Lexicon Issue 006 - Life Records

Life Records is brought to you courtesy of veteran deejay and Blackmarket envoy Ash-A-Tack. Heading up a team of deejays/producers Life is looking to establish their own unique rolling drum and bass sound. Keen on bringing through and helping to make household names out of a selection of artists including DJ Law, Cabs and Alibi is the name of the Life game.

Life was formed shortly after the death of long time friend of Ash-A-Tack’s Stevie Hyper D. An alliance of artists that formerly worked with one of the most dynamic emcees there has been got together with Ash-A-Tack to make the record label happen. “Stevie’s funeral brought a lot of people together and certain emcees as well. We thought we need to do something you know. So we worked as a group to get things rolling like with the label and with emceeing you know.”

Life has been up and running for over three years now. “It’s been a slow process because when starting a new label it takes a while for you to get good distribution and things on the road. Everything we’re bringing has got a different flavour to it - it’s all drum n bass - but we’re just trying to do things differently. It’s like with certain labels you can just tell their sound instantly. We’re going across the board and doing everything whether it be a dark tune, jazzy, vocal or more jumpy stuff.”

Life is about promoting the artists right and Ash-A-Tack points out that although he is the front man he wants the limelight to fall on the others as much. “The people on Life are being represented as deejays as well, because they are deejays. We’re doing things like live PAs and tours together. It’s not worth just having one person on the label and them having all the vibes whilst others on the label aren’t getting anything.”

As mentioned earlier Life will be going all out to forge their own sound. “The way I see it the Life sound at the moment is more the rollers stuff, it’s more for everybody. You can play it anywhere - you can play it on the radio or in the raves. Different people have got their own categories so with us we’re just doing something different by catering for everyone and not bringing out stuff that sounds like everyone else’s. Life will be rollers, stompers and crowd pleasers.

The way we’re going to do it this year is just to build tunes, hopefully our things will be successful at the end of the day and people will catch on to it. There’s certain deejays who only play certain tunes, they stick to their camp’s tunes. Once you get people playing it, like on the radio, it’s then that you make your success. But until then you just got to work at it and carry on in the studio just building until you get that right track.”

DJ Law has been deejaying on London’s Kool FM for nearly three years as well as playing out at the biggest and best parties all over. She is one of sixty deejays on the station, which is an accomplishment in itself.

Law pens up the drum and bass section of The Voice and has so for five years voluntarily. A producer too Law has appeared under the pseudonym of THC with Cabs on Slow Motion Records besides others.

Started making tunes with Bizzy B of Joker Recordings, Cabs then moved on to Smokers Inc working alongside Smokey Joe. Soon after he set up his own studio and label. Around 1995 he would meet Ash at Blackmarket and discover they lived just around the corner from each other.

Cabs has made tunes for Moving Shadow as Pro-Active and with DJ Law as THC for Slow Motion (and a new experimental label soon to come). Cabs has also been working with Dr S Gachet for Audio Maze.

Alibi made his first tune with nearby producer Steve Gurley (of Rogue Unit / Foul Play fame). They went on to start a label called Foundation off the back of this and saw five releases after the successful debut. He met Ash-A-Tack when he produced ‘The Don’ and upon hearing his idea for Life wanted to be a part of it.

Excited about the changes in the scene at the moment Alibi is looking forward to introducing peoples ears to the Life sound. Expect to see releases from himself and also collaborations with Ash-A-Tack and Cabs.

Running right alongside the record label is the artist agency Life Music Management. Large Imaginations Forming Energy is the full definition of Life and Ash-A-Tack’s partner Helen runs this side of the operation. “We wanted a name that meant something and decided that was the most powerful. It kind of represented us, what we were about and where we came from.”

Life Music Management represents artists across the spectrum of dance music from drum and bass to house and from UK garage to R&B. “We’ve got affiliates like Heartthrob Recordings which are quite massive in the house scene and we’ve got Vocal Fusion which is MC Creed’s agency and R&B wise we’re working with Kiss and Choice on that.”

The agency came about when Helen envisaged Ash-A-Tack being promoted better than he was when they met. “I found that there were a few other really talented people in the same position and I suppose because of the trust in a relationship I was the best person for the job. Anyone that Ash thought was really doing things I decided to take on and manage so that they had someone they knew they could trust and would promote them as best they could.

We actually only manage the people on Life Records where as the other people they’re sort of agency based. At the moment it’s really just about letting the music and artists speak for themselves.” For a full run down of the artists and services of both the label and artist management log-on to www.lifemusicmanagement.co.uk.