Woebot
Well-known member
These two seem to have dominated the independent scene for what seems like forever, both scooping up red hot "breakthrough" artists and bringing them to a wider audience.
XL seems to go from strength to strength, picking up Dizzy was a great move, and I hope they don't give up on Grime just because Wiley pulled out of his deal (seems like he needed to be a bit more realistic about his size as an artist/talent?) Actually it looks like if he'd put the current Roll Deep material out under XL he'd have done as well as Dizzy did.
WARP on the other hand seems to be losing it's lustre. They seems to miss trick after trick, both the Position Normal and Junior Boys seemed to be tailor-made for WARP, both of which they let go by. They've put out feeble Anti-Con and Beans records, and I think the Jimmy Edgar record is weak, actually can't believe it was deserving of any attention whatsoever*. Jimmy Edgar is the Zoolander of Techno, you read that here first. Looking at them now, as an entity they seem to be coasting on a reputation, when for a while (Artificial Intelligence onwards) they triumphed at spotting new talent. The last WARP thing which truly excelled was the Vincent Gallo record.
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I've never really earmarked the good US independent labels, but I guess Matador/Drag City (are they different entitities?) would come among them?
*apologies in advance to SD and NG.
XL seems to go from strength to strength, picking up Dizzy was a great move, and I hope they don't give up on Grime just because Wiley pulled out of his deal (seems like he needed to be a bit more realistic about his size as an artist/talent?) Actually it looks like if he'd put the current Roll Deep material out under XL he'd have done as well as Dizzy did.
WARP on the other hand seems to be losing it's lustre. They seems to miss trick after trick, both the Position Normal and Junior Boys seemed to be tailor-made for WARP, both of which they let go by. They've put out feeble Anti-Con and Beans records, and I think the Jimmy Edgar record is weak, actually can't believe it was deserving of any attention whatsoever*. Jimmy Edgar is the Zoolander of Techno, you read that here first. Looking at them now, as an entity they seem to be coasting on a reputation, when for a while (Artificial Intelligence onwards) they triumphed at spotting new talent. The last WARP thing which truly excelled was the Vincent Gallo record.
-
I've never really earmarked the good US independent labels, but I guess Matador/Drag City (are they different entitities?) would come among them?
*apologies in advance to SD and NG.