Even a video? Cool, thanks. You know I’ve never heard of this band/duo? This tiny excerpt playing from your turntable sounds in fact very attracting… I’ll check it out. It surprise me that you have a favourite of all the times! Not everybody has one. Could you tell me more?
Firstly: the duo Deux Filles is actually two men, that’s them on the cover of the album, in disguise! One of the two is Simon Fisher Turner, famously known for all his later fantastic soundtracks to the Derek Jarman films. The album itself is just beautiful: a wonderful mix of English pastoralism and electronic lullabies and meanderings, with a middle eastern twist at times! There are individual tracks on YouTube, but I couldn’t find the complete album anywhere. Certainly worth getting a copy of, it’s also out on CD…
[Note from Concrete Shelves: I actually bought it and I confirm it’s beautiful, and so it is also the second one from the couple, “Double Happiness”, that is included in the double CD version I bought]
Well, this album is really a good starting point, as I see in it a lot of aspects that bring me to your work with the label. First of all is the ‘retro aura’ that this record has, mostly in the cover. It seems to look back in time, and – even in the name – your label has to do with time. The sepia colour of it is the dominant one in your releases, in the website and in the studio… Why do you like so much this kind of ‘old style’ imaginary, photos, drawings, fonts…
I’m not really sure why I have such a fascination with sepia tones and the overall somewhat distressed and nostalgic feel to my releases, and to the Time Released Sound visual aesthetic in general. Certainly I have always been a bookworm, endlessly reading, as I still do if I can find the time and in my younger days I was an avid collector of antique books as well, in particular illustrated children’s books. Fortunately for me I got the “collecting bug” out of my system early on. I grew tired, at the time, of having a beautiful collection of old books in glass cases that I was afraid to let anyone touch or look at, due to their value and fragility. As it turns out now, I seem to have come to the conclusion that I would rather take old books, disseminate them, and turn their parts into other objects of beauty that more people are able to share than one man with his private library!
I’m a nostalgic, not so much for my own past actually, but for previous era’s and their particular visual stimuli. I love the feel and smell of old paper and it’s lignin infused aromas! I love the differences in paper, in the way certain papers tear, and fold, and crumble, and I enjoy adapting old papers to suit my needs. Also… to be honest it is easier to design and make things that already have a well worn and distressed feel to them. It leaves more room for mistakes haha! And in a way embraces those inadvertent smudges, scuffs and fingerprinting that occurs during the assembly processes!
As regards the TRS fascination with time, and the repeated horological references and imagery we use: I knew when I started my label that I wanted the clock, or a form of the clock to be the symbol of the label. Partly because it is round, like a CD or record and easily lent itself to design motifs. But once I came up with the name, “Time Released Sound”, after much agonizing, I realized that the clock without hands seemed even more appropriate. Because… if the hands from a clock are removed… then the idea of time, or the keeping of time, or the obsession with any particular time is also released… time has been released!
What can I say about your laboratory? It’s an amazing lair of wonders. I think I’m not the first one asking himself “how and where do you get this stuff?”, I mean the objects/books/figures/drawings/photos you use for your special releases.
Yes, although I said that I am no longer a “collector”, I suppose that I still am! The difference being that I only collect books, things, ephemera etc… that I will at some point use in my musical packaging. At least that is the idea! I own enough beautiful “stuff” in my life already… dust collectors! I get a lot of my materials on eBay of course, the ultimate repository of objects. But I am also a compulsive shopper at flea markets, antique fairs, ephemera fairs, garage sales, and curbside junk piles! I live in the great land of waste and over consumption after all… it’s amazing what people throw out here!
Everything seems pretty tidy, or at least well organised. Something in a rather funny way… can you tell us examples of what do you hide in those small white drawers labelled with blue post-its named like “ANIMAL” or “BODY PARTS”?
Although I don’t consider myself a “neat freak”… I do in general work in a fairly tidy studio. Partly because it is smaller than I would like, soon to change hopefully, and if I let it get too out of hand, with everything piling up etc, then there are no surfaces to actually work on! The little white drawers are full of part of my absurdly comprehensive collection of rubber stamps. It would be cooler if there were really animal and body parts in them… but no such luck!
Getting back to records: you showed me Luciano Cilio and Gustavo Foppiani ones. I know the first, but I never heard of the second one…
Aha! That is actually just a tribute to Foppiani. The band is The Doubling Riders, an earlier releae than the one of theirs that I re-released a couple of years back called “Garama”. Both featured Francesco Paladino and Riccardo Sinigaglia: a beautiful record.
I really appreciate “Il Silenzio” played by Nini Rosso, whose cover of the 7″ is displayed on one of your walls! But what’s that sexy photo on the bottom, the naked beauty under the snow?
Ooooooh… damn, it’s a Czech photographer! I’ll have to look into it, sorry!
“Colin Herrick was born in Washington DC in the mid 50’s…the atomic age! When men were men, and did only slightly stupider shit than they are doing now!
He was always somewhat arty as a child…although somewhat sporty as well. Then he left home at age 17, and the artist in him asserted himself dramatically. He baked 6AM cookies in a private girls college kitchen, managed a book store or two, went to the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland California, and commenced working as a building tradesman for the next 30 years, all the while obsessively making “art” and love, and trying to get people to take an interest in either or both.
He has always been interested in unusual packaging, musical or otherwise, and after supporting other arty music labels for years decided to start a label himself, which he calls Time Released Sound. He has been running TRS since December 2011. For the first 6 years he released one over the top and uniquely packaged album a month, without missing one. This took it’s toll on him! He is now on a somewhat bi-monthly schedule… yet nonetheless less mad!”
Bio by Colin himself 🙂
timereleasedsound.com
Concrete Shelves 