Pause To Play

Bristol's Pause_2 Records has been at the forefront of European electronica since its conception at the beginning of the Millenium. Anthony Dhanendran catches up with the man behind the vision.

I'm sitting in a nondescript cafe in Broadmead with a record label executive. Well, he probably wouldn't describe himself as such, and the stereotypical image of a ponytailed major label man certainly wouldn't do him any justice. Pause_2 isn't a major label, but it is the justified holder of a reputation for putting out new and groundbreaking electronic music. Like the other well known local labels such as Hombre, Sink and Stove and Sugar Shack, Pause_2 is well known among the fans of its genre, and Tom is the man in charge of it all.

The label officially began in January 2000. Before that he ran a label called Flexipop - having released one single by local band Keyop they naturally felt that everything would follow from there. "But everything just sort of plodded along and I found it quite difficult to remain motivated about the whole thing. During that time I was looking around for other musicians I could work with."

The recent big success for the label has been the Russian act E.U., whose recent album Tort was greeted with plenty of critical plaudits. "I found E.U. and I've been working with them ever since." But for a band getting so much major press attention it must be difficult to remain signed to what is still a very small label. "In one respect it's quite nice to see other labels trying to sign them, but at the same time it's quite annoying 'cos everytime they get another offer they expect something extra from me!"

He comes across as something of a visionary; at the very least, somebody who knows what he wants for his label. His ideal is to make as many direct sales as possible, via the Pause_2 web site, thus cutting out the middlemen, lowering prices and increasing returns for the artists and the label.

Being a small label, it's still at the stage where Tom can go and seek out new music, but Russian electronica isn't exactly an easy genre to find out about. "I just came across this niche of Russian electronic music and I'd never really heard any Russian music before. I was expecting some sort of really backward thing because it's quite an isolated place but since the internet it's become much easier for them to communicate. I got talking to some people and they told me about some friends of theirs. They sent me the demo but it wasn't very good, so I wrote to tell them, and they wrote back to say, 'oh, by the way that wasn't our real demo, it was just a demo to test you and see if you were really interested. Now we'll send you our real demo'!"

But how do you actually go about starting a record label? "I only ever once thought about starting a label as a difficult thing. When I was younger, I worked as a journalist doing freelance work and then I started putting on some club nights. I did a night at the (sadly missed) Green and Gold cafe in St Nick St. - a mate asked me to help him with his night - we just strolled down there with our records."

"We were making loads of money and wondering what to do with it. He said there was this cheap pressing plant in the Czech republic - why didn't we get some records pressed up and start a label? Alright then, let's do it. And that was when we started Flexipop."

http://www.pause2.com/

Recommended releases:

EU - Reframing (PAUSE003 CD) £5.50

Various Artists - RND_0.34873349921 (PAUSE004 CD) £4.50

EU - Tuner (PAUSE007 CD) £4.50