Subharmonic (record label)

Last updated
Subharmonic
Founded1993 (1993)
Founder Bill Laswell
John Matarazzo
Robert Soares
StatusDefunct
Genre Ambient, dub
Country of originU.S.
LocationNew York City

Subharmonic was an independent record label based in New York City. It primarily issued music with strong ambient and dub music influence. [1] Its sub-label was Strata Records, which issued all its albums in an opaque black container. The label was founded in 1993 by music producers Bill Laswell, John Matarazzo and Robert Soares. A falling-out with Matarazzo occurred during the mid-nineties, effectively ending the label's activities. [2]

Contents

List of releases

Main discography

No.YearArtistTitleFormat
0011993 Divination Ambient Dub Volume I CD, CS
002 Praxis Sacrifist CD
003 Divination Ambient Dub Volume II CD, CS
004 Chaos Face Doom Ride CD
0051994 Pete Namlook & Bill Laswell Psychonavigation CD
006 Jonah Sharp/Bill Laswell Visitation CD
007 Praxis Metatron CD
008 Painkiller Execution Ground CD
009 Bill Laswell/Tetsu Inoue Cymatic Scan CD
0101995 Bill Laswell & Terre Thaemlitz Web CD
011 Divination Akasha CD
012 M.J. Harris & Bill Laswell Somnific Flux CD
013 Lull Cold SummerCD
014 Final OneCD
017Cypher 7SecurityCD
0211997 Aïyb Dieng Rhythmagick CD

Strata discography

No.YearArtistTitleFormat
00011994 Death Cube K Dreamatorium CD
0002 Azonic Halo CD
0003Cypher 7DecoderCD
0004 Automaton Dub Terror Exhaust CD
0005 Jihad (Points of Order) CD

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burning Spear</span> Musical artist

Winston Rodney OD, better known by the stage name Burning Spear, is a Jamaican roots reggae singer-songwriter, vocalist, and musician. Burning Spear is a Rastafarian and one of the most influential and long-standing roots artists to emerge from the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capitol Records</span> American record label

Capitol Records, LLC, and simply known as Capitol, is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note in the United States in 1942 by Johnny Mercer, Buddy DeSylva, and Glenn E. Wallichs. Capitol was acquired by British music conglomerate EMI as its North American subsidiary in 1955. EMI was acquired by Universal Music Group in 2012, and was merged with the company a year later, making Capitol and the Capitol Music Group both distributed by UMG. The label's circular headquarters building is a recognized landmark of Hollywood, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Laswell</span> American musician (born 1955)

William Otis Laswell is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, world music, jazz, dub, and ambient styles.

Wax Trax! Records is an American independent record label based in Chicago. It began as a record shop in Denver, Colorado, opened by life partners Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher, who sold the store in 1978 and moved to Chicago. In November of that year, they opened a store under the same name in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. During the 1980s and 1990s, the accompanying record label became a strong presence on the industrial music scene as well as the punk rock scene in Chicago, and an outlet for European bands. The label was purchased by TVT Records in 1992 and was discontinued in 2001. In 2014, it was re-established by Julia Nash, daughter of co-founder Jim Nash.

Michael John Harris is an English musician from Birmingham. He was the drummer for Napalm Death between 1985 and 1991, and is credited for coining the term "grindcore". After Napalm Death, Harris joined Painkiller with John Zorn and Bill Laswell. Since the mid-1990s, Harris has worked primarily in electronic and ambient music, his main projects being Scorn and Lull. He has also collaborated with musicians including James Plotkin and Extreme Noise Terror. According to AllMusic, Harris's "genre-spanning activities have done much to jar the minds, expectations, and record collections of audiences previously kept aggressively opposed."

Aïyb Dieng is a Senegalese drummer and percussionist specializing in hand drums. He has recorded two solo album, including Rhythmagick (1995), and has worked with a wide range of musicians, including as a regular collaborator of bassist/producer Bill Laswell.

