Tell us about your label!
David Laurie: It is a brand new oh-so-modern global digital label. We aim to take brand new bands and launch them around the world, strictly through the net, and directly into the heads of kids all over the world.  We'll be signing bands, licensing albums, one-off singles, remixes, EPs, short films and anything that inspires us along the way.

Richard Thane: Because we also run a monthly club night here in London (under the same ILL FIT umbrella), we're also going to start releasing a digital EP, once a month from the bands playing the night. It's just another form of flyering a show - just more tuneful!

Who are your acts, what's your ethos and why should we pay attention to you?
DL: We are opening with a pair of acts. Sweden's The Forest And The Trees, a beautiful folky pop group, plucked from the world of our great friends Loney Dear (David Lindvall and Ola Hultgren both feature on the album). Uplifting and life-affirming, and Scotland's There Will Be Fireworks. Intelligent, heartfelt, honest, searing beautiful, viscerally brutal music that will lure you in and take an axe to your heart.

What do you look for in acts, and how do you sign 'em? Do they sign in blood, or do you run more of a loose communal vibe?
DL: We look for tunes, talent and things we can't turn our backs on. It's a love thing and yes, blood signing is encouraged. This 'aint casual.

Which other labels do you most admire?
DL: Motown, Factory, Service, Universal.
RT: I'm a huge admirer of Bella Union. Also, Labrador Records who are based in Sweden. They've put out some of the greatest pop songs of the 21st Century.

What are you going to be up to in 2010, release and gig-wise?
DL: The debut albums form those two acts are our opening salvo. More will follow. We are in no hurry. Quality not quantity innit.

If you could've signed anyone in the past, who would that have been?
DL: Radiohead, El-P, Human League, PJ Harvey, The Shins
RT: Taken By Trees, jj, A Sunny Day In Glasgow.

And which of your acts will people be saying that about in 30 years time? (If you don't want to single out one, feel free to list a few/all/be diplomatic etc)
All of them.

What's your approach to artwork and videos?
Super important. Absolutely a part of the package. A part of the art. Always was. Always will be. Vital.

Are you a co-operative or an evil svengali?
We are communists

Complete this sentence: "If I could get one of our acts on the cover/online front page of _____, that'd be all my Christmases come early!"
The Christmas Edition of The Radio Times


Tell us about your label! Who are your acts, what's your ethos and why should we pay attention to you?

Brainlove is a DIY-indie label. We at the minute have eight main bands on the label and an extended family of over a hundred. We do gigs and an annual festival, and put out an annual compilation that represents what we think is the best of the underground at any given moment... and generally try and help out and positively coexist with all the awesome bands and artists out there. Most of them are doing it for themselves, so it's good to act as a resource or a meeting point or a community, or all of the above.

With our main guys, we kind of do a rotation where one band has a big release and we really push them, while others are songwriting or recording... it works pretty well. Pagan Wanderer Lu, Napoleon IIIrd, Keyboard Choir and Kippi Kaninus had big releases for us in 2009, and we are gearing up for Stairs To Korea, Mat Riviere and We Aeronauts in the early part of 2010. They are all amazing potential world beaters. It's pretty exciting.

They're not from any one genre. There's a bias towards one-man-bands, for some reason. Maybe because the raison d'etre of the label is to promote music that's artistic, creative, visionary even, and always with a good heart. There has to be a sparkle or a spark, something magical, or something beautiful, or something fun...

What do you look for in acts, and how do you sign 'em? Do they sign in blood, or do you run more of a loose communal vibe?

It's always different. Pagan Wanderer Lu I met through a message board, he sent me a scruffy CD-R of some profoundly lo-fi recordings, but the songwriting and the lyrical talent was just astounding. We put him together with a couple of awesome producers like Dreamtrak Studios, and his new stuff is sounding amazing... Napoleon IIIrd I saw at his second ever show, and was just blown away by it - he had surround-sound speakers around the dancefloor and there were beats coming from everywhere. His voice was this... impassioned roar, but self effacing too. I loved it instantly, just so many ideas at play. Mat Riviere I watched with a bunch of friends, and basically during the show every single one of them made some comment about how he was the perfect thing for Brainlove. They were right, his stuff is somehow heartbreakingly simple, but in some ways like a total Pandora's box.

Sometimes we do contracts, sometimes we do handshakes, but mostly we do simple licensing deals - I think song rights should stay with the author, and that the olde world record label system of stripping rights was exploitative and unbalanced.

Which other labels do you most admire?

I like homemade labels like Cherryade, who really are in it for the love. I like Warp obviously - both the 'house style' electronica period and now that they've broadened out to include stuff like !!!
and Nice Nice. Art Fag in the US are doing a splendid job. Have been watching Merok and buying some of their stuff. Upset The Rhythm are great, love them lots. I bought a snake-skin textured Graffiti Island 7" the other day but I can't remember the label. Pretty awesome, anyway.

What are you going to be up to in 2010, release and gig-wise?

The first quarter of 2010 is massive for us - we have Stairs To Korea's "All Of Your Friends" coming out with a big push to try and get radio to sit up and take notice... and we have Mat Riviere's
amazing album "Follow Your Heart". I am very proud to be releasing both of these things. It's amazing music by amazing people. We're booking a bunch of dates for Mat & Will in January and looking at a label tour in February.

If you could've signed anyone in the past, who would that have been? And which of your acts will people be saying that about in 30 years time?

There are very few artists we've made offers to who said no, but those who did went on to great things: Fuck Buttons signed to ATP, and Simon Bookish signed to Tomlab, and both went on to make classic records. From our guys, I think the most people might remember Napoleon IIIrd, but only because he's toured like some kind of motorway guzzling machine for the last 3 years and played Leeds fest, Wild Beasts tour support, Club NME etc. The other guys have different kinds of profiles, some are at very early stages.

What's your approach to artwork and videos?

I do all the art and design for our BRNLV compilations, posters, websites etc and usually sit there sniggering trying to fit on more elephants or whatever. I'm from an art background so it's important to me that the label has a fitting visual identity. Almost always, our bands have very strong ideas about their artwork - I like it to be that way, they're all way creatively engaged. It's good. It says something about the kind of people we work with.

Are you a co-operative or an evil svengali?

Brainlove is as much a family as a record label, in my mind at least.

Complete this sentence: "If I could get one of our acts on the cover/online front page of _____, that'd be all my Christmases come early!"

I dunno. Ummmm... can we get Stairs To Korea on page 3 of The Sun?