Em:t Records
Encyclopedia
Em:t Records was a British
record label
, based in Nottingham
, which specialized in ambient
electronic music
. They were active from 1994 to 1998, and after a period of bankruptcy, re-established themselves in 2003 under new ownership and management. In summer 2006, the label officially ceased operations again, although by this time it had not been active for some time.
, and sought to create a new sublabel for more forward-thinking ambient material. Over the next four years, they released a series of eighteen albums and compilations, packaged as a collector's series. Though em:t never enjoyed widespread commercial success, their releases were highly regarded and influential in ambient circles, and the label attracted a cult following - encouraged, no doubt, by the collectible nature of the releases.
em:t releases had strict rules governing their design aesthetic. Individual album titles were always the sequential four-digit catalogue number of the disc; the album's cover was always a full-colour picture of a wild animal; all albums were released on CD only; all CDs were packaged in digipacks; all CDs themselves bore the same chinese character in black on the non-playing face of the disc.
The label garnered praise from music journalists at the time. Coda magazine wrote that "The Em:t series will surely go down in history for being as important in the 90s as the albums of Brian Eno were in the 70s" , and specialist music magazine The Wire noted that the em:t catalogue represented "The vanguard of post-dance technological music". Em:t produced promo postcards for the label on which these quotes, and others, were duly displayed. . A Q&A in DJ Magazine in 1995 also stated the label's unofficial credo: "Never presume your audience is any less clever than you are".
The most highly-praised albums of the series came from British composers Paul Frankland recording as Woob
, and Mat Jarvis
recording as Gas.
In addition to the original run of CDs in the UK, some of em:t's music was licensed to Instinct Records in the USA, a label that had a contemporaneous interest in modern ambient music. em:t 0094 and Woob's 1194
were released individually. The compilations em:t 2295 and em:t 3394 were packaged together as a double-disc set called em:t 2000. In addition, various other tracks were compiled onto the anthologies em:t beat exploration and em:t explorer.
In mid-1998, em:t went out of business due to the bankruptcy of t:me, with two whole albums worth of music still unreleased - a new compilation album, and a second Gas album. Their discography became highly prized among collectors, and this remains the case today; individual CDs commonly fetch a high price on eBay.
In 2003, a separate company brought the em:t name off the shelf and the label was relaunched. Although none of the people running the label had any connection with the previous em:t, they did release material from several of the original artists. The relaunch created another surge in public interest for the original series of albums. After six new full-length albums, the label again went out of business in 2006.
, or downtempo. Within this category there were many variations - Woob's releases were often ambient dub, Gas's music was ambient techno, Carl Stone's album was almost classical and the album by International People's Gang was almost pop. However, across all the releases there were certain recurring elements that identified the album as an em:t release. Most prominent were samples of animal noises recorded in the wild - heard on releases by Woob, Qubism, Beatsystem, Miasma, and others (this approach was taken to the extreme on the track "Waterpump" by Dalls Simpson, on the 1197 compilation, which is a 12-minute music-free recording of someone operating a hand water-pump in a countryside filled with birdsong). Other tracks processed field recordings and used them as percussion, such as "Pool" by International People's Gang, which uses the clacking of pool balls as instrumentation, and "00" by Richie Warburton, which uses the back-and-forth of a tennis match for the same purpose. Samples of TV shows such as Quantum Leap
, Steptoe and Son
and Star Trek
were also used, as well as samples from films, such as Sex, Lies and Videotape and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and film soundtracks.
All of the initial run of em:t releases were processed using the Roland Sound Space RSS 3D sound imaging system, giving the music an extra "spacious" quality.
em:t releases are noted for their striking graphic design, used consistently and thematically across the entire discography. Each CD is packaged in a cardboard Digipak
case. The front features high-resolution nature photography, depicting exotic animals in their natural habitats. The back is plain white, with the track listing in plain black text. Animals used on classic Em:t covers include Ceratophrys ornata
, Plecotus auritus, Ctenophore
and Ramphastos sulfuratus. Images of frogs were used exclusively for compilation releases, whereas individual artists were given freedom to pick an image from the Oxford Scientific catalogue.
