elrow have been throwing unique parties and releasing house records for years, overtime they have become a staple of quality with the house music community attracting thousands to their club events and festival parties.
We got a chance to speak with elrow A&R Baum as part of our Label Mates series to discuss the early days of elrow, what records made a difference and where the label is going. Read on for more.
elrow music first launched in 2012, tell us about the hustle of putting out your first releases?
The label was launched to showcase the music of resident DJs and friends of the brand. Those days elrow wasn’t the big promoter that it is now. It was just a local club with already amazing parties and a lot of potential, but not the international brand that is today.
And what is your typical day to day regarding the label, do you manage it yourself or is there a team behind the curtain?
De La Swing and I have our studios in the same building and we work day to day in the label and in our own music. We talk about the current and future releases everyday, we listen to the demos, looking for remixers, preparing new projects. For artworks, videos, PR, mastering and other stuff we have some external professionals that work together with us to try to do the best for the label. We try to work as the best label in the world, putting a high standard quality and taking care of all the details.
What is the hardest role managing a label that people might not know about?
I think it’s not easy to find the balance between quality music and successful music. It’s magical when you have a track or release with both attributes but not always happens. When the magic doesn’t happen we try to look for the formula to have the best release as possible.
You have put out some physical releases, how have you found the transition to the digital age?
A few years ago the music industry lived the transition from physical release to download release. Probably now we are living the transition from downloads to streaming. The sooner you notice the market is changing, the better. We can be romantic but we have to offer to the customer what they want. It doesn’t make sense to do something that is not working anymore.
And we live in a time when there are thousands of new tracks coming out everyday, what has been the key to keeping elrow music above water in a sea of mediocre music?
As I said before, for us the key is to be constant and offer a quality product: sometimes bangers for the dance floor, sometimes timeless music but always good stuff. Music listeners are not loyal to a brand, if we start to release bad music, people wouldn’t buy / listen to our tracks.
What record on your label are you most proud to have put out?
All the releases are special for us, we work hard on every single EP, but a few months ago we released a collab EP between Camelphat and Mat.Joe, it was a game changer for us. Now we’re going to release a couple of EPs with remixes of successful tracks of the label. We have worked for 6 months in these releases and I think all the effort on it is worth it.
And who can we expect music from on elrow music in the near future?
We are happy to have a lot of elrow friends releasing music on the label. For these remixes EPs we have names like Franky Rizardo, Nathan Barato, Miguel Bastida, Jesse Perez, Detlef and Chus and Ceballos. We have also remixes and original music from rising stars like Mele, Shaf Huse or Mason Maynard, established names like Technasia, ANOTR, Secondcity and some of the best current spanish artists like Andres Campo, Hector Couto, George Privatti and Guille Placencia, I think this 2018 looks great.
Lastly, where do you see the label in a few years time?
We would like to reach a solid reputation in the industry, this is our main goal for the next years. In 2022 we’ll celebrate our 10th anniversary, would be great to look to the past and say: we did it.
The next release on elrow is ‘Got That’ from Tuff London, out on 27th April. Pre-order HERE.