- Q & A with Matt Ridout from Hominid Sounds
Please give us a brief bio of the label. How did it start, til today….
The label started when myself (Matt Ridout) and Wayne Adams (Bear Bites Horse Studios, Death Pedals, Big Lad, Pet Brick) were talking during my band Casual Nun’s first recording session at Bear Bites Horse Studios. We were discussing how we wanted to do a label of our own, but didn’t really have the time to do it all by ourselves. Wayne was constantly recording amazing bands that were struggling to get their material released. Gordon Watson (Terminal Cheesecake, Luminous Bodies, Melting Hand) and I had also been having conversations about the same thing, how it seemed there was a need for another DIY label to release records from bands we loved. Wayne was really the catalyst that pulled it all together, and we reached out to Graham Dyer as he’d expressed an interest in taking part too. We started with a We Wild Blood tape and followed it up with the first Melting Hand and Casual Nun LPs and that’s three years ago now.
Which labels inspired you most to make your own?
The obvious templates for us were Rocket Recordings, Riot Season and Box Records. Box were unbelievably supportive of our first steps, and saved us a shitload of trouble by steering us away from some bad decisions and putting us in touch with some good people. Rocket and Riot Season have also both been very helpful to us as we’ve made our first steps as well, it’s made the whole process a lot easier for us learning from their experience.
Which is the motto for Hominid Sounds?
Release as many records as possible in as short a time as possible so we all age as fast as possible? Not sure we actually have one to be honest.
Which are the advantages and disadvantages of running a music label today?
The advantages are we get to release lots of amazing music that otherwise might not find an outlet, we are able to invest in things we find creatively rewarding regardless of it’s marketing potential, and there is a sense of satisfaction at working together to run a little entity without the need for profit, we focus purely on breaking even and everything else is pumped back into the label for the future. The disadvantage is that we still have plenty of things that we’d love to take a chance on, or put out on certain formats, but can’t as we have to maintain the stability of what we’re doing. That’s the only frustration, especially when you have incredible music coming your way all the time.
Which are your future plans for the label?
Keep releasing things that we like is the dull as dishwater answer to that question, but there really is nothing in terms of a business plan or anything like that. Obviously we want to be helping musicians that we like get their recordings out to the world and want that to continue.
- Three distinctive Hominid Sounds releases
This is probably quite subjective for me (and avoiding any bands any of us involved in the label are in too) but I’d go for these as I think they’re the most characteristic of what we do:
We Wild Blood – ‘How About Never?‘
Our first release, and still one of our favourite bands. We Wild Blood for my money are one of the best bands around and watching them play their launch gig, our first as a label, at Flashback Records in Shoreditch all those years back still is pretty magical. Started with a bang I guess I’d say.
Sly & The Family Drone + Dead Neanderthals – ‘Molar Wrench‘
I remember Matt from Sly emailing me the record, and listening to it and being blown away. Then going on Xmas break and forgetting to email him back. By the time I did I was panicking that someone else would’ve grabbed it but we were in luck. It’s still one of my favourites we’ve released.
Acid Cannibals – ‘Horny For Tomorrow‘
Hard to deny the infectious joy that is encapsulated in James McKay (Acid Cannibals, The Cosmic Dead). We really wanted to do this EP, but we had to figure out a way to keep the price low while doing the format that we all wanted to have (45rpm 12’’). I guess it’s that thing I was referring to earlier, where we creatively want to help release something bad enough to figure out a way to make it work somehow, and work it did.
Links:
https://hominidsounds.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/hominidsounds/
https://twitter.com/hominidsounds
Curated by: Christos Doukakis