Rob / Be With Records Interview - TTL Zine
From TTL Zine #13: On the occasion of Be With Records' 200th release(!), we connected with one of the best reissue labels around.
5 BE WITH SLEEPER RELEASES:
Caiphus Semenya - Streams Today…Rivers Tomorrow
AKA Mr Letta Mbulu, Caiphus's second solo LP is a ten-out-of-ten album if ever we heard one. It's not just a musical masterpiece, it is also the soundtrack to the life of many South Africans - both then and now. Fusing the US-heavy sounds of boogie, disco and funk with Afrobeat and traditional African elements, it’s truly a spectacular listen. Check the brilliance of “Matswale”. This was a hit in South Africa in the mid-80s and you can still hear why. This is some damn fine breezy, beautiful, emotional pop. The restrained playing, the guitar licks and the gentle keys are out of this world. The beats? Thundering, direct and slick. The singing? It’ll give you goosebumps. As for the sentiment? This is Caiphus singing to his in-laws about their daughter’s adultery, begging them to intervene and help him save his marriage. Not your typical pop single story-telling!
Lewis Taylor - The Lost Album
His legendary magnum opus: The Lost Album. "Now you're talking. That's my favourite LT album. Unlike all of the others, there isn't anything about it that embarrasses me." Straight from the genius's mouth. What can we say about this? Well, it was the most requested record ever at Be With Towers. The Lost Album was the intended follow-up to his first album but Island rejected it for fear of "confusing" the marketplace and its conception of Lewis as a soul artist. Their loss. It's a breezy sunset masterpiece. It's so warm, so effervescent and so alive with possibilities. It features deep, fresh imprints on well-loved, accessible sounds. It's a proper 70s style double album. Just one listen and the musical influences on The Lost Album are fairly self-explanatory; Love, Yes, Brian Wilson, CSN, Laura Nyro and, of course, Todd Rundgren. Check "Leader Of The Band" - you'll then know you need this.
Swing Family - Music Force
Ignore the terrible cover (this could've been a big problem behind its sleeper status!). This one came to my attention via our very fun and very useful Be With Request Line over on that dreaded Facebook site. It's dramatic mid-80s synth-funk from the maverick mind of Sauveur Mallia. It's a thrilling and uniquely brilliant album from start to finish but it's undoubtedly known and revered for its unbelievable standout track, "Mission Africa". A rumbling, strutting, afro-cosmic low-profile banger. The slick drums hit hard, the synth strings warm things up, overlapping horns add swagger whilst electric guitar flourishes and a chanted refrain sit in the mix quite perfectly. A track that's almost impossible to describe and do justice to. You just need to hear it. Preferably as you saunter into your favourite after-hours club, after spotting all your friends at once, as you cut a swathe to the bubbling dance floor. A track quite like no other, it makes you sit up within its first bars and, to us at least, sound like something you'd have heard on a Print Thomas mix from the mid 00s. Basically, it's cosmo-galactic.
Lovelock - Washington Park
AKA Lovelockdown, the wonderful exotica project crafted during Covid restrictions in 2020 by the legendary Steve Moore, one of our favourite ever artists and one everybody should know and love. Washington Park creeped out in a very low-key, early lockdown fashion and there wasn't much of a reaction. Yet many of the Balearic heads in Europe were indeed on it and we were most certainly listening. So, when we struck a deal to do the vinyl version of Burning Feeling, we couldn't resist asking about Washington Park. It's a gorgeous suite of instrumental lounge music that can only be described as synth exotica. A real departure for Steve, this is a more mellow, soothing sound and can be regarded as Lovelock's response to these dystopian times.
Stimulator Jones - Cool Green Trees (1999-2005)
This one seemed to fly massively under the radar (I blame the summer release!). A collection of beats and loops Stimulator Jones created between the ages of 14-20 at home in his basement, bedroom and computer room in Roanoke, Virginia. You will not believe the profound soulful genius contained within these naive schoolboy melodies.
5 SONGS YOU DISCOVERED WHILE PUTTING TOGETHER REISSUES:
Soul City Orchestra - "Soul City Drive"
From our recent reissue of Meal Ticket. I could've named any track off it but this was definitely a new discovery for me. Sweeping, sublime symphonic disco breaks infused with irresistible horns. An absolute monster of radiant, heavy soul-funk à la Barry White with great string & brass arrangement. One of the elements that makes licensing and reissuing amazing records such a fun job (for me, at least!). I was negotiating with De Wolfe over a few titles I was desperate to do and Warren, the owner of De Wolfe, asked if I'd ever heard Meal Ticket. My reply was "No". He suggested I'd dig. I really did.
Guy Pedersen - "Kermesse Non Héroique"
From our reissue of his crucial Maxi Music LP, as part of our Tele Music reissue campaign from a few years ago. This thrilling epic was one that is tucked away at the end of this album and I don't think I knew it before I started really in earnest on the campaign with Tele Music. It's a blazing psych-rock funky burner that's 13 minutes long. Containing a wicked flute solo it genuinely sounds like something off the first Dungen album. Yes, that good.
