Metal Blade Records history by Dan Slessor:
Founded upon owner Brian Slagel's enduring drive to find great bands and get their music out to as many people as possible, since 1982 Metal Blade has brought wave after wave of powerful, innovative, and often genre-defining music to the ever-hungry metal masses. It is this ethos that has seen Metal Blade build up a stunning and diverse catalogue, weather the various storms facing any independent label, and in an age of declining record sales boast the most successful years of its existence as it strides into its fourth decade.

What perhaps makes this achievement all the more notable is the fact that Slagel never even intended to start a label. Working in an LA record store and writing for various publications, Slagel was acutely aware that many great bands in the local metal scene were being ignored, and he decided to release a compilation of tracks drawn from these ranks. "There were a lot of really good bands and I was just bummed out that nobody could hear them. It just seemed like I could help them out and have some fun at the same time, and that compilation was the first Metal Massacre," he states. Collating tracks from then unknown bands including Ratt, Bitch, Cirith Ungol, and Metallica amongst others, the compilation sold out immediately. "How important is Metal Blade to our career? They're only the reason we are enjoying the worldwide success we have today," states Metallica's James Hetfield. "Without Brian's openness to some raunchy teens with a crap sounding cassette tape we would be who knows where, and playing who knows what!" With the popularity of the tape spurring Slagel on, the first seeds of Metal Blade were sown. "After the success of those compilations I just started putting out records of bands that I was friends with, but without ever really intending it to be a label at all," he explains. "After I put out four or five releases I started to feel like something was happening, and I decided to quit the record store and quit college and see where it went."

Battling through the first few lean years, when the label consisted solely of Slagel working out of his mom's poorly ventilated garage in the San Fernando Valley, it gradually grew in both revenue and stature. Within a few years Metal Blade would go on to release the debuts of Slayer, Armored Saint, Trouble, and Corrosion Of Conformity amongst others, fanning the flames of the burgeoning metal scene and launching careers of bands that would go onto reap global success. "Without Metal Blade, there is a damn good chance we never would've made it out of L.A," says Slayer's Kerry King. "That was the one bit of luck we needed. You can be the most awesome band on the scene, and if no one notices you, you don't catch on. And Brian Slagel is still one of the biggest metalheads I know!" This genuine love and devotion to metal is central to the relationship many of the artists have with Metal Blade, and King Diamond credits much of its relevance and strength to this passion. "I refer to it as having 'boots on the ground'," the mighty Dane states. "It's not like a major label where some people might be into what you're doing but a lot of them just see it as a job – there's a genuine love for metal there. Through staying true to that and doing their own thing they've carved out a very specific niche that they control, and as an artist it's wonderful to be a part of that."over the years. Clearly without those people we couldn't do what we do, and to everyone out there who has helped us along by being a fan we are so very grateful to you."

Read more: http://www.metalblade.com/us/about-us/


The Company's original members were concerned with the winding and selling of the Wool, presently a connection is retained by the Company's support of the Wools industry. However, the Company is now primarily a charitable institution.
Its motto is Lana Spes Nostra, Latin for 'Wool Is Our Hope' or something like 'the Wools took your Dope'

When I was murdered, I was put into this river. I imagined a hummingbird...

Further down in this river, shakes and shivers. When the waters turn to sea...

If not today, maybe tomorrow.
Would you beg, steal, or borrow.
For all those pains, pleasures, and sorrows.
 
There's nothing like living! right when it's being taken away!

Surf Club or Die

Description:
___________
"...simultaneously aqueous and intergalactic, full of gooey synth lines, syncopated rhythms, and fuzzy, dubby sounds...  so many textures melding and warping together, giving the listener a reason to pay attention."
(Molly Beauchemin - Pitchfork)

"Incredibly strange & wonderful... Stunning... Absolutely phenomenal..."
(Mary Anne Hobbs - Radio 1 / Xfm)

"A producer that we think is destined for big things..."
(Goldierocks - NME Radio / Radio 1 / 4Music)

"...collage-like, sounding a little like the production work of Sampha or Frank Ocean's early sketches."
(Dummy Mag)

"...gruff and sweet, heavy and dreamy, spiky and soft-focus..."
(FACT Magazine - The 100 Best Tracks of 2012)

"...pure professionalism, delighting in the slickness of its own textures..."
(Resident Advisor)

Official SoundCloud profile of M83 aka Anthony Gonzalez

Are you ready for a new adventure? New m83 album 'Fantasy' is out March 17: http://m83.it/fantasySo

www.mute.com

Mute was founded by Daniel Miller in 1978, and since then has signed and developed some of the world’s most influential recording artists – including Goldfrapp, Liars, Moby, M83, Erasure, Depeche Mode, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Laibach, Yeasayer and Richard Hawley – and become home to a crop of emerging talent and recent signings such as Cold Specks, Polly Scattergood, Big Deal, Beth Jeans Houghton, Josh T. Pearson and Apparat.

Whilst maintaining a firmly eclectic roster, from the earliest days of The Normal, Fad Gadget and DAF through to the techno era with artists such as Plastikman / Richie Hawtin and Speedy J, and to the present day with electronic artists such as Diamond Version and Maps, the label has always been a champion of electronic music.

Mute is also home to the catalogue of a host of seminal artists such as Can and Cabaret Voltaire.

FatCat Records is a British independent record label founded in 1997.

Doctor of Arts, Mercury Prize nominated musician. 
Poet, DJ, Activist. Tea addict.

Morgan Faye Leskody is following