Hotflush – Confessions of a label with Scuba..
Feb18

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Hotflush – Confessions of a label with Scuba..

Posted by on Feb 18, 2015 in Interviews | 0 comments

Scuba will perform at Hotflush present Reflexion with Scuba, Dense & Pika and Function at The Steelyard, London on Saturday 28th March and DGTL Festival Amsterdam on April 4/5th – www.dgtl.nl

Scuba and his Hotflush imprint have been an integral cog in the techno empire over the past few years. Drafting in the likes of Dense and Pika, Paul Woolford, George Fitzgerald and Mount Kimbie to his ranks have catapulted his label to the forefront with huge tracks paving the way for new talent to aspire to. Not one to rest on his laurels and often looking for fresh scope within the vast depths of our musical environment, Scuba offers the olive branch to new talent rather than just heading for the big hitters, although there are a few of those as well. Here we chat to the label head honcho about his latest album Claustrophobia and what its like running Hotflush.

Scuba releases his new album “Claustrophobia” that is out on Hotflush March 23rd.

Interview: 

1. Best label party I have been involved and why is…
We’ve done a lot of quite big label parties in various places, but the most fun are the small members-only ones we do occasionally in Berlin and London where we don’t announce the lineups and nothing is taken that seriously. We had a really good one in Berlin on 3rd Jan this year where me, George FitzGerald and John Osborn played – there aren’t many cities in the world where people are still going from New Year three days later, Berlin is quite a special place like that.
2. The hardest thing about running Hotflush is…
Definitely the most difficult decisions are to do with having to turn music down. We could release at least twice the amount of stuff than we do without compromising on quality but I think doing more than one release per month is too much, and that means some hard choices about what we can and can’t release. There’s been more than a few things over the years that I’ve ended up regretting passing on, but you just have to do what you feel is best at the time.
3. What I look in new music and when I’m A&Ring is…
I’ve always tried to avoid just taking whatever big tunes we get offered in favour of signing new people who I think have potential and who we can build up over time. Something like Mount Kimbie took over a year of knocking ideas around before we agreed on a release and that process was totally worth it in the long run. If someone totally new sends a demo and one tune is massive and the rest are average I generally won’t go for it, but if there’s real sign of potential there I’ll be more likely to be interested.

4. If I wasn’t running Hotflush I would be…

For me it’s always been a balance between making music, DJings and running the label… I guess if the label wasn’t there I’d be in the studio more which on the one hand could be good, but I tend to think that the three things support each other and taking one out wouldn’t necessarily help the others even if it meant having more time. I dread to think what would happen if I had to give up music altogether though, let’s try to avoid thinking about that please…
5. In 2015 Hotflush has….

We’re releasing albums again this year, which hasn’t happened since 2012. So my fourth album, Claustrophobia, is out on 23 March and there might be another album project later in the year. We are also starting a series of parties called Reflexion, the idea of which is to branch out from just doing label showcases and bring in people whose music we love and will contribute to making a great party. The first one of those is at a new venue in London called Steel Works on March 28th with myself, Dense & Pika, Jack Haighton and we’ve invited one of my favourite DJs, Function, to be the first outside guest. And of course we have a lot of 12″s coming from people like Paul Woolford, Alan Fitzpatrick, George FitzGerald, Auden etc… It’s going to be a busy year.

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