Location: Middlesbrough, UK Est: 1999
Potted History: “I first got into producing electronic music in the late 1970s at Spectro Arts Workshop in Newcastle-upon-Tyne,” explains DiN boss and renowned UK synthesist Ian Boddy. “It was a fabulous open access studio filled with Revox tape recorders and VCS3s. Through the next couple of decades I honed my skills playing shows and releasing albums, first on cassette, then vinyl and finally on CD. The releases weren’t planned, they came out on several small labels while I did the usual life stuff with jobs and kids.”
Which was all well and good but Boddy wanted a more permanent, structured way of releasing his music.
“I bumped into one of my colleagues from the Spectro days almost by chance,” he says, “and over several pints in a local establishment the concept of DiN materialised.”
Mission Statement: “I wasn’t one for retreading the music I’d been influenced by when I started out, namely the Berlin School electronica, the likes of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze,” explains Boddy. “I wanted to be able to combine those sonic worlds with the emerging digital possibilities that modern technology was unveiling. Hence the idea for a label that would combine the best of both worlds and bridge the gap between the analogue sound of the early 70s synth pioneers and the digital soundscapes of the more experimental modern exponents.”
Key artists & releases: All the DiN releases are limited editions that range from 500 to 2,000 copies. To date, there’s been 56 physical releases and 19 that are download-only. Artists who have released work through the label include American ambient pioneer Robert Rich, German touch guitarist Markus Reuter, synth supergroup Node, Chris Carter, Mark Shreeve and Tetsu Inoue to name but a few.
“The biggest triumph is to just keep going,” says Boddy. “It’s not getting any easier to sell physical product and running a small, niche label has never been easy. But it is just a thrill to still be able to put out music after almost 20 years that folk like and love to collect.”
Future Plans: “The big plan is the new sub-label, Tone Science, where I’m wanting to showcase artists working in the burgeoning world of modular synthesis,” he says. “The first release ‘Structure And Forces’ was indeed reviewed in Issue 39 of this esteemed magazine. A second release is in the planning stages and other solo and collaborative releases are planned for the future. My dream? I just want to be involved in this incredible world of music for as long as I can. Thankfully I still have a core of followers who prefer a nicely produced physical product over a disposable digital stream.”
For more, visit din.org.uk
