Location: Brighton
Est: 2013
Potted History: “Initially the label came about to release music that I loved by friends who weren’t being heard,” says producer Nicholas Langley, who along with designer Molly Askey-Goldsbury, founded the short-run cassette label Third Kind seven years ago. “Molly and I were going to gigs after work and we noticed a few bands selling tapes as merch. Of those I particularly remember Modular ESP, whose tape on Fort Evil Fruit was the first tape I’d bought in nearly 20 years. Molly was doing some design work at the time, so I thought if we put our heads together we could create this fun project. The label has been just me since Molly emigrated to Canada, but her logo and art still appear quite regularly though.”
Mission Statement: “I just wanted to share music that I loved with a few more listeners and I wanted to present it in a way that absolutely does justice to their art,” offers Langley. “That’s still the main motivator really. I’m much more interested in getting something incredible that’s completely unheard to a hundred new listeners than repackaging someone who already has a big following. With the label, there’s no particular genre, it’s just anything I love, although I’ve noticed the releases fall roughly into three camps – electronica, sound art and lo-fi songwriters. There’s quite a bit of crossover between the three.”
Key artists & releases: “Hattie Cooke, Nikmis, Mudd Corp and myself are probably the artists most commonly associated with the label,” says Langley. “We released Tobias Schmidt’s electronica side project Wrong Signals, Shitmat’s sound installation work under his own name HL Collins, Embla Quickbeam & Graham Dunning’s fourth world/hauntology project, Chicago footwork legend EQ Why and the mysterious free-improv collective The Vitamin B12. We’ve also been around long enough now to have had multiple albums from some of our artists like Reflex Condition and Nikmis.”
Future Plans: “Our next release is our 50th and it’s quite special, Bary Center’s new epic, which has a Popol Vuh feel.”
Any advice for those thinking of setting up a label? “Every six months or so I quit the label. It’s become a bit of a running joke. I’m not sure what else to do other than keep releasing good music.”
Any other business? “I’ve been writing music since I was 14 and one of my dream jobs as a kid was designing album art. I remember doing a Bomb The Bass sleeve for a school project. I was always into Peter Saville’s work, and Factory Records has been the biggest inspiration to me in general. I even have their knack for making a loss on albums that sell out quickly.”
For more, see thirdkindrecords.bandcamp.com