<i>Dreamatorium</i> 1994 studio album by Death Cube K

Dreamatorium is the first album by American guitarist Buckethead, under the anagram name Death Cube K. The album explores an abstract, ambient-influenced musical style. It was released on May 13, 1994, by Strata and again in 1995, including a graphics image generator software by Interactive Multimedia Corporation as the first track. The included software is fractint, a freeware fractal generator software that may be obtained as a standalone download from the fractint website free of charge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dancing with Myself</span> 1980 single by Gen X

"Dancing with Myself" is a song by the punk rock band Gen X, first commercially released in the United Kingdom in October 1980, where it reached number 62 on the UK Singles Chart. It was remixed and re-released by the band's singer/frontman Billy Idol as a solo artist in the United States in 1981, where the song reached number 27 on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. Nouvelle Vague covered the number in 2006 and released it on their album, Bande à Part.

<i>Sacrifist</i> 1994 studio album by Praxis

Sacrifist is the second album by Bill Laswell's experimental music project Praxis, released in 1993 on Laswell's label Subharmonic. Originally, the album was intended to be a Rammellzee project, but soon was converted into the second Praxis album, after suggestions made by John Zorn.

Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. Australia has several bands and sound systems that play reggae music in a style faithful to its expression in Jamaica. Australia has a relatively small Jamaican community, but reggae penetrated local consciousness via the popularity of reggae among the non-Jamaican population of England in the 1960s and 1970s. Many indigenous musicians have embraced reggae, both for its musical qualities and its ethos of resistance. Examples include Mantaka, No Fixed Address, Zennith and Coloured Stone.

Dub techno is a subgenre of techno that combines the style with elements of dub music, including its sparse, delay-heavy production and prominent bass.

Gabriel Paul Katz is an American bassist and founding member of the noise rock band Blind Idiot God. He performed with the band since its formation, recording three studio albums with them between 1987 and 1992. He also assisted bandmate Andy Hawkins in the recording of his Drone music project Halo, released as Azonic in 1994.

Jem Records was a United States record label that originally existed from 1970 to 1988, at the time principally known as the parent company of Passport Records. The label was resurrected in 2013 as Jem Recordings.

<i>Ambient Dub Volume I</i> 1993 studio album by Divination

Ambient Dub Volume I is the first album by American composer Bill Laswell to be issued under the moniker Divination. It was released on October 8, 1993, by Subharmonic.

<i>Ambient Dub Volume II: Dead Slow</i> 1993 studio album by Divination

Ambient Dub Volume II: Dead Slow is the second album by American composer Bill Laswell to be issued under the moniker Divination. It was released in 1993 by Subharmonic. The album is 61:38 minutes in length.

<i>Doom Ride</i> 1994 studio album by Chaos Face

Doom Ride is an album by American composer Bill Laswell, released under the moniker Chaos Face. It was released on July 8, 1994, by Subharmonic.

<i>Web</i> (album) 1995 studio album by Bill Laswell & Terre Thaemlitz

Web is a collaborative album by Bill Laswell and Terre Thaemlitz, released on January 24, 1995, by Subharmonic.

<i>Somnific Flux</i> 1995 studio album by M.J. Harris & Bill Laswell

Somnific Flux is a collaborative album by Mick Harris and Bill Laswell, released on March 7, 1995, by Subharmonic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Matarazzo</span>

John Matarazzo is an American musician, composer, producer and performer. He has worked with artists including Bill Laswell, Blood Sweat & Tears, Bob Dylan, Ike & Tina Turner, Sly & The Family Stone, Ravi Shankar, Herbie Hancock, Daniela Mercury and Buckethead. In 2010, he established the experimental electronic music project Logical Drift.

<i>C86</i> 1986 compilation album by various artists

C86 is a cassette compilation released by the British music magazine NME in 1986, featuring new bands licensed from British independent record labels of the time. As a term, C86 quickly evolved into shorthand for a guitar-based music genre characterized by jangling guitars and melodic power pop song structures, although other musical styles were represented on the tape. In its time, it became a pejorative term for its associations with so-called "shambling" and underachievement. The C86 scene is now recognized as a pivotal moment for independent music in the UK, as was recognized in the subtitle of the compilation's 2006 CD issue: CD86: 48 Tracks from the Birth of Indie Pop. In 2014, the original compilation was reissued in a 3CD expanded edition from Cherry Red Records; the 2014 box-set came with an 11,500-word book of sleevenotes by one of the tape's original curators, former NME journalist Neil Taylor.

References

  1. Veal, Michael (August 15, 2013). Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae. Wesleyan University Press. p. 96. ISBN   9780819574428 . Retrieved October 19, 2014.
  2. "Subharmonic". www.silent-watcher.net. 2010. Retrieved October 19, 2014.