How did the idea of Med School born? Who are the people who stand behind and what are their jobs with the label?We were receiving a wide range of quality music that we couldn’t possibly fit into the already hectic Hospital release schedule. So Hospital boss Tony Colman aka London Elektricity decided we needed a vehicle which would give these tunes the exposure they deserved and Med School was launched in September 2006. I deal with the day to day running of Med School, the A&R activities are shared between myself, Tom, Chris and Tony.
What are the main goals of Med School? What does the label want to reach?Med School was set up to push exciting new music that other labels weren’t adventurous enough to put out. We wanted to build a home which would give established artists a platform to release experimental work, but at the same would allow new artists to flourish. We try to set trends in d&b rather than follow them, but our primary aim is to put out quality music, whether it’s for the dancefloor or simply to listen to on your iPod.
How many copies are sold of the release? Which release was the most popular, and what do you think why is that?I can’t go into specifics about sales figures, but we have been pleasantly surprised with the success of the label when it comes to music downloads on iTunes, etc. Sometimes it’s hard to say why one release does better than another, I guess good music speaks for itself.
Do you think that you have some kind of benefits next to other leftfield/drumfunk/experimental dnb labels becouse of the fact, that Med School is Hospital's sister label? If yes, what are those benefits?I think a little of both. Being linked to a label as prestigious as Hospital has obvious advantages, but sometimes it can work the other way. We don’t want to be dependent on Hospital and the idea is that the label is self sufficient, we want to develop a sound and a following of our own. We have to take a different approach with Med School, we can’t run it in the same way as Hospital. Ultimately, we just do what we can to the best of our ability and it seems to be working.
Just like the early Hospital times, all of the release has the same design. Are you planning to release the vinyls always with different artworks, like Hospital does now? Who is responsible for artwork at Med School?The Med School artwork is coordinated and executed by Chris Goss and Ricky Trickartt who are also responsible for much of the Hospital art. All our releases come in the Med School 12” house bag, which got redesigned after Craggz “My Detroit” (MEDIC6). When starting up a new label and building its catalogue, it’s vitally important that your releases have continuity both audibly and visually. Providing we can come up with something that is as unique and striking as our music, it’s entirely possible we may release different artwork in the future.
Name 5 tracks from Med School discography, which can describe the label the most, or it's important in the label's life becouse of some kind of reason.It’s hard to pinpoint exact tunes given we have only released 12 records. All our releases are quite unique, but I have to say the “New Blood” EP (MEDIC7) was a very successful moment for us. Not only did it out perform our expectations, it was the first double pack (2x12”) to be released on Med School and it featured two brand new artists (Randomer and Minotaur) who both went on to release solo 12s for us.
What are the plans for 2009? What kind of new projects and artists can we expect?2009 should be big for Med School, our next release will be out towards the end of January and arrives courtesy of Trisector from Finland. This will be his first d&b release having made an impact on the breaks scene as part of production duo Takomo, The beautiful “Morning Rain” has got proper old school Good Looking roll out styles and flipside “Structured Light” is a more neuro/techy affair with squelching synth work and tough beats.
Also in January we are hosting room 3 at Fabric as Hospital Takeover the entire venue on Friday 9th January. You can catch Marcus Intalex, Klute, Icicle, Martsman, Instra:mental and Randomer in the Med School room, full details on the Hospital website.
There’s also plenty more music and new artists in the pipeline too, most of which I can’t reveal just yet. However, I can confirm there will be another release from Randomer after his massive Med School debut with “Blind” and “Jobless” and we’re working towards a Martsman album… watch this space!
One other thing I would like to mention is that Martsman has crowned an excellent year by being nominated for two awards at the Future-Music.net Awards 2008. You can show your support by voting here before December 15th…
http://www.future-music.net/awards2008/abstimmung/ Please make sure you keep it locked to the Med School surgery by hitting our website (http://www.medschoolmusic.com/) and our MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/medschool). We’re also on Facebook too, so check out our group and our fan page.
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