Subhead

Simultaneously London and Tokyo-based, Subhead’s Jason Leach and Phil Wells began their Subhead label imprint in 1996, today including over 40 releases across their five imprints featuring some of the most twisted material ever put to wax. Originally meeting in Shoreditch East London as despatch riders, their melting of minds cranked up the Subhead warehouse party circuit in 1995 while giving birth to the Subhead label (appropriately aboard a Russian nuclear submarine).

That year also brought in third-Subhead Jamie Lidell (Super_Collider) where notorious studio sessions quickly hammered out a raucous catalogue of the first Subhead releases.

Subhead’s embrace and strangulation of hardedged Technology falls into no category or school, dropping only hints at Hip-Hop, Breakbeat, Freestyle and Electro backgrounds besides the obvious hard Techno functions. For spotters of Vogel, Landstrumm, Si Begg and Captain Beefheart, Subhead deeply delivers scalding but quirky and pumping raw funk-powered Hip-Hop hi-hat battles for the speaker phreaks.

The music is as abstract as the people behind it with do-it-yourself indie-know-how letting the tracks speak for themselves (as tough and loud as they want it). Gigging and putting out the latest Subhead sessions themselves have kept hardcore followers intrigued with Jason and Phil’s uncomprimising art of invisibility. Shrugging off self-promotion and magazine coverage adds to their anonymity while intense live-performances have built devoted followings worldwide for anyone seeking Art on the right angle: Punk rock while pure Techno. The band launched the Subhead label offshoots 2CB, FIX, Extras, DotCom and Subhead Remixes to keep up with their manic flow of output.