The "new" em:t releases did not have animal-themed covers, but sported the same overall design aesthetic, and used the same numbering system.
The animal-themed designs were created for em:t by British design firm The Designer's Republic, also well known for working with Warp Records
for many years. Post-2003 em:t releases were designed by Cambridge
-based design firm db|design.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
, based in Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
, which specialized in ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
. They were active from 1994 to 1998, and after a period of bankruptcy, re-established themselves in 2003 under new ownership and management. In summer 2006, the label officially ceased operations again, although by this time it had not been active for some time.
History
em:t was born as a division of the t:me Recordings label in 1994. t:me released mostly vinyl records falling under the broad category of house musicHouse music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
, and sought to create a new sublabel for more forward-thinking ambient material. Over the next four years, they released a series of eighteen albums and compilations, packaged as a collector's series. Though em:t never enjoyed widespread commercial success, their releases were highly regarded and influential in ambient circles, and the label attracted a cult following - encouraged, no doubt, by the collectible nature of the releases.
em:t releases had strict rules governing their design aesthetic. Individual album titles were always the sequential four-digit catalogue number of the disc; the album's cover was always a full-colour picture of a wild animal; all albums were released on CD only; all CDs were packaged in digipacks; all CDs themselves bore the same chinese character in black on the non-playing face of the disc.
The label garnered praise from music journalists at the time. Coda magazine wrote that "The Em:t series will surely go down in history for being as important in the 90s as the albums of Brian Eno were in the 70s" , and specialist music magazine The Wire noted that the em:t catalogue represented "The vanguard of post-dance technological music". Em:t produced promo postcards for the label on which these quotes, and others, were duly displayed. . A Q&A in DJ Magazine in 1995 also stated the label's unofficial credo: "Never presume your audience is any less clever than you are".
The most highly-praised albums of the series came from British composers Paul Frankland recording as Woob
Woob
Woob is the stage name of Paul Frankland, a British ambient musician of the 1990s. Woob’s albums combine elements of ambient, dub and world music, with samples from field recordings, movies and television. Frankland has also recorded with collaborators under the names of Journeyman and Max & Harvey...
, and Mat Jarvis
Mat Jarvis
Mat P. Jarvis aka Jarvan IV is an electronic music demacian artist from England who has released one full-length CD and several other tracks on the Em:t Records label under the name Gas. More recently, Jarvis released material under the name High Skies....
recording as Gas.
In addition to the original run of CDs in the UK, some of em:t's music was licensed to Instinct Records in the USA, a label that had a contemporaneous interest in modern ambient music. em:t 0094 and Woob's 1194
Woob 1194
Woob 1194 was the debut album of British soundtrack and ambient musician Paul Frankland. It was recorded over the span of two months and was released in the summer of 1994 on Em:t Records. It was also re-released in late 1994 on Instinct Records in the United States...
were released individually. The compilations em:t 2295 and em:t 3394 were packaged together as a double-disc set called em:t 2000. In addition, various other tracks were compiled onto the anthologies em:t beat exploration and em:t explorer.
In mid-1998, em:t went out of business due to the bankruptcy of t:me, with two whole albums worth of music still unreleased - a new compilation album, and a second Gas album. Their discography became highly prized among collectors, and this remains the case today; individual CDs commonly fetch a high price on eBay.
In 2003, a separate company brought the em:t name off the shelf and the label was relaunched. Although none of the people running the label had any connection with the previous em:t, they did release material from several of the original artists. The relaunch created another surge in public interest for the original series of albums. After six new full-length albums, the label again went out of business in 2006.
