Anyone who knows me well will have heard my rambling on about Speedy Wunderground and the sheer calibre of the bands they’ve been producing over the past year or so.
The indie label was created by producer Dan Carey, an industry vet that’s worked with artists ranging from Tame Impala to Kylie Minogue. Carey however, is now doing something different. When speaking to the Quietus in 2013 he stated “When you’re recording something, there’s a moment that comes just after everyone having learnt the song enough to be able to play it, where it just sounds amazing, because it’s slightly on edge, because no one’s 100% sure – I want to record that bit.”
He has built this philosophy into Speedy Wunderground, embedding it into his incredibly compact recording sessions. They start in the morning and finish before midnight, with no lunch breaks, and the mixing happening the next day in a similar format. What this creates is raw, engineered style that pushes bands to be tight and well-drilled, encouraging spontaneity and in-the-moment experimentation.
Carey uses the approach to “prevent over-cooking and faff” and to be fair to him, I think it’s paying off. The best example of this is the labels poster boys, Black Midi. The band is on a meteoric rise, garnering widespread attention and critical acclaim, including a mercury prize nomination, for the grimy, exploratory and immediate neo post-punk sound of their debut Schlagenheim. The label also produced some of the coolest bands of last year, my personal favourite being Squid. A band who tiptoe around the sinkholes of genre, ingrained with a distinct groove and Talking Heads-esque delivery which allowed them to craft their sensational debut EP Town Centre. You also can’t ignore Black Country, New Road, a weird and wonderful musical collective dissecting the obstacles of the modern world through a melting pot of spoken word poetry and their own brand of orchestral punk. They’re inconceivably original, selling out a tour from just two released tracks and word of mouth.
So, you may ask, how is Dan Carey doing all of this? Well, the scouting from Pierre Hall cannot go unnoticed as the talent he brings in is second to none; but I believe Carey is close to a mythical status in the producing world. He has injected a newfound originality that’s shaping the modern post-punk scene and long may it continue. I just can’t wait to see what’s next.
