It's not quite the final chapter as the story continues for Chapter Music
Wellbeing first, Out Of Sight, Rising, and Connecting different threads of music history
Noah chats to Guy Blackman all about Chapter Music’s history, Rising Festival and how things will look going forward.
Firstly, congratulations! It’s an unbelievable achievement for you and Ben to have run your label for as long as you have. Can you tell us about the decision to continue at a different pace?
Thanks Noah, that's very kind of you to say. I guess Ben and I realised it was getting to the point that if we kept trying to do the label as we had been, we would be putting our wellbeing at risk - financial, mental, maybe even physical.
There's a pretty specific combination of things going on in the world that make running a record label harder now (for us at least) than it has ever been in the time we've been doing it.
Reissues have been a significant part of what the label does since the late 90s, and nowadays it seems easier for us to create interest and find an audience for our reissue releases. It's also less of an overwhelming responsibility. Our relationship with current artists has often been really close and intense - most of them don't have managers or booking agents etc so we're the only team they have to bounce ideas off, confide in, look for support from. The reissue artists are often just bemused by the whole process, their years of music-world ambition and drive are mostly behind them, so it's a more relaxed process.
At this point in our lives (we're old now!), after 33 years of running the label we've decided to stop releasing current artists, and focus on maintaining our back catalogue and releasing reissues at a more relaxed pace.
The label will continue, we have more releases planned for later this year and into the future, but we will hopefully have more space to think about what else we want to do with our lives.
Chapter's next three releases (the last two & one soon) - Teether & Kuya Neil's debut album YEARN IV, Npcede's debut a self-titled EP and your (Guy Blackman's) second solo album Out Of Sight - will be the last three contemporary artist new releases. Can you tell us about the significance of these records?
Each one of these is really special to us. The Teether & Kuya Neil album is our pick for the best rap record ever made in Australia. Working with Josh and Neil has been really satisfying and stimulating over the last 4 years. We were pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone and at first I was worried that we would be viewed with suspicion or derision by these two very cool young experimental hip hop kids - like who are these old weird dags trying to have a meeting with us? But it has turned into one of the nicest relationships we've had through the label, so warm and funny and productive. We are really proud to have YEARN IV as one of the label's swansong releases.
Npcede were a band that we discovered after we had already decided we were going to be winding down the label's new release arm. We happened to catch their first ever gig and were totally blown away, immediately we could see potential for them to become huge. For us the idea of releasing the debut EP by a brand new band as one of our final releases had a perverse appeal, and we liked the idea of going out with a bang. Npcede are one of the most exciting new bands we've heard in such a long time, their combination of harsh industrial electronics with bits of shoegaze, rap and modern pop is really thrilling and their live show is totally wild and exhilarating. The EP turned out incredibly too. For me it feels like we're proffering up this amazing band as a gift to the world, for some other great label to swoop in and snatch them up and make them immensely famous.
And my own solo album is the final new artist release on the label. It seemed like a nice touch to close out this part of our catalogue with my own solo album, plus I needed to know that the other releases were all planned and locked in place before I could focus on my record. It has been hard to give myself space to be an artist too while running the label, so another element of this transition is an attempt to remind myself that I'm a songwriter and a musician.
I love that you will be finishing off the contemporary releases so appropriately with your own. It’s been a long time since the original release of Adult Baby (2008) but not so long since the Vinyl re-issue (Sep 2024). How long has Out Of Sight been in the works?
My album Out Of Sight has saved me in many ways and given me a bit of hope for the future. My last solo album Adult Baby came out in 2008 and for many years I didn't have any confidence that I'd ever make another. I'm sure I used the label as an excuse not to put myself out there as an artist, but I also came to realise that's just the way my brain works. If someone needs something from me I'm going to put that first, in front of my own needs. I guess in many ways the label had to end for me to be able to make another album. Even then, if Liam Parsons hadn't messaged me out of the blue saying "I'm going to be in Melbourne for two weeks next month, let's make that album we've been talking about," it probably would never have happened. I owe it all to Liam and he's my hero.
I had been battling some pretty severe depression, life around Covid and label troubles and my mother dying had overwhelmed me, so spontaneously starting to make a record gave me a light at the end of the tunnel.
During Covid I started making shitty demos on Garageband at home, which was pretty demoralising because they sounded so awful, but at least I knew I had enough songs for a new album. Then Liam messaged me at the end of 2022 and suddenly we were in his Good Morning bandmate Stefan Blair's granny flat / bedroom studio in Collingwood doing five days recording. We recorded 16 tracks, with Liam and Stefan learning the songs as we went along.
It sounded really immediate and warm and all at once/finally I felt like I had the makings of another record.
