An artist or act launching and running their own label is seldom a ‘stop the press’ moment. Sometimes it feels like exciting indie imprints are founded on the daily. But in the case of The Glitch Mob‘s All The People Records? There’s definitely an argument to at least pause and take it all in. Even if you haven’t got a press to stop.
The label launched early September with the massive Body Moves (a ghetto-grinding pounder with the inimitable Samurai Breaks and Uniiqu3) and was actually announced to the world on Vision Radio in June.
But as edIT and Ooah unleash the second release – the technoid breakbeat stomper Move You – it’s time to learn more about this new DIY mission and how it’s different to any previous imprint the band have used to release their music.
You see, as a collective The Glitch Mob have run their own imprints and platforms pretty much since day one. First as a self-titled imprint before they even became The Glitch Mob themselves, then as Glass Air, the label that’s been responsible for all of their albums and singles since 2010.
Now though, as they acclimatise to a new dynamic as a duo and say goodbye to old founding member Boreta, it’s time to cut the oxygen on Glass Air and breathe a whole new energy into All The People.
A new chapter and perspective but still packing the same passionate punch that got them into this knock-out mess to begin with, All The People sees Ed and Josh re-exploring their roots and inspirations and celebrating the true essence that unites us all… Raw, unapologetic, visceral rave music. The cornerstone of every single dancefloor and every single rave; a place where every single person is welcome. Which is where our interview begins…
All The People is strictly for the culture and everyone is invited, right? Tell us everything!
All The People is our new record label geared for all things rave culture and beyond. In the last couple of years we have taken The Glitch Mob in a completely new direction and back to our roots that are deeply seeded in rave culture, particularly with jungle, breaks and hardcore. It only made sense to us to build a label around that to help house our new musical journey alongside the community of talented producers that want to be a part of it as well.
The thought behind ATP was a label for the people, ALL the people, that we can help lift up and share with the world. The community and sound of rave music and the culture surrounding it is timeless in our eyes so we wanted to celebrate that and give our fans new and old a taste of what we were inspired by growing up and the reason why we fell in love with electronic music in the first place.
Do you feel certain aspects of dance and electronic music have missed that spirit in recent times?
In our experience, being artists, especially from the States, we were continually met with a ‘bigger is better’ trajectory and in that maybe the spirit of rave culture / counter culture has been lost. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, it’s just not where we wanted to be headed as we are reaching our 17th year since the inception of TGM. We felt it was important for us to get back to the underground scene and sound so we could enjoy the music for the music, that’s it, nothing more nothing less and not all the theatrics that can come with American electronic music, huge ‘EDM’ stages and over the top show production. We wanted to find the raw energy that fuelled us as kids going to raves, dancing all night, minimal lights, banging sound systems and getting lost in the rhythms.
We’re definitely enjoying a more party-inspired, open armed approach in selections and productions. Very few people seem to be sitting in one genre right now (which is a great thing)… All The People reflects where we’re at as much as it reflects where TGM are at, right?
Yes, that’s correct. The less-is-more approach was important to find again in our productions. Let the tunes be about the party-inspired atmosphere and less about a huge epic emotional journey that we had been so well known for many years. That’s the inspiration for All The People! Not that maximal, well-crafted production is not welcomed, it was just for us trying to get back to a simple and raw approach to writing music again. Warehouse rave bangers, who doesn’t love that?
ATP is here to celebrate the love for rave culture and sound whether it’s modernized or kept in that ‘rough around the edges’ form, all are welcome.
In many ways this is a celebration of your roots and what brought you here isn’t it?
Exactly, as said before, as we move into this new era and scale everything back down to the roots of it all we have a clear vision of what we like, what feels timeless and not play a part in the arms race of making it to the top. Keeping the music about the music and that’s it.
Labels are at the heart of TGM in a way aren’t they? The Glitch Mob began as a label, you’ve released your own music almost consistently since day one on Glass Air. I guess this makes All The People even more of a statement?
Labels are something we never put too much stake in, to us they were just that; a label to release our music on. The very first TGM release before we decided to write music together in the studio were solo releases from each member of the group, almost as if we were a ‘collective’. I think those were technically released on Daddy Kev’s label Alpha Pup way back. But ever since then we moved into doing all self released records, eps and singles on our own label Glass Air.
#For us it was a way to control the creative and artistic integrity and direction without having to compromise anything whatsoever. We own 100% of our music minus a few remixes here and there for artists such as Daft Punk, The Prodigy, Evil Nine, etc. Starting ATP was also a way for us to timestamp our past catalog with the recent departure from the third member Boreta.
We felt it was important to close that chapter and seal Glass Air in a time capsule to live on as it was when it was all three of us. As we move forward with ATP we have the opportunity to try things differently that we haven’t in the past like signing other artists that we want to help spread their sound, or throw label themed All The People parties to have the focus more about everyone and not just TGM.
I love that! Body Moves launched the label and was a big statement. A universal ghetto banger from a kick-ass collabo. Serious alchemy! How did it come about?
Body Moves, a collaboration we did with Samurai Breaks and Uniiqu3, came together through exactly what we have been talking about, the rave community!
We were fans of both Sam and Uniiqu3 long before we met them and decided to collab. Our mutual friend Anna Morgan reached out to Sam when she heard us playing some of his tunes in our sets, which spawned lots of sharing music back and forth, into sharing demo ideas and eventually out came the rawness that Body Moves is.
We also saw that Uniiqu3 was going to be in LA for a show and we reached out to her to see if she wanted to do a live modular jam that has since turned into Ed’s Cooking with edIT series. She came through to the studio and the rest was history. Not only did we track a fire modular / eurorack live session, we were blessed with her doing her thing over top of a few of the demos we had been working on. Once Sam heard the Uniiqu3 vocals we all knew they had to be a part of Body Moves. Both Samurai Breaks and Uniiqu3 are such talented artists with their own original styles and sound, it’s an absolute honor to be able to launch All The People which Body Moves as the very first release.
You teased the world with two forthcoming tracks on Vision Radio. Peace and Move You. Move You landed today. When is Peace dropping? And how frequent will releases be moving forward?
Move You and Peace have been in our sets now for most of this year and we are so pumped to finally get them out the door! Move You is out now and Peace somewhere near the end of November. As the label is just up and running, some things are still falling into place as they come but the general plan is to have one Glitch Mob release and one ‘third party’ release per month if all goes well.
Awesome. Did you mention parties earlier? With a name like All The People there’s kinda gotta be parties!
Yes yes, that’s in the plans as well. We feel our sound and the sound we are aiming to support has way more of a global feel than typically what gets played around America so if all goes well we both can see this thing becoming a global party movement, but we’ll start small for now and big up our hometown in Los Angeles. There’s no shortage of incredible artists in our community here. One step at a time!
So I have to ask…. Out of all the people in the world, who are The Glitch Mob’s favourite people and why?
Three of our favourite people? Good question…
- I know this is kind of cheating but our families. Both of us have been blessed with loving and supportive families that have been to countless amounts of shows over the years and have believed in us and our passion for years.
- Our managers Kev & Taylor, they have been with us through thick and thin and still stand by our side to this very day.
- Each other. We are family, we have been friends for almost 20 years and without that we probably wouldn’t have such long and fruitful careers as artists. At the end of the day, we know we have each other’s back through this crazy journey and will always continue to love and support each other.
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