Full Frequency Range Recordings.
Music That Moves You.
Since 1986.

In 1985 Champion hired its first employee, an 18 year old named Paul Oakenfold who had been working as messenger boy in New York. Champion Records aimed at releasing underground club tunes, Hip Hop, Rare Grooves, Jazz & Soul tracks as well as uplifting House tunes on 12” vinyl originally found and licensed from the USA. Tunes like Spank ‘Oh Baby’, Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince ‘Girls Ain’t Nothin’ But Trouble’, Salt ‘N Pepa ‘Push it’ & Rene & Angela ‘Secret Rendezvous’.

As musical taste evolved Champion aligned itself with the early house and garage movement. It produced iconic tracks including Raze’s ‘Break 4 Love’, Robin S ‘Show Me Love’, Sandy B ‘Make The World Go Round’, Kristine W ‘Feel What You Want’ & Sybil ‘Don’t Make me Over’. These then turned into some of the most famous & credible artists in the world along with DJ’s like Todd Terry, Kerri Chandler, Junior Vasquez and Stonebridge.

The story of King Street Sounds starts at the Paradise Garage in New York City, the iconic nightclub that birthed the soulful house music movement. Once home to the late DJ Larry Levan, the Paradise Garage has had a major influence on the career choice and artistic style of house royalty such as David Morales, Louie Vega and Junior Vasquez, and was a keystone for the region's LGBT culture, particularly for Black and Latin American men. This spirit, along with the iconic music the Garage cultivated, inspired the foundation of King Street Sounds in 1993. 

Japanese founder Hisa Ishioka continues to spearhead the label’s output, maintaining King Street Sounds’ position at the forefront of dance culture. Predominantly focusing on its roots in house music whilst also pushing the sonic boundaries of the label to include Afro, Latin, jazz and tech-infused records, King Street Sounds has a global repertoire with a worldwide following. Household names such as Blaze, Barbara Tucker and Ultra Naté released exceedingly successful records such as ‘Most Precious Love’ and ‘Party Girl’ on the label, while house legends Kerri Chandler and Dennis Ferrer signed their seminal albums ‘Trionisphere’ and ‘The World As I See It’ to King Street Sounds. 

Fast forward to today, King Street Sounds continues to honor the legacy of the past thirty years, weaving its music into the modern ecosystem to educate and entertain new ears and existing fans. Through the continued work of label founder Hisa and a dedicated team of dance music experts, a new wave of talent pumps the beating heart of this legendary label.

As one of the longest standing independent record labels in the US, Nervous Records has built its reputation through a willingness to take chances on new sounds and new producers. Nervous was the first American label to sign and release tracks from such dance industry luminaries as Armand Van Helden, Paul Van Dyk and Nuyorican Soul. This spirit has enabled Nervous to build a catalogue of hits that spans the complete range of underground dance and hip hop genres.

The label was famous almost immediately when it started back in 1991 because of its eye-catching, very distinctive cartoon character logo. In addition the first three releases were produced by Roger S., Kenny Dope, and Todd Terry respectively, representing the three best house producers of that time. By 1992 Nervous was featured in magazines like Billboard, DJ Magazine (cover story), Mixmag, and ID, hailed by all as the “Sound of New York nitelife.”

Nervous’ first major dance release came in 1992, with “Feel Like Singing” by Sandy B. Nervous decided at that point to focus its energy on expanding the label’s musical field. The label’s first step outside the house music arena was with the Brooklyn, NY-based rap group, Black Moon, whose single “Who Got The Props” virtually put Brooklyn back on the map as a center of hip hop. At the same time, the label decided to alter the Nervous character for this release, giving it specific hip hop characteristics, and calling the hip hop label Wreck Records. Massive success followed with the Wreck imprint, as hits soon followed by Smif-N-Wessun, and Funkmaster Flex.

Nervous decided to continue to expand its musical boundries in 1993 by signing Mad Lion, which would be the first reggae artist on the Weeded imprint. Once again, there was huge success as Mad Lion’s single “Take It Easy” sold over 250,000 units.

Meanwhile, the Nervous merchandise continued to produce massive sales numbers as it established itself as one of the most favored t-shirts for the youth cultures of America, Japan, and many European countries.

In 1994, the label decided it was time to move into the electronic genre, and started an imprint called Sorted. The first artist on that label was Josh Wink, who went by the artist name Winx. While Winx’s debut release was a critical success although not a major seller, Winx’s follow-up release “Don’t Laugh” became the American dance community’s most talked about single, and ended up selling several hundred thousand units worlwide. Subsequently Nervous released Winx’s debut album, “Left Above The Clouds.” This album was one of the first “electronica” albums to be released, and lead to Josh Wink being signed to Sony as an artist. Nervous also released an album by two Long Island based dj’s, DJ Micro and Vicious Vic. The album, entitled “Progress Into Our Future,” since became a seminal album for the crew of Long Island dj’s that currently dominate clubs with their hard trance sound.

In 1996, Nervous virtually single-handedly created a garage house music revival by releasing the debut solo artist album by house music legend Byron Stingily. Byron was formerly the lead singer of gold-selling group Ten City. His second single on Nervous, “Get Up,” went to number one on dance charts around the world, including the Billboard Magazine club chart in America.. For his album, “The Purist,” Nervous assembled an all-star cast of legendary House producers, including Frankie Knuckles, Masters At Work, David Morales, Basement Boys, Maurice Joshua and MK.

