Catching Up With Med School's Label Manager: Ash Howard

On Friday 26th October, the Med School label will celebrate the release of Medical Mix - a CD and extended digital package of new and old Med School material mixed by Joe Syntax - with an official album launch up in Room Three. It’s a bit of a milestone, getting to a place where you can look back and start to think about collating your label’s output in a way like this. As humans, we can get so caught up in the day to day that sometimes it pays to take stock of the things you’ve done and look back over the products you made and the people’s lives you touched by doing it. That’s why we asked Med School’s label manager Ash Howard, to sit back, take a minute and help take us through his side of running the label. It works neatly as a more personal companion piece to the Short History of Med School article we ran last week. Can you tell us about Med School’s raison d’etre? Initially the focus for Med School was simple; to push a different palette of sounds to those you would expect to find on Hospital. This ethos continues to be a driving force six years later, but now the label has grown and expanded beyond that, carving out an identity of it's own with it's own group of exclusively signed artists. In addition to our core artists we are constantly looking out for new talent, hoping to unearth some little gems that nobody else has discovered yet. In the early years we put out music by upcoming artists like Icicle and S.P.Y and it's really nice to see them become established names within the genre. Although we are predominantly a drum & bass label we are looking for music and influences across the electronic music spectrum. It has become a bit of a cliché but drum & bass influenced drum & bass just doesn't appeal to us. What is your role at the label? There are a combination of tasks for a label manager, everything from refining our web and social networking strategy, to ensuring our latest 12" is being delivered on time, to listening to and A&Ring new tracks by our artists and of course listening to demos - lots of them! My main role in the wider company actually involves running our publishing company Songs In The Key Of Knife, but luckily for me there is a hard-working, closely-knit team here at Hospital each with different roles and different levels of involvement in Med School. Without these guys I would struggle to keep the good ship Med School sailing. Tell us a little about each of the artists signed to Med School? Ha, how long have I got? The artists on Med School are all very different personalities with varied working practices covering a wide range of musical styles, but are all really good guys to work with and all receptive to our feedback. Bop and Unquote are both from Russia, where the creative industries really seem to be growing after years of oppression. Bop is a beardy, fruitarian embracing techno influences to create his truly unique take on drum & bass. It's not music that will slam out a dancefloor - and that's the point! Unquote is from a similar school of thought but focuses much more on big melodies and epic, celestial symphonies. Our two UK artists are Joe Syntax and Lung. Joe also cites techno as an influence but prefers to take it to the dancefloor in a way that only Joe knows how. Of all our artists he lives the closest to our office so fortunately we are able to see quite a bit of him, he is also an incredibly adept DJ. Lung's strength is in his versatility and musical ideas. He's equally capable at moody or uplifting, at either 130 or 170bpm. He's also the chattiest person I've ever met… in a good way of course! Our most recent signing, and most people won't know this yet, is Royalston from Sydney in Australia. Royalston also prefers to keep things dancefloor orientated with his blend of complex rhythm and precision engineering that is unmistakable. What are some of the milestones from Med School’s six-year history? Well, in July 2009 we released Bop's debut LP, Clear Your Mind, which was definitely a landmark moment. Not only was Bop the first artist we'd signed exclusively to Med School but it was the first album and the first product released on CD. It also seemed to be a real turning point in terms of musical direction and confirmed that we could strike a good balance between ambient, deeper releases and tougher more techy sounds. Another milestone for us was putting on our first Med School event back in 2008 at Plastic People in London. Subsequently we've lots of shows outside of London and now we are regularly hosting Room 3 at fabric, which has been a fantastic opportunity for the label and great fun. The other important progression for the label is in the release of our various artist compilations, which have been really well received by fans, DJs and press alike. These comps have provided a brilliant platform to release music by more artists that we don't often work with, from grass-roots artists who have never had a release to more established names. Can you tell us a bit more about the Medical Mix – what’s the idea behind it? There was a turning point in Med School's development when we began signing artists exclusively, releasing multi-formatted albums and having more events. I felt some of the newer fans may not be aware of some of the older catalogue and I wanted to repackage some of the highlights in a new way with a bunch of exclusive new content to keep it fresh. We explored various formatting ideas and different ways to present the music, but we decided a mix CD by one of our artists would be a good way to bridge new and old. Joe Syntax stepped up to deliver a brilliant mix peppered with some exclusive unreleased VIPs and remixes for good measure. The digital release includes the mix and a few extras not on the CD. We'll also be releasing an exclusive limited edition vinyl package, so keep an eye out for that! The lineup for the fabric launch continues the Medical Mix theme… Joe Syntax is first on the bill having mixed the CD release and with the sounds of his Modus Bass Fun EP still ringing in the ears. Expect bouncy, techy beats from Med School's own. Then we've got Synkro and Stray who made their Med School debuts back in 2010 on our New Blood 010 album. They’re two artists who we've continued to follow and support. Synkro is likely to cater for the dubstep and garage tinged end of the spectrum whereas Stray will go in with some deep, jungle-tinged experimentalism. Anile has three tracks featured across two previous Med School compilations will bring a slightly darker slant on proceedings. Then last but not least, Villem who is fresh from the release of his Shimmer EP on Med School last month... Catch Med School launching the Medical Mix in Room Three on Friday 26th October.