With Nic Fanciulli's new mix album for Defected out this week, we look at how his label, Saved Records, grew into the bastion for quality electronic music it is today.
Mainstay UK DJ-producer Nic Fanciulli established his current label Saved back in 2004 and how the time has flown? Saved has, given time, established a relentless conveyor-belt of top-draw house and tech releases from the likes of long-term affiliates Mark Broom and Santos, not to mention relative newcomers Robert Dietz and Canadian dynamo Carlo Lio. It has also spawned scorching parties around the world (not least this year, as part of Saved’s 100th release celebrations) and a seriously credible festival in Fancuilli’s Kentish home town Maidstone.
However, it hasn’t all been plain sailing. Saved, a successor to Fanciulli’s first record label Portent (which signed Mojolators’ crossover anthem Drifting in 2003), opened its account with an EP under its owner’s deep and melodic alter-ego Skylark. The alias was actually one of two exciting projects alongside fellow producer Andy Chatterley; the pair’s chunkier Buick Project output also finding a home on Saved. But Fanciulli, growing more quickly in stature as a DJ, soon found himself booked onto a major international tour with James Zabiela and so Saved “turned to shit.”
The imprint was originally envisaged as a simple platform for the music of Fanciulli and Chatterley but when other artists (including Paul Woolford and James Talk) started swamping the duo with nifty demos they started to think as a label. “I was getting so many demos…I saw the case for Saved having a wider remit” Fanciulli once remarked to Defected. “Of course, when I toured…I had to let the label go a bit and when I got back home and found no-one cared about what had happened to it, I was gutted. I’d gone into the label without a fully realised plan.”
Fanciulli, tackling a scarily steep learning curve, decided to bring in his brother Mark, freshly graduated from university with a music degree, and re-boot Saved. “We sorted the operation from top to bottom” he explained. “We saw that it could be a really effective business card for our sound, and…for the kind of artists we admired. We were soon back in the groove, managing things properly…the demos, the artwork, the remixes…and then it all really took off. We worked really hard; it’s become this massive thing.”
There have been plenty of highlights. Mark Broom’s 2010 long-player Acid House, for one, an incessant mix of raw-edge house and techno historically singled out by the Fanciulli’s as one of Saved’s proudest moments; elsewhere, James Talk’s utterly funky 12” Get Down (2005), piledrivin’ Gary Beck cut Say What (2010), tribal Loco Dice rumble Definition (2012) and any number of productions by Santos, Steve Mac, Philip Bader, Andrea Oliva, Dietz, Lio and, of course, the Fanciullis themselves.
Earlier this year, the label celebrated 100 releases – commendable in an industry built upon unpredictable fads and turbulent transiency. Fittingly perhaps March’s Saved 100 anniversary compilation focused largely on the here and now. Its inclusion of relatively recent output by Broom, Mac and Subb-An, next to unreleased goodies from Dietz and Terrence Parker, and tracks via newcomers Tom Trago and Paolo Rocco, reflected the label’s desire to keep pushing on and expanding its horizons.
These days, Saved operates (cannily) with a six month ‘buffer’ of pre-scheduled material, so expect plenty more dancefloor goodness before the year is out. Its ‘100’ tour has just come to a satisfying end and now, ahead, lies closely linked outdoor party The Social Festival. Debuted by Nic last year, the festival promises stellar club acts Seth Troxler, Carl Cox and Ame alongside Saved faves Subb-an, Alex Tepper and, again, Saved’s sibling co-owners.
“For a label, care and attention is the most important thing” Fanciulli Sr told Defected last month. “If the head of the label doesn’t seem to be bothering then why should the people buying the records? My brother…came to work with me. I told him the one thing I wanted to do was get the label fixed up…And we did. We worked really hard on it, and that’s how we got to the 100th release, just out of sheer determination, care and attention.”
Now, for the next 100….
Defected presents Nic Fanciulli In The House is out 06 July (2CD and digital) on Defected Records - order on iTunes and Amazon
