Young Turks

by Juno Plus on 24.01.2014 at 16:40pm

The West London label have set up the Whities offshoot that will be manned by Boiler Room’s Nic Tasker.

Founded back in 2006, Young Turks is itself an offshoot of XL Recordings that has intermittently dabbled in dance music of various shades over the ensuing years (anyone remember South Central?) though the label has largely and successfully focused on cultivating their own brand of 21st Century pop music with The xx and SBTRKT amongst their celebrated roster. News now surfaces that Young Turks have set up a separate label called Whities dedicated to ‘forward-thinking club music’ with Nic Tasker at the helm. Perhaps best known for his role as a host on internet sensation Boiler Room, Tasker also mans the desk at Phonica, DJs as part of Principals alongside fellow BR figures Bradley Zero and Charles Drakeford as well as holding down the 88 Transistions show on NTS Radio.

This makes him particularly well placed to curate a label focused on the club, and the first release on Whities comes somewhat pleasantly from an unheralded act. Terron are Enrico and Matteo, a duo of German/Italian descent who are now based in London and have apparently been making music together since 2008. Their release is out next month, but you can stream the B-side below; to gain a better idea of Terron, and what to expect from Whities over the coming months, we spoke to Tasker over email.

Hi Nic, could you explain the configuration behind the Whities label? It’s an offshoot of Young Turks overseen by you yes?

Whities is a Young Turks imprint, run by a small team who already work on Young Turks / XL projects, with myself doing the A&R and overseeing the general direction of the label.

Would you say it will have a distinct sonic identity as opposed to Young Turks which is quite diverse in the music they release?

I think and hope that the catalogue will end up being quite diverse. The aim is simply to release music I’m into and I think needs to be shared with other people. Championing new artists who take risks will hopefully be the basis of any kind of identity that others form about the label. That being said, music that makes people dance is my main passion so we’ll probably end up releasing a string of 4/4 bangers…

How long have you been thinking of starting up a label?

Probably for the last four or five years. It’s something i’ve been interested in for a while, but the moment to start one never presented itself in such an obvious way. Now feels like the perfect time. I’ve been working at Boiler Room and Phonica Records for about three years, DJing a lot and feel I have a pretty good starting point for discovering new music.

What’s the thinking behind the name? Whenever I say it, I think of this line from the Crooklyn Dodgers classic…

I’m going to leave that one open to people’s interpretation. That is a great tune by the way!

Terron are the first act on Whities – where did you come across them?

I actually met Enrico (one half of Terron) at a Young Turks Boiler Room funnily enough, around the time I started to get involved with BR. I was interning at YT at the time and they very kindly gave me the chance to do the warm up slot for the show. Enrico came over after my set, said he enjoyed it and asked me about a few tunes I played and we got on pretty well. Then about two years later he came down to another BR show that I was programming with Roman Flügel and gave both me and Roman a CD. I played it the next day and instantly thought, “I need to put this out”.

I guess in your role at Boiler Room you are in a position to get exposed to lots of exciting new music?

Yes, it’s definitely a fortunate position to be in and I’m very thankful for that. It’s funny because I think that despite the increasingly digital nature of the world we live in, having an ear to the ground and word of mouth prove to be by far the most effective tools in the discovery of most art forms. Having someone tell me about an artist or picking up on someones work myself is much more appealing than an artist telling me about themselves, which is often the case online.

What do you have planned for the label over the coming months?

We have the debut release, Whities001 from Terron scheduled for release on February 17. We’ll be throwing a release party for that in London with myself and Terron DJing. After that, the second and third releases are close to being confirmed and then we’ll have some more from Terron. Following that I’m just looking forward to establishing label staples, alongside working with new talent.

Whities 001 from Terron will be released on February 17 – more details on the Whities site.

Tracklisting:

A1. Nº 17 Governing B1. Nº 3 Proportion