When world renowned dance imprint Soma readied the launch of a 20th anniversary compilation earlier this summer it wasn’t expecting birthday fireworks like those experienced earlier this week. As savage rioting gripped London and major cities up and down England, so one of Sony’s major distribution centres in Enfield burned to the ground and with it the stock of several key PIAS-distributed labels including Desolat, Buzzin Fly, Warp and, of course Soma.
“Essentially our whole back catalogue has been destroyed” Soma co-founder Glenn Gibbons sighs. “We will not be able to afford minimum runs – 500 units – on all our previous releases so it looks like all of these will be deleted as CD or vinyl releases and only available in digital format from now on. All copies of our Soma Records - 20 Years compilation were destroyed too, and we’ve had to repress all stock there which is hitting our cashflow pretty badly. It’s a really difficult time, but we’re working on resolutions and it looks like Sony and PIAS have squared a deal with another distribution partner in order to get releases moving again next week.”
Unexpected, unpredictable, unprecedented – this fast-moving, social media-fuelled outbreak of civil unrest has to be a bitter bill to swallow for small, independent set-ups like Soma. “Well, opinion is polarised within the UK and also in my thoughts” Gibbons responds, with impressive composure. “On one hand it’s shocking, and putting lives and livelihoods in danger can’t be condoned or tolerated. On the other side, it’s a large socio-political debate. There’s a large amount of disenfranchised youth within the UK, brought up by single parents in housing estates, who have no prospects of getting a job, escaping their environment, gaining some self respect and respect for their families and communities. This has been gradually happening for the last 20 years…. It’ll probably take another 20 years to sort it out.”
But we’re here, of course, to talk about the 20 years Soma has expertly navigated since its inception in 1991. Soma evolved from an insanely popular late Eighties party hosted by Orde Meikle and Stuart McMillan at Glasgow’s now defunct Tin Pan Alley club; the night was named after classic Phuture track Slam, as was the pair’s now legendary production alias. Meikle and McMillan subsequently moved to another prominent Glaswegian night spot The Sub Club (with night Atlantis) but by then Soma’s roots had been deeply sown.
“We never expected for the label to get so well established and well-known” Gibbons says. “When we started the aim was just to release a few of our own tracks and then organically the label just grew from there.”
Soma was founded by Meikle and McMillan alongside Gibbons, Jim Muotone (who used to record as Rejuvination alongside Gibbons) and promoter Dave Clarke. The latter, not to be confused with the techno producer of the same name, is currently label MD, whilst Gibbons, also a director, heads up A&R. What explanation can the latter provide for Soma’s longevity? It’s not often you enjoy a lengthy innings of anything in clubland, such is its long track-record for economic frailty and light-speed change.
“It’s down to being tight Scottish gits!!” Gibbons jokes. “No seriously, it has been really hard to adapt to the ever-changing landscape within the industry and survive. We’ve had to make some very serious decisions within the past few years to ensure Soma keeps running. Today, we have a really tight, efficient team of people who work hard and with real passion. We also believe we have a really strong A&R policy, which is crucial. In the early days there was a lot of partying, which was fun but not conducive to effectively running a record label; we’ve grown up but not at the expense of our output.”
Of course, squeezing Soma’s illustrious back catalogue onto just three anniversary discs must have been a nightmare. Beyond the obvious delights of flagship tracks like Slam’s Positive Education, Silicone Soul’s Right On, Right On and that killer Daft Punk remix of Scott Grooves’ Mothership Reconnection lies a wealth of deep house and techno treasures by H-Foundation, Desert Storm, Mark Henning and Tony Thomas, to name but a few.
“We think we’ve done a pretty good job with 20 Years, succinctly cramming the main history of the label onto the final release” Gibbons answers. “However, we’ve also compiled another three collections, including a ‘hidden gems’ CD, and two further collections of recent remixes of the back catalogue by some 70 of our favourite producers, old and new. We’ve been bowled over by the level of support. All of these collections will be released digitally in October, after the main album.”
Soma also has a series of anniversary parties lined up between now and October; parties everywhere from Fabric in London to Space in Ibiza. One particularly special gathering will take place September 30 at the Arches in home city Glasgow where the label (alongside Slam Events) hosts monthly shindig Pressure. Its other local residency is Return To Mono at The Sub Club.
“The label has an active presence on the club circuit in Scotland and our events are always great there but I’m sure The Arches birthday event will be particularly poignant” Gibbons says. “Scotland has always been a vibrant place for music (electronic and other styles). I think there is a slight ‘outsider’ mentality with Scottish artists, who are more determined to create something special to prove that London isn’t necessarily the centre of music in the UK. As far as we’re concerned, we’ve always pushed hard to create those special, high quality records; and maybe change the way people think about electronic music.”
It’s a mentality more than exemplified by Soma’s mid-Nineties discovery of Daft Punk. The French duo, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, were only just starting out when they first came into contact with Gibbons and his associates. They immediately impressed and ended up releasing their first three EPs (including mighty Da Funk) through Soma before setting their sights on total world domination….
“I remember climbing to the top floor garret of a building in the winding streets of Montmartre, Paris to listen to a Tascam Portastudio four-track recording of a couple of tracks by two young French boys who had been introduced to us by a local French fanzine writer” Gibbons fondly recalls. I was thinking that Toulouse Lautrec and Vincent Van Gogh may have had their studios here in the 19th Century when Bangalter hit the play button and ‘BOOM!’ blew us away with a couple of hard techno tunes [The New Wave and Assault]. We walked back down past the Moulin Rouge, having heard the first tracks by Daft Punk and knew there was something very special happening in Paris. Da Funk came soon after and the rest, as they say, is history!”
There have been many other such highs – “I remember taking test pressings of Positive Education to Ibiza in 1993 and getting amazing feedback from every DJ…there were a lot of mellow tracks around and Slam blew the roof off several places” – and lows – “I also remember the fire at our offices and studios in 2000, more so this week… fire seems to follow us around” - in Soma’s hard fought-for time, but what of the future? How does Soma propose to build upon its unquestionable dancefloor legacy?
“Our goals remain the same,” Gibbons calmly stresses. “We want to release exciting, wide-ranging music consistently and, frankly, just survive. In the short-term we have a great new album from The Black Dog Liber Dogma; it’s really innovative techno and fortunately, all of our copies were in Glasgow waiting to be shipped to Sony’s warehouse when the fire hit. Beyond that there are albums scheduled from Alex Under and Gary Beck in the early part of 2012. It never stops!”
Not even for a few days? If anyone deserves downtime right now it has to be Soma. “Well, we do take the obligatory two weeks of holiday each year to re-charge the batteries” Gibbons confides “but whilst there’s always a serious challenge there to keep Soma going life is never boring and that’s all the inspiration we need to keep on spreading the word. We’d like to think there’s still appetite for what we do long into the future.”
Here’s to another 20…
Words: Ben Lovett
Soma Records – 20 Years is released on September 19.
