[BleepBot] Bleep Interviews 100% Silk

[Joyrex]

This week sees the release of the brilliant new releases by Mi Ami and Coyote Clean Up… Just another week in the life of 100% Silk – one of the most consistently brilliant record labels in recent memory. We decided to catch up with label boss, Amanda Brown and try and discover more about all the music they seem to be revealing to the world…

Bleep: 100% Silk has such a strong identity as a label yet is incessantly prolific when it comes to releasing records. What kind of policy do you have to finding and releasing new talent?

Amanda Brown: My policy about releasing has always been – if the music’s amazing then it deserves to be released. I don’t believe in being closed door, especially since demos are where real magic happens and how you get connected to SILK across the world. I hate this idea that labels have become so stuck in their ways, that they won’t consider new music. I think in the end it only does a disservice to that label – you have to grow and spread and revivify all the time. As for finding artists, they mostly come to me. I’m lucky enough too to get referrals from the SILK artist family, be a part of that community, and there’s such a network there. I’m extremely fortunate for that.

B: In light of the previous question, what other links, in terms of spirit and approach, bind together the material that appears on the label?

AB: Sensual, sideways, luxurious, contemporary, playful, joyful, irreverant, naturalistic, stylish – these are the words i think of when i imagine a 100% SILK artist and record. It’s some symbiosis of all these aspects that makes dance music so pleasurable for me.

B: Although your background has been immersed in Not Not Fun and your work as Pocahaunted, 100% Silk has an obvious and particularly raw understanding of dance music. What are you own personal experiences with the genre, and did you always intend to start-up a dance label?

AB: I used to listen to dance music when i was a pre-teen, early nineties. I was a huge Dee-lite, CeCe Peniston, and Blackbox fan and a friend’s older sister used to go to these crazy London and New York clubs and come back and tell us about the down-tempo groove soul/acid party girl vibes and I’d go nuts, get so jealous. I dabbled in a bit of hilarious techno – “James Brown is dead” – and some over the top UK big picture stuff – KLF – and of course had lots of my mother’s disco records – Evelyn “Champagne” King was a favorite. But no, I never intended to start a dance label. It’s a pretty shut-off world, with lots of purists, and I always figured I wouldn’t be accepted, seeing as I love dance for it’s freedom and humor and exuberance.

B: L.A. has always been a hotbed of musical creativity but there seem to be especially interesting things coming from the area right now. Is there anything about the place that inspires you and your label contemporaries?

AB: L.A. is where I’m from, it’s my home, so I have endless praise for it. It’s corny, but i think heat is always inspiring, being hot always makes me create more. People say it’s competitive, and it is, but mostly in other music scenes – I’ve found the dance/DJ underground here to be awesome, open arms… and it’s beautiful, and there’s fresh fruit on every street, and who doesn’t make better music when they’re full of fresh fruit?

B: What other contemporary labels and artists are exciting you right now?
AB: Future Times, Heatsick, Ecstasy, Miracles Club, Soundstream, L.I.E.S, Creme Organization, and Steve Summers.

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