R&S Records

Last updated
R&S Records
R&S Records logo.svg
Logo
Founded1983 (1983) (original iteration)
2008 (2008) (relaunch) [1]
Founder
  • Renaat Vandepapeliere
  • Sabine Maes
Defunct2000 (2000) (original iteration)
Genre Dance music, mostly techno [1]
Country of origin Belgium
Official website www.rsrecords.com

R&S Records is an independent record label founded in 1983 in Ghent, Belgium. [2] [3] R&S represents the initials of Renaat Vandepapeliere and Sabine Maes, the couple that created the label. [2] [3] R&S Records has had several subsidiaries, most notably Apollo Records, which was reactivated in 2009. [2]

Contents

R&S and its subsidiaries include releases by Lone, Paula Temple, Joey Beltram, Capricorn, Aphex Twin, Biosphere, C.J. Bolland, Sun Electric, The Source Experience/Robert Leiner, Model 500/Juan Atkins, Silent Phase, System 7, Dave Angel, and Ken Ishii. [4] [5]

History

R&S Records label founder Renaat Vandepapeliere in 2012 Renaat Vandepapeliere R&S 2012.jpg
R&S Records label founder Renaat Vandepapeliere in 2012

The label was first named as Milos Music Belgium but just one record was released on the label. Vandepapeliere went from DJing to developing the label in response to his personal irritation with the Belgian music scene while getting inspired by Belgian New Beat in the late 1980s: [2]

I worked in a record shop, but as a DJ I was getting very frustrated with the Belgian scene. The clubs were so commercial and American music just wasn't accepted. The guys that were importing records here, they went straight into the studio and created a bad cover of it. I didn't like that. I said, "Respect the artist. License it in, and let's have the original track." That's where the idea to start the label started, and it was New Beat that gave me the chance.

In 2000, Vandepapeliere shut down the label. Speaking to Stuart Aitken in 2009, he explained his reasons for doing so. "I was bored. I'd had enough. So I went and did something else. I started my stud farm." [6]

After a hiatus from 2001 to 2006, the label re-launched from its current London base with brand new releases from new artists like James Blake, Delphic, Pariah, Space Dimension Controller, Untold, Djrum, Blawan, Synkro, Lakker, Nicolas Jaar, Vondelpark, Radioslave and the return of Model 500/Juan Atkins.

When asked in an interview with Clash Magazine in November 2009 why the label went on hiatus, Vandepapeliere explained: [2]

I've been away because I was totally bored with the business side of music. At that moment, I thought the whole dance music scene was repeating. I was listening to the same records with the same sounds, so I said, "I've had enough. Bye, bye." I could have been a very clever businessman and exploited it. I could have made much more money, but if I don't feel something in my life – I stop.

In 2018, R&S Records released "Loyalty", the debut release from LA based soul trio Gabriels (Ari Balouzian, Ryan Hope and singer Jacob Lusk). [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

In February 2021, the record was accused of discrimination against black and female artists as well as support for an Anti-Semitic artist on the label's roster. [12] However, the discrimination lawsuit was dismissed in May 2022 on a technicality. [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120-130 beats per minute as a re-emergence of 1970s disco. It originated in the Black queer community in Chicago. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culture and evolved slowly in the early/mid 1980s as DJs began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat. By early 1988, House became mainstream and supplanted the typical 80s music beat.

Electronic body music (EBM) is a genre of electronic music that combines elements of industrial music and synth-punk with elements of dance music. It developed in the early 1980s in Western Europe, as an outgrowth of both the punk and the industrial music cultures. It combines sequenced repetitive basslines, programmed dance music rhythms, and mostly undistorted vocals and command-like shouts with confrontational or provocative themes.

Detroit techno is a type of techno music that generally includes the first techno productions by Detroit-based artists during the 1980s and early 1990s. Prominent Detroit techno artists include Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Jeff Mills, Kevin Saunderson, Blake Baxter, Drexciya, Mike Banks, James Pennington and Robert Hood. Artists like Terrence Parker and his lead vocalist, Nicole Gregory, set the tone for Detroit's piano techno house sound.

Stock Aitken Waterman are an English songwriting and record production trio consisting of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman. The trio had great success from the mid-1980s through to the early 1990s. SAW is considered one of the most successful songwriting and producing partnerships of all time, scoring more than 100 UK top-40 hits, selling over 150 million records and earning an estimated £60 million.

Hardcore is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany in the early 1990s. It is distinguished by faster tempos and a distorted sawtooth kick, the intensity of the kicks and the synthesized bass, the rhythm and the atmosphere of the themes, the usage of saturation and experimentation close to that of industrial dance music. It would spawn subgenres such as gabber.

Popular music of the United Kingdom in the 1980s built on the post-punk and new wave movements, incorporating different sources of inspiration from subgenres and what is now classed as world music in the shape of Jamaican and Indian music. It also explored the consequences of new technology and social change in the electronic music of synthpop. In the early years of the decade, while subgenres like heavy metal music continued to develop separately, there was a considerable crossover between rock and more commercial popular music, with a large number of more "serious" bands, like The Police and UB40, enjoying considerable single chart success.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eurobeat</span> Music genre

Eurobeat refers to two styles of dance music that originated in Europe: one is a British variant of Italian Eurodisco-influenced dance-pop, and the other is a hi-NRG-driven form of Italo disco. Both forms were developed in the 1980s.

