Northern Ireland breaks out the electronic stream.
I’ve never written so much about Northern Ireland as I have in recent months. Well, when I was a student there it was a common essay topic but a musical context is a new foray. I’m glad to say there’s a solid and positive reason for this focus on NI, the quality of the electronic music pouring from its short shores. When I lived there, in Belfast, it was pretty much a vacuum. Pockets here and there but very little on the ground. Now the capital is home to labels like One Electronica and the newly established Computer Controlled Records. There’s another name to add to that growing list, Sex Lies Magnetic Tape.
Simon McCormick has been involved in music for many years. The cassette based imprint, now venturing into the twelve inch format, was set up “an outlet for the music” McCormick “was discovering and buying.” From these humble beginnings artists were contacted and relationships forged. The Belfast imprint started off with “mixtapes, producing some artwork for them and seeing if anyone was interested in them. The basic idea was to make it cinematic, using tracks that worked together.” This homemade label has just sprouted wax wings.
In 2012 the first tapes landed in stores. The Hers were introduced with Tough Cunt. Fifty cassettes. Sold. Washes of drone course through the outing. Aural bulwarks are founded, later to be dashed by soft notes and warming tones.
Ekoplekz, aka Nick Edwards followed. The Further Records, and now Planet Mu, veteran delivered deep and vivid soundscapes in the form of Devesham Dub. Processed abstraction, jittering feedback, bleep feed ambience and isolation from the UK musician.
It’s perhaps Willie Burns, and the decision to release the Brooklyn artist’s first album, Land vs Air, that is causing a mini-stir around SLMT. The talented New Yorker has been turning heads for some time with releases for Crème Organization, Trilogy Tapes and Unknown to Unknown. For SLMT Burns’ catalog of monikers is on display. As Black Deer and Grackle the synth man is in an experimental mood. The dancefloor dissolves as textures take the place of tempo. Layers are built, subtle beat patterns supporting string and synth. Under his own name, and Monobol, Burns dishes up blissed out House, playing with the structures and strictures laid down by Chicago. The album sees McCormick realize a dream, “releasing vinyl on my own label, the kind of thing I used to think about when I was in my late teens or early twenties.”
The SLMT founder is pretty humble about this waxen step. “If I’m being honest that whole part of it took me a little out of my comfort zone, one minute I’m in my kitchen cutting, folding and sticking 50 cassettes together and the next there’s contracts to sign, artwork to be submitted and 300 copies of vinyl popping up in some of my favorite record shops here and around the world.” But this leap will bring a wider audience to the label and give the founder invaluable experience for moving forward. Great to see more and more music minded folk coming to the fore on the island of Ireland. More power to ya!
For more information about Sex Lies Magnetic Tape, visit sexliesmagnetictape.co.uk.
