leeds, for my money, is the best city outside of london for electronic music fans of any persuasion. the number of (good) regular parties runs head-on into the tens each month, so it always seems a bit odd that there aren’t many labels bar the globally recognised 2020 vision stable run by city hero ralph lawson.
and, in fact, he has a hand in this new label, fina, whose first few releases include originals and remixes by mic newman, move d and leif. having had a sneak preview, i can tell you they are some tasty, deep, elastic, bouncy house warmers. as such i thought i’d pester two of the men behind it for more info, so here it comes….
tell us who is involved in the label and how you came together…
fina is made up of myself, simon morell from ddd, matt long from mono_cult and ralph lawson from 2020vision. matt had been working for 2020vision for a few years and during that time had been discussing with ralph about the possibility of launching a new label with a different direction than 2020. when ddd came to an, end ralph suggested to me coming on board with 2020 and at that point we started knocking some ideas about getting a new label up and running. after 12 months of preparation fina was born and ready to unveil to the world.
why start the label… what’s the thinking behind it and how has it come about?
we’d been feeling a whole new school of music emerging from basement studios around the world some of it was not quite right for 2020 but it was just too good to let go so we decided to launch fina as an avenue for new music and artists that are floating our boat.
is the leeds setting important do you think? will it/does it have an influence on your outlook?
leeds has a great scene going on and you can see some amazing acts week in week, which definitely has an influence, but it’s also very small if you don’t look around and keep an eye on the bigger picture you can be left behind.
what’s the thinking behind its music policy?
we were all in agreement from day one that we didn’t want to churn out the same sounds month in month out or release something we wouldn’t play ourselves, our sound will be house based but will be varied. we want to experiment with different styles and tempos. after all, variety is the spice of life!
what do you hope will make fina stand out?
the name fina is derived from an italian word meaning ‘fine’ or ‘pure’ and believe it or not has nothing to do with 1970’s petrol stations (ask your dad)! we plan to stick to this ethos and release music that we love and has its own identity. if this makes us stand out then cool, but we don’t want to over complicate things: we just want to release the best possible music we can.
what formats will you release on?
trusty wax and fancy fangled digital
how much thought has gone into the visual identity?
we discussed this for some time and went backwards and forwards with a few designers before landing with richard robinson. richard was responsible for the kalxon’s album cover with the cat in a space suit and has done a load of great work on fujiya miyagi , random factor and soulwax albums. the first six releases are going to be stripped down colour series using the fina logo, we will then carry the fina logo onto the next six releases where we will use illustrations for the vinyl artwork.
tell us about the first few releases…
we are really excited about the releases we’ve got lined up! mic newman live east, die young has just sold out on vinyl which we were blow away by! the 2nd release comes from leif with a massive move d remix, 3rd ep see ‘s helsinki based roberto rodriguez drop a beautiful 3 tracker that dabbles in both disco and the deeper shades of house! and that’s just the beginning …
you looking to release any unknown artists or the like? should people send demos? how will your a&r work?
yes definitely we are always on the lookout for fresh young talent as well as more established acts. we are working on signing some music from leeds based miguel campbell and glasgow’s esa who’s doing some great stuff at the mo. if you’re not finding fresh talent you’re not moving forward. we try to listen to everything so if you feel it fits, send us it!
Is it just me or it doesn't say who is actually providing the answers other than "two of the men behind" . Good interview though. I love Mic Newman's work on Fina
sorry you're right, punctuation in opening sentence is ambiguous, the 'me' is simon morell
Can you start capitalising sentences? Content is good but hard to read.
@teshno thx, I thought there were four of them and couldn't figure out who 'me' was
maybe if 'simon morell from ddd' was surrounded by parentheses instead it wouldn't have been more clear
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