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Mexican Summer | |
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Founded | 2009 |
Founder | Keith Abrahamsson and Andres Santo Domingo |
Genre | |
Country of origin | U.S. |
Location | Brooklyn, New York |
Official website | www |
Mexican Summer is an independent record label founded in 2009 by Keith Abrahamsson and Andres Santo Domingo. [1] Based in Brooklyn, New York, the label has released recordings from artists including Best Coast, Kurt Vile, Ariel Pink, Allah-Las, Weyes Blood, Connan Mockasin, Jessica Pratt, and Cate Le Bon. The label is named after the song "Mexican Summer" by Marissa Nadler. [2]
In 2013, T: The New York Times Style Magazine described the label as "a bastion for experimental pop, not to mention a model for successful music publishing in the 21st century." [3]
Mexican Summer began in fall 2008 as a subscription service for limited edition, ornately packaged vinyl pieces. [4] On September 2, 2008, they released their first 12" vinyl single Sätt Att Se, from the Swedish rock band, Dungen. “I think the whole idea of Mexican Summer really just came because I wanted to try to develop artists in a different way,” said Abrahamsson. [4] The label continued to add bands to its roster, including early releases from Washed Out, Real Estate, Kurt Vile, and The Tallest Man on Earth.
In October 2009 Mexican Summer opened Co-Op 87, [5] a brick and mortar store in Greenpoint with several other record labels, an idea Santo Domingo called a "vinyl co-op store." [6] In 2011, the label established a recording studio in the same location, Gary's Electric. A second record store, Brooklyn Record Exchange, was opened in March 2019 in Bushwick.
In 2011, Mexican Summer and Kemado Records introduced a new subsidiary label called Software Recording Co. (2011-2016). It was run by Daniel Lopatin, who records under the name Oneohtrix Point Never. Software Recording Co. focused mainly on experimental electronic and dance music. [7] The label's inaugural release was a collaborative album with Lopatin and Joel Ford, Channel Pressure. In March 2016, the label released their final album, Arcology, from Thug Entrancer.
Over the years, Mexican Summer has expanded its catalog to over 200 releases across multiple formats. The label's roster includes releases from Tamaryn, Allah-Las, The Alps, Weekend, and No Joy. One of the label's largest successes was the 2010 release of Crazy For You, the debut album from Best Coast. Additionally, Weyes Blood released her second album, The Innocents (October 2014), and her third album, Front Row Seat to Earth (October 2016), which was met with great acclaim throughout the music industry. [8] In September 2017, Ariel Pink released his first solo LP on the label, Dedicated to Bobby Jameson .
Mexican Summer also launched Anthology Recordings in 2014 as its reissue imprint, serving vinyl and formats unforeseen. [9]
Since 2014, Mexican Summer and contemporary arts nonprofit Ballroom Marfa have organized the annual music festival and multidisciplinary cultural program, Marfa Myths, held in Marfa, Texas. Marfa Myths showcases established and emerging artists, with notable performers including Roky Erickson, Annette Peacock, Pharoah Sanders, Kelsey Lu, Deerhunter, Amen Dunes, No Age, and Wire. [10]
In November 2018, Mexican Summer celebrated the label's 10th anniversary with "A Decade Deeper," an all day festival at Pioneer Works, a cultural center in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Performers included Ariel Pink, Allah-Las, Tonstartssbandht, F.J. McMahon, Quilt, Jess Williamson, Drugdealer, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Part Time, Pill, Arp, Dungen, Cate Le Bon, Photay, and Ben Steidel.
The label is distributed in the United States through Caroline Distribution by way of Universal Music Group, and in the United Kingdom and Europe through The Orchard.
Anthology Recordings is a reissue imprint. The label was founded by Mexican Summer A&R man, Keith Abrahamsson, in 2004, and has reissued records from artists such as Trad Gras Och Stenar, Linda Perhacs, and Rüdiger Lorenz, among others. [13]
In 2016, Anthology Recordings expanded its repertoire, and began publishing books under the imprint, Anthology Editions.
Pharoah Sanders was an American jazz saxophonist. Known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of "sheets of sound", Sanders played a prominent role in the development of free jazz and spiritual jazz through his work as a member of John Coltrane's groups in the mid-1960s, and later through his solo work. He released over thirty albums as a leader and collaborated extensively with vocalist Leon Thomas and pianist Alice Coltrane, among many others. Fellow saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world".
Dungen is a Swedish rock band based in Stockholm. Often classified as psychedelic rock, Dungen is also influenced by Swedish folk music, classic rock, progressive rock, garage rock and alternative rock.
