FOLD Invites Craigie Knowes
Craigie Knowes is more than just a record label; it’s a living, breathing organism. The two brains behind it – Max and Mitch – have operated this four-pronged entity since its inception, attentively raising it from its embryonic state as it sprouted arms and legs into what now exists today: a reigning vinyl imprint, a DJing duo, a bi-monthly residency at La Cheetah in Glasgow, and a steadily evolving mix series.
Beyond this tending of the beast, it could be said that they’ve found their success not only from their own talent but also from how they nurture a close friendship with each other and their collaborators. Leaning towards a “go with the flow” approach to their creative direction and allowing their work to speak for itself, their familial appeal is evident at their parties and through their label output, with friends and personal inspirations evenly comprising their faithful network of collaborators who have helped shape their reputation over the years.
From tales of shunning “serious” protocol by inviting local Scottish heroes to MC at landmark shows to the endless challenges of hunting down old gems to repress with their Wormhole Wisdom collaborator Parts Unknown, we sat down with Max and Mitch to find out how they find the humour in their mistakes, their advice for labels facing vinyl pressing delays and expanding upon the significance behind their exclusive accompanying mix.
Thank you for the mix that you both made for us. Tell us more about the theme and tracks you incorporated.
This is definitely more of a techno-based mix rather than the “usual” stuff that we play. We always play techno in our sets, but we feel this one is a little bit purer to the styles of techno we enjoy.
Since things have opened back up here, this set has come off the back of our booking to play at the Slam tent, which is an infamous institution within Scottish dance music that originally started at T In The Park. It is run by Slam and was originally very heavily focused on techno – it’s been rescheduled to next year when we finally get to play at it. We spent a lot of time over the tail end of lockdown putting picking out techno records specifically for that set, because we’ve never particularly done one of these genre-focused type of sets before.
There are so many people that play the Slam tent that aren’t explicitly techno DJs, so for us we wanted to pay homage to what we remember the Slam tent being when we visited as young punters. This mix for FOLD was a great opportunity because we buy and listen to a lot of techno, but we don’t release or play out strictly techno sets. We really enjoyed the process of focusing on one area of dance music for that show, and when this came up, we thought, what better opportunity to drop a full mix to showcase the archive of our favourite techno finds with people who actually care about that music and frequent FOLD.
There’s a mix of older stuff from late 80s and 90s through to today – although it’s interesting that it’s actually sometimes difficult to tell which track was made in 2021 or in 1986. We’ve included raw elements from techno’s earlier years and new school takes on that sound, plus more tribal stuff from the late 2000s as well. There’s some terrible stuff from then but there’s also some really tasteful stuff which we love!
It’s been a strong start for you both since Scotland finally came out of lockdown: after several supporting appearances, you recently secured a headline slot at the legendary Sub Club. How did the show go?
It felt like the culmination of the whole journey that we’ve been on. As one of the first shows that we did since the lockdown happened, it felt like a huge release of energy that we’d all built up over the last 10 or so years. Our previous warmup slots were amazing – one of the reasons that we got into dance music was because we’d go and see Harri & Domenic warmup from 11 o’clock. We’d be the first ones on the dancefloor and the last ones to leave, so from those early tasters of that environment to then headlining felt like the story reached its natural conclusion.
Coming back after having that break from clubs, we’ve noticed that the gigs we’re playing now are among some of the best that we’ve ever played. Something’s shifted, and it feels like there’s a new clarity between us when we are playing. We’ve always enjoyed playing together and always will, but now it feels like a new energy in terms of how we do it.
We were hoping for the opportunity before COVID hit, but we’re glad now that it only happened when it did – it feels like we were able to do it justice that time, as opposed to if it had happened at another point in the past.
On the note of hometown gigs, how was the recent Ice Factory gig?
Ice Factory might have been one of the very first gigs that we ever played. Growing up in Perth, it’s quite a small town, and there was quite an infamous reputation of the venue. The Rhumba Club was held at the venue and was such an institution within UK dance music – not just in Scotland but in places as far away as Wales where punters would travel from on a weekly basis to party in Perth. The venue used to hold about 2000 people every weekend, so coming from playing there years ago to the recent gig was another feeling of the culmination of us showing everyone what we’ve learned over the past ten years of making mistakes and evolving.