As the musical trends continued to evolve in the late 90’s, Nervous continued to create new imprints to remain at the cutting edge of all independent labels. Nervous Dog was created to accommodate the emerging harder-edged house sound of New York; Strapped was the home for uptempo, club oriented hip hop Party tracks; and Nervous Chill released the down tempo, jazzy grooves that are always in vogue in the newest restaurants.

The label also has had many successful tours over the years. One of the biggest was in 2,000, when the Nervous tour was sponsored by Playboy Magazine and KAMEL cigarettes, and featured DJ’s Jackie Christie, Razor-n-Guido and DJ Escape, along With PA’s by Nervous artists Byron Stingily, Charlotte And Kim English. In addition, Nervous created what became one of the Winter Music Conference’s most original Parties, the Nervous After-hours breakfast at Denny’s, which featured an International list of dj’s entertaining conference attendees at 5:00 AM while they ate their grand slam Denny’s breakfast.

In 2000 and 2001, the energy tribal sound dominated the US club and Nervous gave America’s club-goers four of the its most dominant anthems, “Skin” by Charlotte, “Ssst…Listen” by Jonah, “Unspeakable Joy” by Kim English and Dive In The Pool by Barry Harris featuring Pepper Meshay. During this same time, the label has also created many successful compilation series, among them “Hip Hop Independent’s Day,” and “Future Progressive,” and “Club Nervous.

As the hits grew in number, so did the value of the catalogue for sampling purposes. Nervous songs have been sampled in major hits by Mariah Carey, New Edition, Coolio, Flip Squad, Basement Jax, George Michael, Soulsearcher and more..

In 2006 Nervous gave the US one of the biggest dance radio records with What A Feeling by Peter Luts & Dominico, a track which won the 2007 WMC award for Best Euro Dance track. In addition, Nervous delivered the most memorable US underground track of the year with Ralph Falcon – I Need Someone, which was also number one club record of 2007 according to Billboard Magazine.

In 2008 Nervous had two of the top five most played records of the year at dance radio, with Bellatrax feat. Sophia May/I Can’t Help Myself and Every Word by Ercola featuring Daniella, and ended the year as the two most played label at dance radio in the USA according to Billboard Magazine.

Nervous has also made a strong foray into the compilation market, building a roster with some of the most credible house music. The past twelve months has seen full length cd’s from Oscar G, Ralph Falcon, Funkagenda, Mark Brown, Behrouz, Chris Lake, Starkillers & Austin Leeds, DJ Theo, Exacta and Marlon D. Second half of 2009 will see releases from Danny Krivit, Frankie Knuckles, Tom Stephan, Peter Bailey and Richie Santana and Anane (produced by Louie Vega. 

In the grand tradition of Nervous launching sub-labels to embrace the next sounds to take over Nitelife ... In 2011 we launched Nurvous Records.  With the Indie Dance / Nu-Disco sound that has erupted from England and is now barreling towards full speed in America, one of our primary goals is to provide innovative homegrown style; and bringing back emotion to the music, squashing the over-commercialized big-room invasion.

Strictly Rhythm Records is house music.  Since 1989 the legendary New York label not only put out records by almost every name in the game, but it also defined house music throughout the 1990s with Erick Morillo, Todd Terry, Louie Vega, Kenny Dope, Armand Van Helden, DJ Pierre, Roger Sanchez, Josh Wink, Ultra Naté and Barbara Tucker.  As well as keeping the underground stoked with a steady supply of club grooves, the label also delivered a stream of crossover hits with Reel 2 Real’s “I Like To Move It”, Ultra Naté’s “Free”, Wamdue Project’s “King Of My Castle” and Wink’s “Higher State Of Consciousness”.  

Relaunched in 2007 after a five year break following a short-lived venture with Warner Music, Strictly Rhythm did what no dance label had ever done: successfully re-launch itself.  The label made many of its classic releases available on digital download for the first time and signed new productions from the likes of Quentin Harris, Osunlade, Bingo Players Vs Chocolate Puma, Dennis Ferrer, Michel Cleis, Dirty South and Bob Sinclar.  
Always an innovator, the label that invented the 12” white label and put out the first ever commercially released DJ Mix CD in 1993 (The Tony Humphries Strictly Rhythm Mix) is still at the cutting edge, finding and promoting the best in house music.

Nick Holder is a DJ & producer from Toronto, Canada and the owner of DNH Records.  One of the most respected producers in the history of underground house music, Holder’s recordings span a sound range from deep disco vibes, to minimal Chicago-style house.  Some of his early influences came from the late 80’s, when he discovered the burgeoning Detroit techno scene only a few hours away from his home in Toronto.  Detroit icons like Derrick May and Carl Craig captivated Holder, as did many of the tracks coming from Chicago during the same late-’80s period by producers like Adonis.

In the ‘90s, Holder began producing his own tracks and released 12”s for a number of labels like Definitive, Stickmen, his own imprint DNH, and !K7 (which released his first two full-length albums One Night in the Disco, and Back On Track).  Furthermore, Holder released many of his productions through NRK Sound Division, including many of his biggest hits such as "I Once Believed in U", "Trying to Find Myself" and ”Da Sambafrique", in addition to full-length efforts From Within, Underground Alternatives, and The Other Side. 

Upcoming in 2016, look out for numerous releases on his label DNH under both Holder’s own name, as well as his Trackheadz alias.  Nick has also recently launched his own radio show DEEP SECTION, which is broadcast every Wednesday night at 8-10pm EST on VIBE 105.5 in Toronto and online at www.vibe1055.com.

All Inquiries:
jermaine@repeatandrinse.com 
nick@repeatandrinse.com

Sometimes Dizzy is following