The em:t "Sound"
All of the albums on the original run of em:t releases fit into the general category of Ambient musicAmbient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
, or downtempo. Within this category there were many variations - Woob's releases were often ambient dub, Gas's music was ambient techno, Carl Stone's album was almost classical and the album by International People's Gang was almost pop. However, across all the releases there were certain recurring elements that identified the album as an em:t release. Most prominent were samples of animal noises recorded in the wild - heard on releases by Woob, Qubism, Beatsystem, Miasma, and others (this approach was taken to the extreme on the track "Waterpump" by Dalls Simpson, on the 1197 compilation, which is a 12-minute music-free recording of someone operating a hand water-pump in a countryside filled with birdsong). Other tracks processed field recordings and used them as percussion, such as "Pool" by International People's Gang, which uses the clacking of pool balls as instrumentation, and "00" by Richie Warburton, which uses the back-and-forth of a tennis match for the same purpose. Samples of TV shows such as Quantum Leap
Quantum Leap
Quantum Leap is an American television series that was broadcast on NBC from March 26, 1989 to May 5, 1993, for a total of five seasons. The series was created by Donald Bellisario, and starred Scott Bakula as Dr...
, Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...
and Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
were also used, as well as samples from films, such as Sex, Lies and Videotape and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and film soundtracks.
All of the initial run of em:t releases were processed using the Roland Sound Space RSS 3D sound imaging system, giving the music an extra "spacious" quality.
Legacy
The em:t series of albums are still highly-prized among electronic music fans, and the reputation of the label and the music endures to this day . However, due to rights issues, only two of the original em:t series are available on itunes; the rest continue to fetch exaggerated prices on auction sites such as ebay.Artwork
Digipak
Digipak is a patented style of CD, DVD or BD packaging, and is a registered trademark of AGI World Ltd., an Atlas Holdings company.-Features:...
case. The front features high-resolution nature photography, depicting exotic animals in their natural habitats. The back is plain white, with the track listing in plain black text. Animals used on classic Em:t covers include Ceratophrys ornata
Argentine horned frog
The Argentine Horned Frog , also known as the Argentine wide-mouthed Frog or Pacman frog, is the most common species of Horned Frog, from the rain forests of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil...
, Plecotus auritus, Ctenophore
Ctenophore
The Ctenophora are a phylum of animals that live in marine waters worldwide. Their most distinctive feature is the "combs", groups of cilia that they use for swimming, and they are the largest animals that swim by means of cilia – adults of various species range from a few millimeters to in size...
and Ramphastos sulfuratus. Images of frogs were used exclusively for compilation releases, whereas individual artists were given freedom to pick an image from the Oxford Scientific catalogue.
The "new" em:t releases did not have animal-themed covers, but sported the same overall design aesthetic, and used the same numbering system.
The animal-themed designs were created for em:t by British design firm The Designer's Republic, also well known for working with Warp Records
Warp Records
Warp, commonly referred to as Warp Records, is a pioneering independent British record label, founded in Sheffield in 1989, notable for discovering some of the more enduring artists in electronic music....
for many years. Post-2003 em:t releases were designed by Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
-based design firm db|design.
Discography
All em:t releases are catalogued with a four-digit number. The third and fourth digits represent the year of release, and the first two digits denote the order of release within a year, beginning with '00' and continuing on to '11', '22', etc.Classic em:t (1994 - 1998)
- Various Artists - em:t 0094
- Woob - 1194Woob 1194Woob 1194 was the debut album of British soundtrack and ambient musician Paul Frankland. It was recorded over the span of two months and was released in the summer of 1994 on Em:t Records. It was also re-released in late 1994 on Instinct Records in the United States...
(re-released in 2009) - Qubism - 2294
- Various Artists - em:t 3394
- Gas 0095Gas 0095Gas 0095 was the debut album of electronic musician Mat Jarvis released under his Gas moniker. It was written,performed and recorded in his Nottingham studio during 1994 and released on Em:t Records in January 1995....
(re-released in 2006) - Miasma - 1195
- Various Artists - em:t 2295
- International Peoples Gang International Peoples Gang - 3395
- Woob - 4495Woob 4495Woob2 4495 is the second full-length album from Woob, the stage name of ambient musician Paul Frankland. It was released in the UK on em:t records on 21 September 1995.-Overview:...
