Label profile: Quintessentials

Label profile: Quintessentials

11 December, 2009 | 8.35AM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: label profile, quintessentials, underground quality

Quintessentials is a new British label full of opposites. Its sound is classic yet futuristic deep house, as close to Chicago and New York’s sound of 10 years ago, as it is to the new deep house axis that includes Jus Ed’s Underground Quality and Spain’s Deep Explorer Music.

Its releases are simple grooves that are sonically complex, by artists who, for the most part, are deep house revivalists with tremendous studio foresight.

In the past 12 months Quintessentials has built a fine reputation and a recognisable sound despite the fact that it has remained hidden behind a simple logo and quirky artwork, with little press attention.

Its founders quite smartly want their music to do the talking, so they don’t want you to know who they are. But they agreed to speak about the label, its sound, artists, and core ideals for this feature.

You launched the label in 2008 as an outlet for “essential deep and raw house music”. What exactly is that?

Well, to us it’s an authentic sound, that refers to the early days of house music. It’s a warm, deep, yet raw sound, not overproduced. And of course it’s a word game too.

Some say deep house is back in a big way. Are you a deep house revivalist imprint, or just a group of business savvy house music fans who saw an upcoming trend and wanted to ride it all the way?

We are music lovers in the first place and not that much into following trends. House music has been around for a long time and it’s popular again. It comes and goes.

We just want to present our view and idea of house music and don’t see this as “business” in the first place. We love the music we release, we love to present new artwork for every release, and we are happy when a new record is out. We are simple people.

Who are you?

As we said earlier, we love music, and we think it’s interesting to discover talents and offer a platform for them. We have been into music for quite some time, as journalists, as clubbers, as record collectors. But we want to let the musical product speak, not the people behind it.

OK, so how did you guys first discover house?

We go all the way back to 1987/88, when acid house, Chicago house and Detroit techno were getting played. LFO, the Bio Rhythm compilations, and all these northern bleep records were important.

For Chicago house there was Dance Mania, and for Detroit techno there were labels like Planet-E, Transmat, and UR. And Larry Heard, Moodyman, Theo Parrish, the usual suspects.

There were quite a lot of interesting producers and labels back then and also now, not only in the “house” market, so the list could be nearly endless. Back then it was not that much about who, as it was about the sound that was played that stuck in our brains.
 
Would you agree that that sound is part of the sonic axis, that includes Jus Ed and his label Underground Quality?

Jus Ed is a great guy with a hot label and two lovely kids. We like him. At the moment, we focus more on releasing records than on big joint ventures, sort of. Maybe at a later stage, we will try to exchange and collaborate more with other labels for club nights.

We definitely share some ideals with all the people working with us, like the love of music, but of course also basic values about everyday life.

One of your ideals seems to be no regional ties. You are a British label, and yet the majority of your releases are by non Brits. Why?

Well, to us there are no territories. We think global and want to release cool tunes. So where they come from is not important to us. We’re in touch with labels like for example Uzuri, because we share some artists.

We have released stuff by Lerosa from Dublin, and soon we will release a remix by Scott Ferguson from London, as well as a 12” from the Brits Ethyl & Flori.

Moscovite Anton Zap was the first artist to release on your label. Why launch with Anton?

When we approached our distributor WordandSound, we had the first three or four releases ready. Together we decided that Anton’s release would be the perfect start, as it’s clubby and sums up the Quintessentials “deep, raw and real” sound perfectly. And the guys at WAS did a great job, it was the best selling Quintessentials release to date.

The house rhythms on Quintessentials are, for the most part, quite edgy and rough (unquantized, almost improvised). Is that one of the things that defines good deep house for you?

That’s something we like, it’s our “definition” of house. But we wouldn’t say good deep house. There are also other good house releases which aren’t that way. We don’t want to be narrow minded.

How much of a plan did you have for Quintessentials to get noticed, before it launched? You’ve been consistent, and have seen some good licensing results – Darren Emerson’s Global Underground compilation and Deetron’s Fuse mix to name two.

To be honest, there was no “plan”, like a big business plan. Of course, we knew how the releases should sound and look, and we had our favourite artists and our distributor, but in the end, you just have to do it to really see the results.

Our aim is to release quality music and the rest will follow hopefully. We have got some really good feedback this year and we are happy about this. To be consistent is definitely one of your aims. This should help us to be a long term label. We want to have a strong roster and also discover new talent to keep the interest of our supporters.

A couple of your releases have sounded like they came straight out of the classic Chicago/NYC house scene from 10 years ago. Others have sounded wholly fresh and futuristic. Is the key for you, a balance between futuristic grooves and respect to the earlier days?

Thanks a lot for that judgement, it’s really what we want. We love the old school very much, and we also want to sound fresh. It’s a kind of “pimp my old school” thing.

Sometimes we have an old school sounding release (like the upcoming Quintessentials 11 from Marcello Napoletano), and sometimes a more futuristic release, or a combination of both. But we try to keep a deep and raw edge.

How much of the new deep house fever is nostalgia?
Oh, it’s not bad to be nostalgic sometimes. A record must touch you. Whether it’s old or new is unimportant.

Essential Quintessentials

The folks behind Quintessentials select eight of their favourite Quintessentials tracks.

QE 01: Anton Zap ‘Basement Groover’

Well the first release of a label is always something special. Anton is a real talent and this track is some serious US styled house. Also his QE 05 is great and already an all time favourite.
 

QE 02: Jagged ‘Hello Kool Nice (Harry Swinger & DC remix)

We found Jagged via Myspace. They are very cool and also play live. This remix is really stripped down. We love that and also the dirty beats. The Brothers Vibe remix on QE 09 is big too.
 

QE 03: Vakula ‘Deep In Mood’

This reminds us of some ambient house type stuff, like Orb somehow. Vakula is making some awesome music, watch out for him.
 

QE 04: Lerosa ‘Triage’

We love Leo, he’s a super nice guy and always makes cool tunes. We fully agree with Giles Smith from Secretsundaze about this track: “Not unlike some Larry Heard releases, beautiful, crystaline and deeeeeeeep”.
 

QE 06: Knarf Skipson ‘Jusome’

Knarf is from Germany and you hear his hip hop roots in most of his tracks. That’s why we like him - he has a unique style and soon a new release on Quintessentials.
 

QE 07: Baaz ‘So What’

Baaz is no stranger to the scene as he already released on Sthlm Audio and Dan Bell’s Elevate. Proper deep house all the way.
 

QE 08: The Zohar ‘Mean Street’

A big favourite here, this guy is mysterious and funny. He’s hibernating now and hopefully will be back soon with more dope beats.
 

QE10.2. STL ‘Myxmassong’

STL is definitely raw and real, holy shit! And this has his trademark sound. Cool one.

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