Cameo is an American funk band that formed in 1974. Cameo was initially a 14-member group known as the New York City Players; this name was later changed to Cameo.

<i>Analogue Bubblebath</i> First record by the musician Aphex Twin

Analogue Bubblebath, also released as Aphex Twin ep, is the first record by musician and producer Richard D. James. The EP was released under his alias The Aphex Twin through Mighty Force Records in September 1991. It was the inaugural release for the label, which at the time was a record shop in Exeter. The record was hugely influential on the development of electronic music, particularly techno and ambient techno. Its release has been described as a key event in the history of dance music. It is the first release in what became the Analogue Bubblebath series.

Christian Jay "C. J." Bolland is an English-Belgian electronic music producer and remixer with British roots.

Rhythm King Records Ltd was a British independent record label, founded in the mid-1980s by Martin Heath, Adele Nozedar, DJ Jay Strongman and James Horrocks. It was based in Chiswick, London.

Hayley Michelle Aitken is an Australian pop singer-songwriter and record producer who also performs mononymously as Hayley. She had a top 40 hit on the ARIA Singles Chart with her second single, "Kiss Me Quick". Aitken has worked as a songwriter or producer for other artists, and is a prolific producer for many K-pop artists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Dresden</span> Musical artist

Dave Dresden is an American electronic dance music DJ and producer, co-founder of the collaborative acts Gabriel & Dresden with Josh Gabriel, and Dresden and Johnston with Mikael Johnston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LMFAO</span> American musical duo

LMFAO was an American electronic dance music duo consisting of Redfoo and Sky Blu. Redfoo is the youngest son of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy and Nancy Leiviska. Sky Blu is Gordy's grandson and the son of Redfoo's half-brother, Berry Gordy IV, Gordy's son with his first wife Thelma Coleman.

<i>Beauty & the Streets Vol. 1</i> 2009 mixtape by Mya

Beauty & the Streets Vol. 1 is the debut mixtape by American singer Mya. It is her first mixtape to be released by Young Empire Music Group with distribution from Fontana Distribution on September 29, 2009. The project came to surface when Harrison felt as though she had abandoned her U.S. fan base and wanted to release music for them. The mixtape served as Harrison's second independently released project on her own label imprint Planet 9 and was created to serve the "clubs, strip clubs, whips, and bedroom" with a predominantly southern sound.

Techno is a genre of electronic dance music which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range of 120 to 150 beats per minute (BPM). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often characterized by a repetitive four on the floor beat. Artists may use electronic instruments such as drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers, as well as digital audio workstations. Drum machines from the 1980s such as Roland's TR-808 and TR-909 are highly prized, and software emulations of such retro instruments are popular.

New beat is a Belgian electronic dance music genre that fuses elements of new wave, hi-NRG, EBM and hip hop. It flourished in Western Europe during the late-1980s.

David Morley is an English former child actor, most notably featured in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.

An independent record label is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented by trade associations in their country or region, which in turn are represented by the international trade body, the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN).

Belgian hardcore techno is an early style of hardcore techno that emerged from new beat as EBM and techno influences became more prevalent in this genre. This particular style has been described as an "apocalyptic, almost Wagnerian, bombastic techno", due to its use of dramatic orchestral stabs and menacing synth tones that set it apart from earlier forms of electronic dance music. It flourished in Belgium and influenced the sound of early hardcore from Netherlands, Germany, Italy, UK and North America during the early-1990s, as a part of the rave movement during that period.

References

  1. 1 2 "R&S Records". Resident Advisor. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Akhtar, Ash (2 November 2009). "Renaat Vandepapeliere Interview". Clash . Retrieved 17 August 2012.
  3. 1 2 Walker, Jennyfer (8 August 2016). "R&S Records sign deal with Believe Digital". Music Week . Retrieved 28 February 2017.
  4. "30 alternative classics from pioneering dance label R&S". FACT . 24 October 2013.
  5. "Top 10 classic R&S Records releases". Four Four. 22 February 2017.
  6. Aitken, Stuart (June 2009). "In Order to Edit". Flux.
  7. Bridgewater, Paul (16 December 2018). "LA group Gabriels graduate from Prada to R&S with a reflection on the timeless mystery of love". The Line of Best Fit .
  8. "Gabriels — Loyalty". R&S Records. December 18, 2018.
  9. "Gabriels - Love And Hate In A Different Time - Repress". Piccadilly Records.
  10. Johnson, Neil (7 December 2020). "Gabriels share new EP 'Love and Hate in a Different Time'". WithGuitars.
  11. Otis, Erik (January 17, 2019). "R&S Records Welcomes Los Angeles' Gabriels". XLR8R .
  12. "Dance label R&S Records accused of racial discrimination". BBC News. 10 February 2021. Retrieved 26 August 2021.
  13. "Tribunal dismisses racial discrimination claims against dance label R&S Records". BBC News. 2022-05-09. Retrieved 2023-03-03.