- Various Artists - em:t 5595
- Lucid Dreams 0096Lucid Dreams 0096‘’’Lucid Dreams 0096’’’ is a 1996 ambient album, on the em:t label. It is credited to “0096”, but this is merely the sequential catalogue number of the disc, labelled in em:t’s house style – the actual instrumentation on the album was provided by Miasma and Bad Data, two em:t artists.-Origins:Celia...
(featuring Celia GreenCelia GreenCelia Elizabeth Green is a British writer on philosophical skepticism, twentieth-century thought, and psychology.- Biography :...
) - 0096 - Carl StoneCarl StoneCarl Stone is an American composer, primarily working in the field of live electronic music. His works have been performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the Near East.Stone studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton...
- 1196 - Various Artists - em:t 2296
- UndarkRussell Mills (artist)Russell Mills is a British artist who was born in Ripon, Yorkshire, UK in 1952. He paints, creates multimedia installations, designs stage sets and lighting and has produced record covers and book covers for Brian Eno, the Cocteau Twins,Michael Nyman, David Sylvian, Peter Gabriel, and Nine Inch...
- 3396 - Slim - 0097
- Various Artists - em:t 1197
- Beatsystem - 2297
- Natural Language - 0098
- Various Artists - em:t 1198 (unreleased)
- Gas - 2298 (unreleased)
New Em:t (2003 - 2006)
- Various Artists - em:t 0003
- Various Artists - em:t 0004
- Gel-Sol - 1104
- 302 Acid302 Acid302 Acid is a music group from Washington, D.C., USA, formed by Doug Kallmeyer and Justin Mader in 2002. It currently includes Doug Kallmeyer , Justin Mader ....
- 0005 - 302 Acid302 Acid302 Acid is a music group from Washington, D.C., USA, formed by Doug Kallmeyer and Justin Mader in 2002. It currently includes Doug Kallmeyer , Justin Mader ....
Live at The Big ChillThe Big Chill (music festival)The Big Chill is an annual festival of alternative, dance and chill-out music and comedy, held in the grounds of Eastnor Castle during early August...
(limited CD-RCD-RA CD-R is a variation of the Compact Disc invented by Philips and Sony. CD-R is a Write Once Read Many optical medium, though the whole disk does not have to be entirely written in the same session....
) - Antonio Testa & Gaudi - 1105
- International Peoples Gang International Peoples Gang - 0006
See also
- WoobWoobWoob is the stage name of Paul Frankland, a British ambient musician of the 1990s. Woob’s albums combine elements of ambient, dub and world music, with samples from field recordings, movies and television. Frankland has also recorded with collaborators under the names of Journeyman and Max & Harvey...
- Mat JarvisMat JarvisMat P. Jarvis aka Jarvan IV is an electronic music demacian artist from England who has released one full-length CD and several other tracks on the Em:t Records label under the name Gas. More recently, Jarvis released material under the name High Skies....
- Carl StoneCarl StoneCarl Stone is an American composer, primarily working in the field of live electronic music. His works have been performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the Near East.Stone studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton...
- The Designers RepublicThe Designers RepublicThe Designers Republic was a graphic design studio, founded on 14 July 1986 by Ian Anderson, and based in Sheffield, England. It was known for its anti-establishment aesthetics, while simultaneously embracing brash consumerism and the uniform style of corporate brands, such as Orange and Coca-Cola...
- List of electronic music record labels
External links
- microscopics.co.uk Emit album Gas 0095 remastered site
- highskies.com Emit artists High Skies and Gas official site
- woob.info Official Woob Website
- Woob New Releases Official
- thevibes.net Emit artist Mat Jarvis (Gas / High Skies) interview
- emit.cc Semi-official fan site (appears to be un-maintained)
- Em:t artist Beatsystem now on French label Entropy