Dublin’s RLSD Records are no strangers to the scene having conducted courses in production and DJing on the regular for the past few years. This week however saw the release of their first bit of wax. Jasper Matthews caught up with one half of the label, Doug Cooney, for a chat about the release and how it and RLSD came to be.
Fair dues on the release, tis sounding tasty, was getting it out there as hair-pullingly stressful an experience as releasing records is perceived to be?
Thank you, we had our ups and downs with the process, it was a lot of planning and deliberating over music submitted alongside the design we wanted to represent our label. To be honest that was the easy part, it came down to the logistics in the end that proved to be the most challenging, this entailed finding a pressing plant and distribution company that we could work with, which put us through our paces.
Both Phil and I work very well together and it made the process a lot more bearable. We are really excited with regard to our second release and we feel that the process will be a lot less challenging with our foundation built strong and our network for future releases in place.
How did you decide who to include on your inaugural release alongside yourselves?
This was largely down to the dynamic we wanted represented on the release. Our premise was to represent Irish techno as a whole, I suppose coming from the early D1 days to the current new wave resurgence of techno in Ireland. We set out to release up front club techno that would rarely leave the bag giving DJs options with regard to the dynamic on our records, somewhat feeding into the culture imbibed by Mills and other DJ’s that felt a good rekid should have a few solids on it.
Binaural Perception feels big, bleepy and boomy with a hint of acid, is this the flavour of RLSD records set in stone or will you be exploring other parts of the 4:4 spectrum?
RLSD is an open book in that regard were not planning to be pigeon holed we have an ear for deeper sounds along side some raw eery electro sounds so we feel we’ll dabble with this some what in our near future releases.
We have some nice broken Acid forthcoming for Dublin stalwart DJ/Producer Jon Hussey, can I just add how excited we are about this release we have a huge RMX of Jons track by Takaaaki Itoh too, that would blow the doors of any club, not to mention Jons original is everything we’re about. Roll on RLSD // 002, we’re currently reviewing artist for our third release and planning for 2017.
Could you talk us through the development of Real Sound and RLSD records?
Real Sound is a business I developed, RS started as evening course in music technology but has evolved far beyond that these days, we’re currently working alongside the DIT DJ Society and also the Trinity Digital arts Society focusing on music production with Ableton live.
A label was a logical progression it was at least 10 years in planning and the timing felt right. Phil and I partnered up as we were sharing a studio place at the time. We have big things coming in 2017 with regard to courses and partnerships but thats all hush, hush at the minute but I’m really happy with how things have organically panned out with the business.
What led to the move into education?
I studied music technology from Diploma to masters level graduating in 2012, the business stemmed form real life experience which has always made Real Sound, real in a way as I just played things as I saw them happen in my own life. I started noticing friends with a mutual interest, looking to up their music production skills and something just clicked one day. Learning for me is about far more than information I always wanted to build a community of people around the brand that would help and potentially work together. To this day I feel working with people directly is very important and in this modern world of technology and convenience people can loose touch with each other and reality very easily. This has shaped the future of our business somewhat as I feel our focus will be on bringing people together as opposed to online learning models.
How would you describe your approach to teaching?
I teach in a very practical manner but this may vary from course to course, DJing is a very practical pursuit, where as with Ableton/ Music production I would change my approach. “Things in theory often prove chaotic in practice” Napoleon Boneparte, is something I remind myself of daily when teaching, to this end I plan my lessons around evaluations, I evaluate the learner so that I can evaluate my own teaching methods and by this process my lessons are ever evolving aiming to improve through feed back received from our students.
I always tip my hat to conventional teaching methods but I always push myself to devise new lesson plans and learning methods as, like in life, things are in flux and changing al the time, music technology is no different.
What do you think the education system could learn from the creative end?
I think conventional educational systems should cater to the different types of learners as we are all different perhaps introduce more technical/practical skills to student at Junior/leaving cert level looking to bridge similarities between mathematics and computer programming giving an insight into the different areas you can work in with these skills. Some of the best music producers in the world are programmers, scientists and mathematicians. This can serve to change peoples perspective of what music technology is and how it can be utilised in a modern day capacity moving forward.
What’s next for RLSD?
RLSD // 002 , is on the horizon, & RLSD // 001 in out now in our local record store In All City Records Dublin. It will be Distributed online via Readymade(Berlin) online release 31st October.
RLSD// 001 Includes Doug Cooney Lee Holman on remix Jonathan K & PGJ
RLSD// 002 will Include Jon Hussey, Takaaki Itoh, Fran Hartnett & Xerophux
Thanks for your time, anything you’d like to touch on before we finish?
Thanks for the chance to talk about what we love. Keep up the sterling hustle good Sir.
Find out more about RLSD and keep up to date with their upcoming releases and course via their Facebook and website.