Kye

I have no academic musical training. My interest in music began through the discovery of people like Bolan, Bowie, Roxy Music, Eno, Velvet Underground, The Stooges -all the obvious teenage touchstones, and just expanded from there. That was a very important, exciting time of discovery and development.

Kye was started as a platform to promote my own music. The first release, ‘Poem (For Voice & Tape)’ LP came out in 2001. There then followed a six year period of inactivity before 2007’s ‘Salmon Run’. It was only then I decided it would be nice to make the label larger than a vehicle purely to serve my own interests. I got in touch with Moniek Darge and asked if she’d be interested in working with us, and it grew from there. I don’t plan further than a few months ahead so I have no definite idea as to what the next year will bring.

Our release schedule tries to reflect a balance between new artists who are otherwise little known such as Good Area and Astor, established artists I consider of some importance/influence: Darge, Christiansen, Heyboer, and then my own material. This hopefully keeps Kye from leaning too heavily in one direction and makes for a richer discography.

I don’t pay any attention to genres or categorizations. I’ll leave that for other people to pontificate over. You can put me in a box when I’m done.

Kye is not competitive. We do our own thing in our own space, although we share certain aesthetic values with some other labels, particularly Penultimate Press in London, who we work with. All the reissue programming we’ve done so far has been to salute artists I personally hold in high regard and that have been an influence. I see it as an opportunity to repay a debt of thanks.

If people are kind enough to send me money I think it’s important that they get an actual physical object back in return. I’ve never looked into digital formatting for Kye release so I don’t hold a very strong position on the subject.

Telling noise artists from Eastern Europe that I cannot serve them at this time.

Unless it’s a release I have a direct involvement in, I leave all the design decisions to the artist. I think it’s important for them to know how they want their music dressed as this can impact the way an audience judges the final release. So for that reason, I think, digital formats suffer. After all, there’s not much aesthetic beauty watching an mp3 file load into an iPod.

The next release is a 2LP by the late Dutch artist Anton Heyboer called ‘Rules Of The Universe’. This is a very special release, not only because his audio work is so unique and compelling, but also because it’s the first time since 1976 that Heyboer has had his work available on vinyl. Beyond that we have the second LP by Astor called ‘In Land’ which is even more outstanding than the debut ‘Alcor’ LP. I also have a new 7″ coupling: ‘Abersayne’, a highly emotional love song, and ‘Attersaye’ a memorial to a totaled automobile. That will be out around October.