a physical product. In this particular sector of the industry things tend be fairly elastic (like release dates for instance), but I think the musicians involved intuitively understand why this is so, especially since this is a one-man show and I do just about everything.

 

While many small organisations are becoming more underground and DIY in the way they produce and present their material, Fractured Spaces’ releases so far are definitely things of beauty. What made you decide on the high quality approach?

I think it’s relatively easy, especially since the democratisation of technology, to do what was once considered a fairly esoteric operation and self-release your music. But therein lies a trap for its own demise, and this is particularly true for an aspect like quality. I come from a design background and as a consequence I detest shoddiness. This is the paramount reason why I decided on the high quality approach – apart from any other consideration it helps to get you noticed AND establish a good reputation. Plus quite simply it looks nice too. Although the DIY aesthetic can have a certain charm to it, FracturedSpaces is a professionally-run label (based entirely on passion and for no other reason) and I also have great ambitions for it. In my view I can’t do that if I go at it half-heartedly...

 

As well as releasing your own artists, you have a veritable treasure trove of other non-mainstream music for sale via your homepage. What made you decide to develop this part of your business? Do you see interest in experimental and genre-spanning music to be growing?

My raison d’etre for selling other weird and wonderful music is to provide a nexus and resource for hard-to-get and exotic music to reach the ears of those who like this kind of music. It’s bad enough that such musicians find it hard to get appreciation for their efforts and then for potential buyers to have to hunt down their music. That’s what the website aims to do – to serve a small community of music-lovers to get their hands on music that has value and that has been created without any commercial considerations hampering the creative process. As a society we’re constantly bombarded by worthless musical pap every day, and to add insult to injury we’re then told this is what we must all aspire to. I would like to think that what I provide is something of an antidote to the idolisation of mediocrity.

 

In a kind of related vein, do you think that people are becoming interested in physical product again, or does the download trend continue apace?

No matter the advance of technology and the introduction of new media platforms, there will be always those of us who will be not only embrace them but also cherish the old. I prefer the feel and sheer physicality of a CD or vinyl record but I also find that sometimes an mp3 is more convenient, although sometimes the sound quality just isn’t there. From the view of a label, it is as well to cater for as many potential customer’s needs as is practicable – within the constraints of very limited budgets of course.

 

Is it fair to say that the ambient, the noisy and the avant-garde tend to be freer from geographical boundaries and focus than, say, black metal? You’ve worked with one UK artist so far; is it part of your objective to promote your home scene or do you intend to spread your search as far as possible?

Cliché it may be, but music is genuinely border-free and has the capacity to breach artificial boundaries and divides of whatever form. In that sense FracturedSpaces will also be border-free, and source quality and interesting music from all over the world. There will naturally be an emphasis on western conceptions of extreme and underground music (particularly European acts) but this doesn’t preclude artists from any other areas of the world participating. The breadth of ideas and concepts out there is simply staggering, and there’s an awful lot of music out there that deserves exposure – and my aim is to bring as much of it to people’s attention as I am able to.

 

What are your plans for 2009? Are there any particular releases to watch out for?

My main objective for this year is to continue to help facilitate FracturedSpaces’ growth and expansion, with plans for vinyl releases as well as t-shirts, badges and promoting gigs. This last is an area I am keen to get into as an adjunct to the label’s activities, and I recently put on an Aidan Baker gig in conjunction with Radio Black Forest in Birmingham. This year there are plans for Bleeding Heart Narrative and Svartsinn gigs under the FSR/Radio Black Forest banner, both of which I look forward to.

As far as releases go, out soon will be Diskrepant (Sweden) "Ex Machina Libertas" and Kadaver (Israel) "Molested into Form". Very soon after that will be the As All Die (USA) "Failure of Human Spirit" CD reissue, a vinyl only LP by the American noise/drone/experimental musician Daniel Menche, "Odradek", plus a CD by a Russian outfit called Light Under Water "Sky Noise Temperature", which some would call a departure from the noise and darkness of my other releases. It’s very much an instrumental album influenced by such luminaries as Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins) and Stars of the Lid, so a lot quieter and more melodic than the majority of FSR releases, but still with an undercurrent of darkness running through it. I am also looking to release material later on by Wicked Messenger/Kaniba, Aidan Baker, Wach, and Mystified, plus there are a couple of hush-hush projects that will help the label stamp its authority more substantially, but about which I cannot say anything just right now.

 

In the long-term, what is your goal for FracturedSpaces? Have you set yourself any particular objectives, or are you content to continue as long as it is fulfilling?

I just want FracturedSpaces to continue to release excellent music for many years and over time to become a much-respected, if not a heavyweight, underground label, where artists both well-known and not so well-known can find a home. I am not doing this for riches (if I was I would certainly find a less obscure area of music to work in) but simply because I have that overwhelming passion for music but if I make a little money along the way then that’ll be a bonus. Also, there’s a sense that I want to leave something behind me of value, that it will have some cultural impact (however small it is) and that I will have contributed to people’s listening pleasure. I never wanted to leave just memories behind.... so I guess I have a little of the megalomaniac in me somewhere... =)

Many thanks for giving up your time, Simon- if there are any messages you would like to convey, or anything I haven’t remembered to ask you about the label which needs to be expressed, please go ahead:

All I will say is that people should keep checking the MySpace profile and FSR website for new developments over the years... it promises to be exciting!! Thanks very much for this opportunity to talk with you!!

CLICK HERE FOR PART II OF THE ARTICLE: THE BANDS

 

DISCOGRAPHY

 

Keplers Odd – Strenu Seu de Nive Sexangula

06.06.08

 

Osman Arabi – Burning Sigils

28.07.08

 

Generic – Torture

28.07.08

 

Kadaver – Molested Into Form

Forthcoming

 

Diskrepant – Ex Machina Libertas

Forthcoming