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Style: Interview Portrait

12rec Netlabel: So much achieved. So much left to do!

Sven, you write your own blog, submit reviews to Phlow-Magazine.com and publish experimental mixes on the web. Do these activities reflect themselves in your work for your Netlabel?

Dark future for 12rec? No, they're just beginning, read on!

Sven: Personally, I have a devastating hunger for new music and would ruin me (and my wife) if I would have to buy music every time I want to listen to something new. I purchase a lot of vinyl, but Netaudio is my methadone, haha! And you really can do something for the artists you discover - I mean, Ellen Alien won't care if I write on my blog that her new album is awesome (which is), Gareth Dickson and Etienne Michelet do.

The music we're releasing at 12rec. is much more "Pop" than the sound I'm listening to normally. All these experimental Ambient-things I happen to write about don't have a place at our label, and that's pretty OK. Others do better. 12rec. doesn't want to be Serein, IOD, Nexsound or Resting Bell. Nevertheless, certain artists came to 12rec. after I wrote about them- Nicolas Bernier, Astrowind, to name only two.

If I am honest, I always had some troubles listening to the wide range of 12rec. music releases. This changed a lot with your anniversary compilation. I have the feeling that you guys worked on this release really hard. Your musical idea of putting Indiepop together with experimental sounds and Hip Hop music works extraordinary good on this record. Please tell us how you met all these musicians, how you coordinated the compilation and stuff...'

Sven: Maybe we're expecting a bit too much from our listeners... I find myself being a bit envious for these extremely homogenous Netlabels, take Zymogen for example. But as 12rec. is a direct projection of Simon's and my taste in music, everything different would have been fake. So, in consequence, our beautiful sampler is pretty much of a roller coaster-ride, too. And yeah, it was a HELL lot of work.

I was sending out emails to our housekeeping artists in January this year, asking them to deliver something extraordinary awesome for this sampler. Most of them did, and we had the dirty job to sort out the very good from the veryvery good. Plaistow, adcBicycle, The Sleeping Tree and Ian Hawgoodare absolutely new to our rooster and they will all publish at 12rec. later this year. The Great Mundane and Konntinent are "guests" who are related to us but won't release something very soon. If you are familiar with 12rec. already, you will probably be happy to hear that we've got new tracks by Crepusculum, Daniel Maze, Sichtbeton, Heezen and many more. Stephane Obadia, another long time follower, did the photos for the artworks.

All in a whole, "So Much Achieved" represents our label in all it's diversity. It's the best we could give. We got 1000 copies of the digipak CD done and try to sell them as cheap as possible. Maybe you have some six bucks left on your Pay Pal-account and like to order. In case you don't, take a look at our 50s-jubelee mini site. The compilation is online for free download as well. Of course

Many thanks, for the interview!

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About the Author

Phlow-Author mo.This article was written on 20.July 2008 by mo.. mo. is a music-lover. The journalist and author from Cologne/Germany enjoys supporting the global netlabel-phenomena. For years he has explored the netlabel underground and has written numerous articles on the free music culture. He is the main-editor behind Phlow. Read more articles written by mo..

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