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what is Fred Records?
It's an archive label for my earlier work - a place where you'll
be able to find re-issues of previously available LPs or CDs,
as well as work that's never been available before.
Haven't most of your earlier LPs already been released on CD?
Yes - on a Swiss label called RecRec. Daniel Waldner, a good friend
and the founder of the label, died in a mountain accident a few
years ago. Not long afterwards the label went bankrupt and was
sold to the German distributor EFA. As a result the company is
now very different. At the time of the bankruptcy the rights reverted
to me, and it seemed like a good idea to try and keep all the
titles under one roof; having lost a great deal of money in unpaid
royalties, I didn't want to go through the whole process again
with someone else, so I decided to do it myself. There's another
important factor - since the RecRec CDs were released in the early
90s the technology has dramatically improved, so I can now release
the original recordings with a much better sound. Wherever possible
I'll go back to the analogue source and start again from scratch....
Has your philosophy about extra tracks changed since CDs first
appeared?
When the CD was first introduced it was irresistible to make use
of the longer time available - extra tracks rapidly became the
norm, even when they subtly distorted the pacing of the original
work. Over time I started to find this slightly annoying. After
all, I spent a lot of time 'composing' those LPs, and they should
be heard not only as individual pieces but also as a whole. The
extra tracks, which were intended to illustrate the sources and
zeitgeist of the material, served instead to dilute the power
of the original. Since most of those tracks are in any case available
elsewhere, I've decided not to include them on the new re-issues,
with a few exceptions.
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What about Guitar Solos? There were many extra tracks taken
from quite a long time period....
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| Well, I'll probably split it in two - the original
Guitar Solos from 1974 in its original form, and then a second
volume with material from the various different compilations that
appeared during the ten years afterwards. This would not only
mean the extra tracks from the original CD but quite a lot of
other pieces as well, most of which are impossible to find. |
How
much material is there?
A lot! Gravity, Speechless and Cheap at Half the Price, Guitar
Solos, the Skeleton Crew records, Helter Skelter, Dropera, Technology
of Tears, Allies...?Then there's the film music Step Across the
Border and Middle of the Moment, as well as the original Massacre
record. And that's without the music that hasn't been released
before. Making it all available is going to take a few years,
being realistic.
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What unreleased material are you talking about?
Dance pieces, installations, songs, peculiar projects of one kind
or another! |
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Are
you going to use the original artwork?
Not exactly - I'm working with one of my favourite artists,
Tom Kurth,
to create a consistent image for the label as a whole. The original
covers represent many different eras and label philosophies
so it wouldn't be easy to incorporate them, but you'll probably
find recognisable elements here and there!
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How will the label be distributed?
Fred Records will be an independent company working in co-operation
with Chris Cutler and ReR Megacorp. I aim to release 3 or 4 titles
a year, at least until the existing material is all available
again. We'll be distributed by all the companies who work with
ReR - ReRUSA, Orkhestra, Locus Solus and so on.
You
talked about the new technology - where will you be mastering
these old recordings?
The re-issues will all be completely re-mastered in order to get
as close as possible to the sound of the original recordings.
In charge of this job will be my long-time friend and collaborator
Myles Boisen, of the Headless Buddha Mastering Lab in Oakland.
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a list of upcoming releases:
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| Technology of Tears (Music
for Dance Vol. 1) |
| Re-mastered classic of early sampling and digital
recording from the 80s, featuring John Zorn, Christian Marclay,
Tenko and others |
| The Art of Memory Vol.
2 |
| Early and extremely idiosyncratic work by Fred on
home-made instruments with John Zorn on sax and duck calls - is
it music? |
| Propaganda |
| The complete recordings from the New York theater
production by Matthew Maguire, not the abridged version originally
heard on vinyl. |
| Impur Part 2 |
| Live concert recording of material developed in the rock department of l'Ecole Nationale de Musique de Villeurbanne. |
| Live in Japan (the guitars on the table approach) |
| After years of unsuccessfully searching in Japan for the master tapes, we finally resorted to remastering from a virgin vinyl copy, meticulously de-popped and restored by Tom Dimuzio - the result is astonishing! |
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 Where
to order? 
Fred Records is a partner of the ReR Megacorp. CDs can be ordered
either directly from ReR
and their various international distributors, or from any online
record retailer, or from your favorite local store. See Links
page for useful web addresses.
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UK
ReR MEGACORP 79 Beulah Rd. Thornton Heath. Surrey. CR7 8JG. UK
FAX 44-0208-771-3138 megacorp@dial.pipex.com
USA
ReRUSA
303 S. Broadway, ste. 386
Denver, CO 80209 USA
(303) 777-0575 phone
(303) 722-2323 fax
JAPAN
LOCUS SOLUS
3-18-8 Naka-Ochiai, Shinjuku, Tokyo 161-0032, Japan.
Mail-order: Tel/Fax. (0422)21-4758 ?
1-23-20-208, Kichijoji Higashicho, Musashino-shi, Tokyo 180,
Japan
In addition, ReR offers special deals for subscribers, including
a booklet with interviews about each set of 10 releases. For
further information please visit their website. |
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