EXPOSURE
Behind This Wall has worn many skirts. What started as tumblr page evolved into an ad hoc rooftop record exchange, a club night, one deck pop-up raw bar, event supply service, summer long terrace take-over and, eventually etc, permanent digs at the bar.
The loose threads that knit the whole thing together have been a want for communal space factoring design, good drinks and music. At the start we were three DJs (surprise, surprise) looking to create environments to share the records we were collecting in. Somewhere, between the club-night and bar part, the idea came to start a record label. This blazed a golden trial of hasty edits and club-connection remixes, before landing on a 3rd release compiled by the new networks forged at the bar, and then flat-lining.
Running a label is hard work. Marketing it just to cut through is a pretty full-on job. With the bar struggling to find its own feet, both intrepid adventures into the unknown hindered the message of the other. DJ Stingray electro heaters to go with your Manhattan, anyone? Above all else, when you have a lot of creative endeavours on the burn and none of them are quite clicking you end up feeling pretty over-exposed.
One of the wonderful things about the bar is the instant feedback loop. Make someone their favourite drink to taste and the satisfaction is reciprocal and instantaneous. Err slightly and you can fix it and go again. Music hits different. Months in the studio, mastering, pressing, commissioning artwork and then presenting to the world; you lose any agency of your creation.
This is all to say: in the main, huge respect to people who put their music out into the world, celebrating you with friends is why we started out. But also, time lends different perspectives on your endeavours. The label we ran tells a part of our story - what was a giddy, amorphous time for us now sits more neatly into the narrative. We’ve weaved this into the new site by adding the catalog to the store. If you blinked and missed it first time - why not have a look now :)
AA single from Behind This Wall. From London to the world.
Abuja 336 is a collective led by Bow-based vocalist Jim Caesar; Violet Hour dubs heavy on a psychedelic jam recorded during a moment of inspiration at Villa Lena, Tuscany.
Sega & Chess is a collaboration between two artists unknown; catch the ‘Night Elm on Mare St’ during the wee hours outside our bar after drinking too many shots of soju.
Hot acid wax – white label press with tab inserts.
Sophomore release from Behind This Wall. For club use - from London to the world.[something special; white label]__ 2 x acid edits produced on an ensoniq ASR-10 sampling instrument & a roland SH-101 mono-synth in a club style.
Inaugural 12” release from Behind This Wall. For club use – from London to the world.
Prior to our final Plastic People session (for which Detroit’s DJ Stingray was the guest) we hit on the idea for this record/label over a heady, vodka-infused orgy of grilled meats in the basement of Tayyabs restaurant, Whitechapel. Here are your results. A punch-drunk polyrhythmic experiment that melds together fractured 9 bar loops of ailing machine sounds in two distinct trans-Atlantic templates: one slung-low, unaffected & skittish from our stable monk-jack; the other a skittling, spectral tour-de-force from the masked sensei.