The journey begins around 2018-19 when I was going to CDR quite regularly — me and a friend, Will (who goes by Customer Service), were running parties (in the very early stages of what would become Cabin Fever, the night we still run together) and had the intention of setting up a label. We knew what sound we wanted to push – which was and still is a fusion of UK/bassy and techno influences, leaning towards the deeper and more psychedelic end of both genres – and we really wanted a platform to release our own music as well as other people's. At this point, we had both recently started producing, but neither of us had the confidence to release our own stuff.

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We went to a CDR together in early 2019 in collaboration with Shanti Celeste and during the openCDR we heard one work-in-progress in particular which we absolutely loved. We managed to figure out who had made it, and got chatting to the producer – exchanged details, and the next week he sent over a more or less, complete EP which he had been toying with the idea of self-releasing. We offered to press it to vinyl so we could convince him to let us put it out instead, and the label kicked off from there.

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At the time it was still much cheaper/easier to produce records - Will was working at Rough Trade so we had an understanding of how the vinyl market worked, which really helped us sort distribution and get the release into stores. We handled PR and promo and managed to graft some decent coverage/DJ support on the first release also – I recall Ben UFO, Saoirse and Or:la all supporting amongst others – we made it into a few Spotify playlists and got a feature from Resident Advisor too. Musically, the EP was already done by the time we heard it, but working with an artist to get a release from the concept stage to actually holding a record in our hands was a super satisfying process.

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The track played at CDR was 'Translucence' by Keplrr – since then, Keplrr (aka Isaac Kniveton) has become a good friend of ours, and we've ended up releasing the majority of the music he's produced so far on the label, including his debut album ‘Petra’ last year – which was a huge milestone for us. We've both grown as producers also and released our own music on the label too. Funnily enough, two other future Control Freak label artists were at CDR that night too - Guava (aka Bradley Hutchings) and Medici Daughter, whose mixtape ‘113’ was the latest release on the label.

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Anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying thank you for continuing to do what you do – looking back, CDR has been a really important space for us.

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Follow Control Freak Recordings on Instagram and support on Bandcamp here. Follow Faulter on Instagram. Click here to find out when our next Session near you is.