Output Recordings: 1996-2006

I said that I wouldn't post tonight, but the reported demise of Output Recordings, one of the UK's best, most interesting labels of the last decade has kind of shocked me into writing a little something. You can read Trevor Jackson's remarkably bitter and saddeningly resigned farewell statement here.

I first heard of Output through Gramme's excellent Pre-Release EP, way back in 1999, but the label really came to prominence three years later when Jackson hooked up with the DFA to release/distribute some of the early DFA 12"s in the UK ('Losing My Edge' and 'House Of Jealous Lovers' being two of them). In recent years, Output have released records by artists as thrilling and diverse as Dead Combo, Colder, Mu and even Yello, but it appears that Trevor Jackson has become disillusioned with the idea of running a label and makes allusions in his statement to undue pressure from his artists to deliver beyond his means. If this is the gospel truth, and I'm willing to believe that it is, then Output has ultimately been hung by the one thing that it refreshingly seemed to lack, and that's ego.

It won't be the first time that an independent label has succumbed to the ubiquitous traits of the human condition that it naively tried to avoid, but it's still always a bummer when they do. It will be interesting to find out, if indeed we ever do, which of Output's artists made with the unreasonable demands (my money's on Colder), but whatever Trevor Jackson decides to do next, never let it be said that he didn't make some kind of dent on the musical landscape of the early noughties.

Let's remember the good times, eh?

Gramme - Like U (mp3)

Dempsey - ODB On The Run (mp3)

Colder - Confusion (mp3)

DK7 - The Difference (mp3)

Manhead - Birth School Work Death (mp3)

I might post some more Output mp3s tomorrow, but that's the best I could do at short notice,

JMx