Progg was a left-wing and anti-commercial musical movement in Sweden that began in the late 1960s and became more widespread in the 1970s. Not to be confused with the English expressions "progressive music" or "prog rock," progg is a contraction of the Swedish word for musical progressivism, progressiv musik. While there were progg bands playing progressive rock, the progg movement encompassed many different musical genres.
Linda Perhacs is an American psychedelic folk singer, who released her first album, Parallelograms, in 1970 to scant notice or sales. The album was rediscovered by record enthusiasts and reissued numerous times beginning in 1998, growing in popularity with the rise of the New Weird America movement and the Internet. In 2014, she released a second album titled The Soul of All Natural Things, and a third, I'm a Harmony, in 2017.
Gustav Ejstes is a Swedish musician. He is the singer and frontman of the Swedish psychedelic rock band Dungen. Ejstes himselfs plays many of the instruments within his recordings, alongside bandmates Reine Fiske (guitar), Mattias "Tiaz" Gustavsson (bass) and Johan Holmegard (drums).
Ta det lugnt is the third album by the Swedish psychedelic rock group Dungen. It was produced by Gustav Ejstes, the lead singer and instrumentalist of the band. Ejstes also recorded and mixed the album.
Kemado Records is an American record label based in New York City founded in 2002 by Andrés Santo Domingo and Tom Clapp.
Träd, Gräs & Stenar is a Swedish rock band formed in 1969, from previous incarnations Pärson Sound, International Harvester and Harvester. The group was one of the front acts of the Swedish progg scene, although noticeably less political than their contemporary counterparts. Their sound has been described as raw, psych rock jam, by the writer David Pescovitz, who also notes the band would invite their audiences to improvise and collaborate.
Parallelograms is an album by American psychedelic folk singer Linda Perhacs. It was produced by Leonard Rosenman. Her first and only album until the release of The Soul of All Natural Things in 2014, it was all but completely ignored when originally released on Kapp Records in 1970. Discouraged by the lack of commercial attention and the label's reluctance to promote the album, Perhacs returned to her career as a dental hygienist. In the 30 or so years that followed, the album gradually developed a cult following.
The Spirits of Our Ancestors is an album by pianist Randy Weston that was recorded in 1991 and issued on the Verve label. While all of the compositions were composed by Weston himself, the music on the album is more specifically a collaborative arranging effort between Weston and arranger Melba Liston. The music on Spirits is played by an all-star cast of musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, Pharoah Sanders, Dewey Redman, Idris Muhammad, and Idrees Sulieman.
Jewels of Thought is an album by the American jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. It was recorded at Plaza Sound Studios in New York City on October 20, 1969, and was released on Impulse! Records in the same year. The 1998 reissue merged "Sun In Aquarius" into one 27-minute-long track.
Nils Reine Fiske is a Swedish guitarist, art director and sound engineer at the record label Subliminal Sounds, who put his signature to many prog-rock projects such as Landberk, Morte Macabre, Paatos, Motorpsycho, Elephant9, and Träd, Gräs & Stenar. He is best known for his playing in the band Dungen.
Izipho Zam (My Gifts) is the third album led by saxophonist Pharoah Sanders recorded in 1969 but not released on the Strata-East label until 1973. It features Sanders with a large ensemble.
Live at the East is a live album by American saxophonist and composer Pharoah Sanders released on the Impulse! label.
Africa is an album led by saxophonist Pharoah Sanders recorded in 1987 and released on the Dutch Timeless label.
Natalie Laura Mering, known professionally as Weyes Blood, is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She was primarily raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She has been performing her own material under variations of the name Weyes Blood since 2003.
Anthology Editions is an independent book publisher based in Brooklyn, New York. An imprint of the record label Mexican Summer, Anthology Editions was originally founded by Keith Abrahamsson and Andres Santo Domingo in 2016. The publishing company was an expansion of the existing Anthology Recordings brand, founded in 2004.
Purple Pilgrims is a New Zealand dream pop duo composed of sisters Clementine and Valentine Nixon.
Alexis Georgopoulos, who often records under the name Arp, is an American electronic musician, composer, and music producer based in New York.
Promises is a 2021 studio album by the British electronic musician Floating Points, the American jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra. It was released on 26 March 2021 through the New York label Luaka Bop. It consists of a single 46-minute composition noted for its "dreamlike" quality. The album has received acclaim from music critics, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Mercury Prize. Promises was the final album Sanders released before his death in 2022.