Liam lives in London these days so after he went back to the UK I wasn't sure how to finish what we'd started. Then in mid 2023 I bit the bullet and went to London to do more recording, in Liam's flat in Hackney, with his partner Shaad working on his laptop on the bed a metre away from us! I was also there working with Laura Jean and Cable Ties who were touring, so I was killing three birds with one stone and the whole thing was stressful but still fun. Then back in Melbourne I ummed and ahhed for a while again before reaching out to Liam Halliwell from Snowy Band and asking him to help me put the finishing touches to the record and mix it. That happened over much of 2024. Casey Rice who recorded Adult Baby finalised the record (that's the word she prefers to use instead of mastering), and the beautiful artwork and layout, by Charlotte Ghaie and Kate Jinx respectively, came together earlier this year.
It's such a nice feeling having a new album and I love the way it turned out. That and French label Pop Superette writing and asking to reissue Adult Baby on vinyl for the first time in 2024 have given me a new lease on life!
I really appreciate your love of hidden gems and the re-issues you have put out on Chapter so far. I and also many others are relieved to know that you will still be putting out occasional re-issues delving into the hidden histories of forgotten or under-appreciated music. Have you got anything planned at the moment?
I love doing the reissues, I've always wanted Chapter to help connect different threads of music history and bring our favourite parts of the past back into the present. We do have a reissue coming out towards the end of this year by an artist we put music out by nearly 25 years ago, but I shouldn't totally give the game away just yet. And yes there are a bunch more reissues planned for 2026!
I’m sure this is a hard question, but what are you most proud of when you reflect on your label and what the stand-out releases that everyone should listen to now to get the best sense of the essence of Chapter Music?
I can never isolate particular albums by particular artists when I get asked this question, that's just too hard, so I just talk about the compilations we've done that I'm really proud of. Our Australian 70s/80s post-punk comps Can't Stop It! 1 & 2, and the Strong Love gay 70s songwriter comp are the key ones. With those, I feel like we helped people discover musical worlds that they didn't realise existed, and made the original artists realise the music they made had a lasting and significant legacy.
Can you tell us your connection to Melbourne’s thriving music scene and what it means to you?
We're just excited by what's happening immediately around us. It was the same when the label started when I was a teenager in Perth in the early 90s, and that just grew when I moved to Melbourne in the mid 90s and started life with Ben.
Music in Australia is as smart, funny, cool and important as anywhere else in the world, but when we started Australia wasn't very good and valuing its own art and culture. We've tried to do our bit to change that as best we can.
Melbourne is a central meeting point for Australia's most interesting artists and musicians, so many of them end up moving here, and for a long time rent, cost of living etc made it possible to focus on music here without having to dumb it down too much.
Things are getting harder, but there's still more good venues and more people trying to make good music here than anywhere else in the country (and more than just about anywhere else in the world really).
I'm really excited about just going to good gigs again and not having to worry about the label side of things.
What a way to go out with a bang with your big Rising show at Max Watts! You have Andras & Oscar, Gregor playing a special career survey show with his band, Little Ugly Girls, Tenniscoats from Japan, Npcede, and yourself (Guy Blackman) with your backing band of local luminaries. You also have two of your favourite non-Chapter musicians, singer/songwriter Ryan Davis (Kentucky, USA), and the rising star Sidney Phillips( Brisbane). Can you tell us about how you put this together and if it this is there was anyone you really wanted but it just didn’t align?
For our Rising lineup we wanted to have a pretty broad cross-section of the label's catalogue over the last 33 years. So it spans from me and Little Ugly Girls, who both stretch back the 90s, up to our newest signing Npcede. Andras & Oscar were one of our first forays into electronic/club music with the label and their Café Romantica album is a long time favourite for many people, plus they almost never play, so it felt like a coup to get them on the bill.
Tenniscoats are one of the best live bands in the whole world and represent the small number of overseas artists we have released on Chapter, as we've always wanted to focus on bringing great Australian music to the world instead of vice versa.
Ben and I lived in Tokyo 2002-2004 and have been fans of Tenniscoats since even before then. Gregor is an angel and is playing a kind of greatest hits set with a full band, which he has never done before.
It was also really fun to look outside the label roster and think who else we would like to showcase. Kentucky cryptic country crooner Ryan Davis is one of the best songwriters in the world right now, and Brisbane bedroom eshay rap goddess Sidney Phillips is a glimpse of what the future of Chapter might possibly have looked like if we weren't winding down.
We did ask Dick Diver, but Rupert lives in Sweden these days and couldn't make the timing work around his job, so they are playing shows here in August instead. The lineup we ended up with is perfect though!
Finally, who are your favourite local Melbourne bands at the moment or who would you like to see interviewed for Tempo?
Gonna have to say Npcede are my favourite current live band in Melbourne, but there is a large bunch of others that Ben and I love, including Way Dynamic, The Green Child, Lou, Snowy, Who Cares?, Wet Kiss, Prophetic Justice Ministry, Tongue Dissolver, ZK King and the current incarnation of Essendon Airport. You should interview them all!