Label of the Month: Rhythm Section International

Ten years ago, Bradley Zero was one of the early hosts of Boiler Room, a regular on NTS and a DJ with a burgeoning diary. He was one of the most visible and influential young faces in the scene, and that made him a lightning rod for new music.

"I like that description," he says from the Rhythm Section International offices in London. "I'm charged up and putting myself out there, ready to catch some energy."

At the same time, Bradley had already established the South London-centric Rhythm Section parties - intimate gatherings at a Peckham pool hall with a good sound system and eclectic music policy, often headlined by DJs from in and around the area. The label was an extension of that philosophy but with the 'International' suffix added to represent the sounds not just of that local musical microcosm, but of the world.

"If you're working with this abstract notion of music rather than a physical gathering, there are no limitations with it," says Bradley. "So that was the aim from the start."

And it has remained true to that ever since. Bradley is now a fully established touring DJ with friendship circles and musical acquaintances in cities across the world. It is those pan-global connections that have helped to make the label so worldwide in scope. It has released artists from New Zealand, Chile, Australia, America, Wales, England, Ecuador, Germany and many more countries.

"The more pushy people are, the less interested I am in listening to what people send me," he says of the process of signing new music. Instead, much of it comes about through exciting friendships rather than trawling through endless demos sent to a generic email address. "It's nicer when these things happen naturally."

Which is exactly how it all began "literally from my kitchen table" with the first release by Al Dobson Jr in 2014. He is "the very opposite of a self-promoter" but was feverishly working away on a ton of music. He sent Bradley "four hundred tunes" even though at the time he had no platform to release them.

"It was like, damn, the world needs to hear some of this," he remembers now. With that, the label was born and "thousands of copies" of Rye Lane Volume One were soon sold. It's an album of downtempo and dusty lo-fi beats, jazz and soul that was later followed by volumes two and three as well as deep house from Chaos in the CBD, neo-soul from Silent Jay and Jace XL and jazzy broken beats from Prequel.

Friendships with US artists such as Future Times and Vacouver's Jack J and his Mood Hut crew inspired Bradley at the beginning. They began similar DIY label collectives around the same time and encouraged him to "begin to nurture something like that over here."

Since then the label has put out more than 75 releases and has been involved in increasingly adventurous projects. "I think I'm a bit of a contrarian," says Bradley. "We always want to avoid being pigeonholed and want to be able to move between genres, sounds, movements and scenes or it would become quite boring quite quickly. If you're working with a band and thinking about touring, recording, how they build an audience, connecting them with fans, merch, and live sessions then there is always something new and exciting that we can do because we keep it so fresh."

The label's output very much backs that up: as well a tasteful selection of more club-ready 12"s, it has released albums by Melbourne’s 30/70, a collective of musicians who draw on everything from astral jazz to grime, dub to UK club music, an indie-pop album by the UK's TONE and a jazz-rock full-length from Cousin Kula.

"It's a lot of responsibility working with someone's art," says Bradley. "It's their baby. We handle these things with great care, they are very special to us. When you're dealing with a body of work, an album, it is an artist's legacy so it needs to be handled with respect, which is why the team evolved to be able to give the necessary time and effort to make the most of each release."

Naturally, over the last ten years, the operation has had to mature and become more structured. That's not been driven by capitalist dreams of profit and ROI, more just about streamlining the process because of how much music the label always puts out.

"We think about things like new ways to strategise," explains the long-time Label Manager, Emily Hill. "We see what we can take from bigger organisations and make them fit with our more independent operation." She says it is always a pleasure to see fledgling artists go on to success with other labels, but also admits she would "love" Rhythm Section International to establish itself like legendary indie such as Warp, Domino and 4AD have before.

"But only in that, we could do more for our artists. We could give them more financial backing and help realise some of their creative visions a lot more because I think those things are limited when you are a label the size that we are."

The label does, where possible, support artists with more than just releases. They recently gave London-based rapper CLBRKS some money to make a video, for example, and were stunned by the results. "That was really amazing and to be able to help push these artists to the next level, to help with things like that a little bit more, to do crazy marketing campaigns and really get outside the box, that would be cool."

Like with any success story, there is an element of good fortune to the timing of Rhythm Section International's emergence. In 2014, interest in vinyl was on the rise and there was a genuine thirst for physical products and nice design after many years of easily forgettable digital-only releases. Similarly, DJs were growing more and more adventurous and our musical identities were no longer as clearly defined and tribal as they had been in years past.

NTS's infinite array of specialist radio shows no doubt encouraged that, but so too did the arrival of listening bars like Brilliant Corners and the popularity of daytime parties. Rhythm Section get-togethers were similarly open-minded, so the label's eclecticism has always been 100 % authentic. And so has its focus on being a worthy platform for artists rather than just using their name to further Rhythm Section International's own brand.

"It'd be idealistic to say we do it just for the love because that doesn't align with the responsibility we have for an artist's work," explains Bradley. "It's a business, but we're a platform designed to amplify people's voices and help them reach more people, so you have to wear two hats. You're a creator, but you're a dealer. You're selling a product and reporting back. It's a fine line. We don't want it to be a cold, transactional thing, desperate to be on trend and hitting TikTok, but we don't want to be airy-fairy, head-in-the-clouds wanting to press 200 limited edition hand-stamped pressings for collectors to cherish because that guarantees making zero money for anyone. It's a balancing act, and that is something the people we work with appreciate. We're in it for the love, but that love has to be backed up by numbers."

Plenty has changed in the music industry in the last decade, from the amount of review coverage to the shift to vinyl and now, Bradley feels, a "sway" back towards digital. Rhythm Section has navigated them all pretty smoothly. The pandemic naturally posed a big problem with events put on pause, but the label managed to pivot and put the extra time into releasing even more music and expanding the merchandise range.

Now in its tenth year, the most ambitious project to date is about to drop. "I'm not much of a five-year plan person," says Bradley. "I'm quite impulsive, but once things get going, the momentum takes over." That is certainly true of this next release - a bumper box set featuring six slabs of wax. The first two are classics from the label's vast back catalogue, the next two are remixes of those tunes by core label artists, and the last two are brand new sounds from, mostly, newly signed artists.

There will also be a live event across two floors at Dalston arts space EartH featuring Jack J playing his album live for the first time — he is a fitting guest given that he designed the Rhythm Section logo right back at the start. The event is in collaboration with Carhartt "so we can keep ticket prices to £10 while also making sure that we can pay artists properly for their work," says Emily.

It is a fitting way to celebrate a label that has always had the community at the heart of its operation.