Jeb Loy Nichols - "Remember The Season"
From The Music Maker, a collection of Jeb's finest songs, from the 21st century and even a bit before that. Jeb sent me his favourite songs and we had the honour of whittling them down to about 21 of our very favourites. I'd never heard this one. Breezy guitar soul that's truly wonderful.
Alan James Eastwood - "Seeds"
From our deluxe double gatefold LP reissue of the album of the same name. I was completely unaware of this stunning album until my friend, Eddy Ball from Cherry Red, suggested we look into doing it, about 6-7 years ago. It took years and years to put together. Everything had to be perfect to do it justice. I think we managed it. The title track is just...wow. With a chugging mid-tempo beat, soulful vocals and a beautiful Bacharach-esque string arrangement, it truly is stop-you-in-your-tracks spectacular.
Pierre Dutour - "Deer Forest"
From our Top Fiction reissue and another one I discovered through digging deep into the Tele Music archives. 5 track on this album will truly blow you away, but maybe my favourite is this one. The gorgeous "Deer Forest" is one of the most beautiful songs you'll ever hear. Like something off Brian Bennett's Voyage, it rides dreamily melodic synths, and comes on, as one fan claimed "like something Angelo Badalamenti would have co-written with Final Fantasy composer, 植松伸夫 [Nobuo Uematsu]". It's jaw-dropping.
5 DREAM ALBUMS TO REISSUE:
5? Here's 10...and I could give you another 1000, easily...
AIR - In Need Of You
Magical unreleased (aside from small CD run and DSPs) and criminally underhand later album of spiritual funk-soul from - yes - *that* AIR. Not the French one. Big with the likes of Dam-Funk and diggers who know, we've tried to do this one for years and years now. Pray for us.
Milton Nascimento & Lô Borges - Clube Da Esquina=
Obviously everyone knows this needs another reissue. And a good one, at that. The major label who seemingly own rights signed it off for us, years ago, then took it back about a year later! Still, we wait, for a legit reissue...
Nick Ingman - Big Beat
Arguably the greatest library record ever. It's just sensational - we keep trying. Again, wish us luck! Incredible music, as incredible a front cover, too. Investigate if this is news to you...
Yves Hayat - Conversation Between East And West
From the genius mind behind Tumblack (you got that one, we did, right?!). Magical, spiritual folk-world-library business. Has to be heard to be believed. As good as the cover, too.
Minnie Riperton - A *More* Perfect Angel
Minnie's widower and album producer Dick Rudolph (husband these days to Kimiko Kasai and big mates with Ned!) asked us to do the vinyl version of all the extra unreleased tracks from the Perfect Angle sessions. They came out on CD but we wanted to do the vinyl. Big cheeses in the US even gave it their blessing. Complications made it unfeasible. We keep trying...
Grace Jones - Hurricane & Hurricane Dub
Wall Of Sound's Mark Jones was up for us licensing this but the Wall Of Sound rep is controlled by PIAS and they went all quiet after a number of promising conversations...one day, hopefully!
Smoke - Heaven On A Popsicle Stick
Check it if you don't know - band were up for it, records were exchanged, then the trail went completely cold. Recommended to me by Aquarium Drunkard's Justin Gage. Good people.
Curtis Mayfield - New World Order
Warner-released rep that STILL hasn't come out on vinyl. A masterpiece, too. The mind boggles as to why not.
Relatively Clean Rivers - Relatively Clean Rivers
Genius private folk-rock / soft-ish psych. Another notoriously "impossible" to reissue title. Phil Pearlman has no interest in properly reissuing his albums. A crying shame.
Ambulance LTD - Ambulance LTD
Never released on vinyl BITD, what was it, 2004? Exceptional indie/art rock with so many cool influences, the sum of which this record nonchalantly transcends. Easily one of the best first albums ever.
5 TIPS FOR RUNNING A LABEL:
I guess the first and most paramount piece of advice would be: never, ever give up, especially if you really really love a record and are desperate to see it come to light: as evidenced by the fact that I finally got Gap Mangione to agree to a beautiful and hugely necessary reissue of his eternal Diana In The Autumn Wind LP. It only took me 12 years of emails back and forth with Gap.
As far as I'm concerned, the only things I would use as criteria as to whether to go ahead and commit to doing something like this (running a reissue label) are ‘do I love it?’ (the record) and is it ripe for a vinyl reissue? If I’m going to release something, it has to be on my personal wantlist. This is important - it has to be something that I want on vinyl myself or why else would I get excited about doing it at all? So I'd advise that, for sure - you have to have a passion for the song/album/artist and it has to work in a financial sense / demand sense - or you would go under as a business, pretty quickly!
So, if there’s demand for the record then it seems to make sense. But that’s the easy part, you could say. Identifying the records to try to license, that is. The hard part comes with everything after, in terms of seeking and then achieving permission and working everything else out – the audio and artwork issues are a never-ending process of negotiation and renegotiation - certainly not for the faint-hearted!
And the artist liaison part is super important to us. We won't do a release if the artist doesn't want it to come out. We always let the artists know we are doing it (if they are still alive and/or contactable!). So make sure you do all that, too, I would say!
Oh, and, get a good accountant!