It was similar to Subculture in a way – the only difference being that we were running the night rather than just playing – so those two gigs in a row have made us realise that we have learned so much over the past decade rather than just melting our brains…
It was the right time to come back to our hometown with an understanding that the people going to these gigs in a particular city require a mix of music that they recognise and some new stuff they may not know. That was part of the idea for the night and what we want to continue to do going forward. It clicked that the focus should more often be on the crowd itself rather than explicitly what we wanted to play in the booth or book DJs to play. Having that understanding now, everything felt clearer in how we should run things and what we should putting our attention to.
Back in October you also dropped by Poland for a short run of shows. Tell us more about the highlights and surprises of this trip…
It’s funny because whenever we’ve travelled abroad, no matter where we go, we’ve found that everyone who works for underground clubs is broadly quite similar. There’s a common denominator between everyone in the way that they act, their ideals and ethos… Granted, some do deviate from the path a little, but on the whole, no matter where we go, people are mostly singing from the same hymn sheet, which is wonderful.
It’s great because you feel at home wherever you go, surrounded by likeminded people. Both of the clubs that we went to are very passionate about the effort they’ve put into the clubs and their community, and even in different countries, that same narrative is prevalent throughout.
Poland didn’t disappoint – the people had a passion for what they do. We played shows on each side of the country, so we got a good snapshot of its range of ideals and people. We made friends and played to amazing dancefloors in fantastic clubs – that’s what it’s all about.
Set times are different because abroad (compared to Scotland’s earlier closing times) we get to play a lot longer, which has benefitted us in being able to explore more genres and build a richer set. That, and also that people probably dance better in Europe compared to Scotland – no “here we fuckin’ go” chants, either!
Craigie Knowes is always coming out with some incredibly strong releases, but one in particular that caught our eye is No Moon’s debut album after several EPs on the label. What sets this LP apart from his previous releases – and what else are you really looking forward to dropping soon?
The new No Moon album is an ambient album – that’s the main difference – but all his qualities are still there. All of the melodies that are written into it, the way that it’s composed and the progressions, the synthesizers and pads are still very much his style, minus the drumbeats! You can tell it’s very meaningful to him – we listen to and buy a lot of ambient music, where some of it at times can feel forced. This album has a completely organic feel.
Everyone’s a PR genius nowadays dissecting the meaning behind their albums, but when we spoke to him about it and what it meant to him, the passion he had for it was naturally evident. It was clear this was an important piece of work for him – this was exciting for both of us, and for a label that only really releases EPs, it was quite a big project to take on. People who follow us may not usually buy records like this, but the music does itself such justice that we know we’re onto a winner with this one.
Do you think that this is part of a bigger creative shift for the label in terms of expanding the type of projects you take on?
The label still very much has the same sound, but one thing that’s new is that we normally don’t take on remixes, and we’re releasing a remix of a track coming out next year. Whereas we normally focus on artists creating original tracks.
In the pipeline for the next year, we have a mix of house, techno and electro records, which doesn’t deviate too far from the norm for us. We don’t like to box ourselves into strict rules, but instead focus on what feels right at the time. If you go through our back catalogue, you can pretty much mix all the tracks with each other despite their genre, so there is a general sound that really just encompasses what we enjoy personally. We like to think that there is some sort of continuity…
Your War Child fundraisers have been running since 2015, with the last one dropping in 2020. Do you have any teasers for the next one?
The fifth War Child is coming next year, although it’s pretty far off at the moment. We want to do something special for this one, and the War Child team have always been really supportive of us. It all stalled a bit over COVID, as we wanted to make sure that this landmark release was timed correctly. No finer details just yet – like with everything else it’s a bit of a waiting game at the moment!
It’s been a difficult time with pressing vinyl, with lots of discussions on the reasons why. The resurgence in popularity, overdemand, COVID/Brexit complications and the queue-pushing from mainstream artists are causing a long backlog of pressure on pressing plants. How have you dealt with the issues that you’ve faced, and what advice would you give to other labels going through the same thing?
