Oi Kraftwerk! Here’s one for your pocket calculator: When does two plus one actually equal just one? When three Glaswegian record labels are multiplying themselves into just a single focussed entity. Welcome to the dawn of a label called Numbers.
A group of lads that all met and worked in legendary vinyl distributors and one stop techno / electro heaven Rub a Dub Records have all gone on to make waves with their own imprints. Jack Revill, one of five Numbers label lynchpins reveals more. “Richard (Chater) was the first one of us to start a label’ he did Stuffrecords. Then I did Dress 2 Sweat and then there’s Wireblock and that was set up by me, Calum and Neil (Morton).” Add into this the renowned graphic design and DJ talents of Adam Rodgers aka Goodhand and the scene was set, as Neil Morton continues: “The time was right really. It was a really easy decision for us to make I think. It’s been in the pipeline since 2003 or 2004 really, plus it was becoming increasingly difficult to pinch each other’s artists!”
Collectively responsible for exposing the talents of Rustie, Slugabed, Hudson Mohawke, Piddy Py, DJ Shabushabu, Neil Landstrumm, Lory D, Bok Bok and Dj Deeon – they know a thing or two about the underground electronic landscape. Over the last six years they’ve been running arguably Glasgow’s most forward thinking club night. Called simply ‘Numbers’, they described it as a ‘techno club playing hip hop’ who’ve seen hotel function rooms destroyed thanks to Modeselektor (before anyone outside of Berlin had really clocked the Germans’ talents). Equally they’d made friends with Kode9 before ‘dubstep’ was a catch all phrase for cool or they’d resurrected DJ Funk for younger generations to mosh to and join the dots in the ghetto aristocracy for themselves.
“The idea for the label came about as we’d always be talking together about great artists we’d approached or remixed.’ explains Jack ‘and because we’ve all got such similar taste we’d always take up the same artists so we were getting a bit annoyed at each other. We’d been up all night at the Bloc weekend trying to think of a way which we could all work together and we agreed on Numbers.”
Their previous club events over the last eight years now acts as a manifesto for their label’s diversity exposing anything and everything, young or old as long as its unique and experimental. Ideally they’d like you to move your attention spans several years into the future and intend to accelerate musical heritage with a roster of artists you’re not heard yet but certainly will do eventually. The early releases are already looking diverse as they navigate 90 bpm hip hop, dubstep, an old Dj Pierre house track and some techno from long term comrade Lory D.
Significantly Glasgow has a burgeoning reputation as one of the global hotspots for so called ‘wonky’ beats courtesy of Rustie and Hudson Mohawke. Richard Chater concurs that it’s a positive time for the city: “We’re immensely proud of the work we did with Rustie and Hudson Mohawke. I’m sure it’s helped. It was a privilege to release records by them. It’s as relevant as house, techno, dubstep or funk is to us. Everything matters.”
Glasgow’s cellar party scene is perfectly geared to niche nights playing often extremely experimental electronic music, a splintering being more than embraced by Numbers as Jack concludes: “Glasgow is traditionally very much a “four to the floor” city with a massive house and techno following. I’d like to think we are offering a bit of that but also something more… something extra on top. It feels like there’s something different happening in Glasgow now, and we like it.”
Words: Matthew Bennett
