Celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, Cubism is an established imprint known for working with a broad spectrum of boundary-pushing artists across house, techno, and beyond. We caught up with label head and producer Mark Gwinnett to find out more about the label’s ethos, its partnership with media platform The Night Bazaar and its plans for the future.
How long has your label been in operation?
We are celebrating our 15th year with a compilation album of some of the best tracks from the last 5 years. FI5X3EN follows our tradition of releasing a compilation featuring our favourite tracks from each of the 5 year milestones, following predecessors 5IVE and T3N.
We are also about to release the third volume of our 5X3 EPs which each feature 5 brand new tracks from artists we admire and work closely with to promote on the label including Saytek, Tony Thomas, Subk0de, Lunacy Sound Division, Brothers Ruin, Sinful Biz, Focus Puller, JP Chronic, Boston George, Sam Ball and FakeNews.
Check out FI5X3EN on Beatport.
What inspired you to set up the label in the first place?
House and techno pioneer Tony Thomas who signed my first Lunacy Sound Division tracks to his Cubic label. Tony and I became friends not long after and as a big fan of Tony’s music this was hugely inspirational as I then frequently spent weekends with Tony making and listening to music in the years that followed. Tony suggested we set up a new label together which became Cubism, as an off shoot to Tony’s label Cubic Records. After a few years I took over the reigns and then a decade ago started working with another great and inspiring friend, Joseph Keevill aka Saytek.
Working with Joseph and promoting a huge amount of Saytek music on the label over the last ten years has been a joy and really inspired me to continue with Cubism as the creativity Joseph brings to music making is mind blowing. I am proud of what we have done together and to have played a small part in supporting Saytek on his journey as he is now one of the most exciting live electronic artists in the world. And Cubism is still here and we are still releasing music together.
How would you describe your musical philosophy and creative vision?
The ethos has always to release music that we (myself, Tony and Saytek) as artists produce alongside music from new artists who catch our ear. So a pretty broad range of house and techno that is always aimed firmly at the dance floor with a very firm grip on the groove.
Today, the label has evolved and been absorbed in partnership with my dance music media website www.thenightbazaar.co.uk which provides Cubism and the artists we feature a bigger independent platform to promote the music on using a variety of dynamic, digital devices.
Tell us about your first release – what was special about that one?
The first release was Double T from Tony Thomas and I did the remix.
What’s been the highlight of your journey so far as a label?
There have been many but I guess one of the big highlights were the regular gigs we did as a label at fabric in London over several years with Saytek headlining. fabric has always been one of our favourite clubs in the UK, having raved there from the very first night for many years and it was always the one club I dreamed about playing at. So to have the opportunity for Cubism to host a room there for so many great nights was huge for myself personally and I know was a big buzz for Saytek who is used to playing the best clubs and festivals in the world. It has been a while now since we last played there, life has changed a lot so I don’t play out much these days and am very focused on my media work sharing my passion for music through that and also my family so there is a lot to juggle. But you never know, we may make a return to fabric one day.
What advice would you give to anyone thinking of setting up their own imprint?
Only do it if you are completely in love with the music and have a passion to share it with the world. Don’t do it for the money!
What lies ahead for your label in 2024 and beyond?
As I mentioned earlier, the label is well integrated with www.thenightbazaar.co.uk now so we are tailoring our future releases with various bits of accompanying media such as live streams, interviews, merchandise etc… We are looking forward to enhancing the platform for Cubism and helping the up and coming artists get noticed from our efforts.