Our advice would be is that it all starts with finding a good distributor. You also want to find a plant who is transparent on the pressing times, because then you can at least communicate the delays back to your audience and plan accordingly. This is less commonplace that most would think – a lot of plants overpromise and underdeliver. Thankfully, we have a great relationship with our distributer Clone and a great pressing plant called Record Industry in Holland, who are always transparent on pressing times. These places can’t do much to get rid of the backlog any quicker, so the most you can get in these situations is clarity.
It’s likely more difficult for newer labels since they may not have established a proper relationship with a distributor yet, so we’d say to focus on getting the first couple of releases under your belt then aim to get a good P&D deal in place.
Back in March you shared how you were self-distributing the Rudolf C record, but were unsure on the sustainability of doing so. How do feel about this now?
It’s unsustainable – full stop! We managed, but if we wanted to continue doing it, we would have had to quit our day jobs. It was so much more work than we anticipated!
We do have this ridiculous story where we really thought that we had fucked it up with the Rudolf C release. Luckily the artist didn’t suffer from our incompetence. So, the records arrived, and we took them into the studio to put one of them on, and we discovered a massive warp in the copy. The tone-arm of the turntable was moving up and down by at least half an inch with every rotation! We hoped it would be just be one of the records, but we found that it was the entire box. Max emailed the pressing plant and said, look, we’re really sorry but these are completely warped. Luckily, we were doing a repressing, and they were so understanding with us, apologising and talking us through their quality control process and that this is very much a rarity.
A few days later we went back into the studio, lifted up the records and spotted something underneath the slip mat… We found a tiny stylus brush that had fallen underneath – there was absolutely nothing wrong with these 500 records. By that point the plant had already put through an order for the new presses with heavier vinyl, so I had to send an email which had “I am an idiot” as the opening line…
The worst thing is that it was both of us who made this mistake – neither of us could see the rationale for our blind panic. Thankfully all the records were perfect, and thanks to the plant [Mobineko] for suffering our idiocy with grace.
We still fondly remember the weekend you played a double whammy down in London in July 2019, moving straight between a Boiler Room showcase to an 8-hour takeover at FOLD the following night. What memories do you have from that weekend?
It was such a fast-moving weekend – FOLD was incredible. We brought friends down with us on the train, and when we left the station, it was boiling. All of us were really sweaty and we had a guy waiting for us, who asked “Craigie Knowes?” and ushered us two into a Mercedes S-Class which is airconditioned, and our poor friends had to get about 4 tubes in 30-degree heat, so we waved them off like “Byyyye…”. All jokes aside, that never happens normally – we normally have a horse and cart for transport…
There’s a funny story behind our MC for the weekend, Callum Hunter. He lived in Glasgow when Max lived there, and he’s somebody that everybody knows – if you say you’re from Scotland, you’ll be asked if you know him. The answer from most people in dance music is “yes, I do” – he’s an unforgettable character. When we first started the label, he helped us get in touch with several artists.
He was on holiday with a friend touring the Southern states of America when we reached out to him, so he’d spent the best part of several months wearing a cowboy hat, boots, possibly spurs, and every time he put a video up on his Instagram story, he would be speaking in a fake Southern accent. When we spoke to him, he told us how he was stuck in character which he couldn’t stop.
When we were planning the Boiler Room, they asked us who could MC on the night, and immediately we thought: we think we know the guy to do this. So, Max phoned him, and he answered the phone saying “howdy!” and when we tell him the plan, it turned out that he was already flying into London on the day of the show. He came straight from his Southern state adventure to introduce the Boiler Room show and then partied with us the whole weekend at FOLD!
He hadn’t actually done professional hosting before, but he was a natural – there’s a video of him singing Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World” in front of 5000 people in an amphitheatre in Berlin. For context, he’d been up partying for days, and everyone in the video is cheering him on as he sings in his very Scottish accent.
You were flying the flag for some incredible tunes that time. What labels are you particularly excited about at the moment?
There are so many artists who are making great music. Roza Terenzi has been one of the most exciting artists to emerge in the last few years when it comes to club focused tracks – the music feels completely individual yet familiar at the same time. Every record is exciting and fresh.
In terms of labels, Casa Voyager continues to blow us away with every release, and Lisene/Adam Pits’ imprint On Rotation is also doing a lot of exciting stuff, so we’re buzzing to see where they go with their next project. Spray’s label/productions are one to watch, as well as artists like emkay, Biodive, Escape Artist, Jeku, moy, Popmix, Justin Pazkad, Maruwa, Maara, Eversine, Giammarco Orsini, DJ Steve and a ton of others!
