Friday, November 16, 2012

Eglo Recs in conversation

L-R: Keegan and Alexander Nut (Eglo)
Eglo Records crew Fatima, Floating Points, and label boss Alexander Nut, are in New Zealand for the first time, playing a show in a secret warehouse location in Auckland this Saturday.

They were up at Conch Records last night for an informal workshop session, with Alexander in conversation with BaseFM/Justsayin 's Keegan, talking about how the label came about, and what the music business is like in the UK at present.

Alexander talked about his background in pirate radio, and his previous job, working in music PR for a number of years, which gave him a taste for how NOT to work in the music industry. He said if your music needs PR, then it probably needs CPR, suggesting that good music sells itself, and that people will find it, if it's any good. It's a very organic approach to the music business.

He seemed to have a fairly lowkey approach to running a label - it seems to have grown from doing his radio show on Rinse FM, where he gets sent a lot of new music. As an example, he told us when they went and got the first Eglo Records release pressed up, the guy at the pressing plant asked for a catalog number, and Alexander asked what's that, why do we need it? The guy explained that if it didn't have a catalog number, then the guys making the stamper for the vinyl wouldn't know whose record it was, and asked what was the name of their label? They didn't have one, so Alexander made up Eglo on the spot. But he swore us to secrecy on what Eglo means. Ask him at the gig and he might tell you. Listen to a recent interview with Alexander below.


L-R: Fatima, Gareth, Keegan, Alexander

Fatima also gave us some background on growing up in Sweden  and the golden age of local hiphop there, which coincided with the golden age elsewhere  - early to mid 90s. She also talked about how she got into music, singing in choirs at school etc. Thanks to Justsayin, the British Council, and Conch, for a fun night!




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