We also love Superluminal Records at the moment which is run by Matthias – he does an excellent job of releasing interesting club-focused EPs. Butter Sessions are always buy-on-sight, and finally, Domain Records from Tbilisi and Radiant Records are always putting out really cool stuff, too!
You’ve had household names like James Shinra and Carl Finlow write some incredibly popular releases for Craigie Knowes. How did you first align with Carl for ‘Beckoned’ and then ‘Boolean’ and ‘Descent’?
When we’d just started out the label and had wrapped up the first War Child fundraiser. We had initially proposed to release a cassette of Carl Finlow’s music, but he wasn’t too sure on the format, so we thought, why not put this on vinyl? That conversation led to us picking out 3 tracks for the ‘Beckoned’ EP first, and the reissue of ‘Anomaly’ was added in right at the end. It was honestly just a case of getting in touch with him – it’s been the same with most artists that we’ve worked with, even from the beginning. Sometimes you think these names are unreachable, but with mutual connections and nowadays with Instagram especially, it can be easier than you think.
We try not to melt people’s heads too much by selling ourselves with big pitches. It’s not really our style as we hope people will naturally pick up our vision and what we’re about. You just want to ensure that you show sincerity in your commitment to making the releases work for the artist. For Carl’s subsequent EPs we just followed up upon the natural progression of how the previous releases went. Our repeats always come from good relationships with our artists, and it’s always fun to do something different each time.
With Craigie Knowes always expanding, how have your offshoots like Wormhole Wisdom been coming along?
Wormhole Wisdom is a wildly interesting project. The majority of the A&R work for that is done by Parts Unknown, who’s commonly known to us and our friends as George (or Dode!). He was actually at our FOLD show in 2019 – he’s ridiculously talented when it comes to digging for records. He knows everything about all the seminal genres. We realised this project would work quite well with us heading the label perspective and him with as the A&R – for those that aren’t familiar, we dig for old tracks and reissue them, and then deal with the outpouring of conflicting opinion that reissues cause along the way…
It’s all quite an odd thing to work on. The people that you’re working with are of a different generation – there’s a different understanding of what dance music was when they first released music in the 90s versus now. These people have usually stepped away from music since then, so we try to offer the means to re-introduce their music to the world with our current understanding of how things work.
When you’re hunting down records, some of the characters you meet are wild. We find out so much about people in terms of how their lives evolved after the party stopped for them! We’ve made good friends along the way, meeting people from around the world you would never normally meet otherwise. Sometimes you end up on a wild goose chase, trying to retrieve phone numbers for people with no social media, and trying to explain to them why they’ve got a Scottish person ringing them up…
It’s always unknown territory that you’re entering each time. There’s no set method to reaching what is an uncertain end goal. George has sort of become a private investigator on releasing records, searching for people who have disappeared off the face of the Earth!
Which ones stood out to you in particular?
The ones that have come out are the ones that went well! There’s two or three in the pipeline that would be hard to even put in writing… There was a guy in Canada who George got friendly with who ended up being an organ player at ice hockey games.
How do you see the label and its sub-labels developing over the next several years – do you have a game plan or is it more of a go-with-the-flow, organic approach?
It’s always been organic, but next year things will be really flowing. We’ve got more records than we’ve ever had in the pipeline. There’s a massive amount of music that we’ve got stored up – at the beginning of lockdown everyone was probably feeling a little uninspired, but then after building our studio in Perth, we both decided to just go for it. 3 months later we’d organised 10 releases to go – it’s a really exciting mixed bag of all sounds, with both returning and new artists.
And any particular shows and records that you’re excited about?
The Slam tent gig in March is one we’re really looking forward to as Scottish DJs. It was amazing to see it return after it first disappeared into what was initially believed to be the history books. Our residency at La Cheetah in Glasgow is continuing to sell out every time we play which is amazing, so we’re really looking forward to taking that to the next level in 2022. We also have a big label showcase in London in the pipeline for next year. But as always, we’re mainly focusing on the records as it’s such a big undertaking - whatever else comes along is a blessing!
Words by Emily Rose