Empathy Recordings

IN THE BEGINNING: The empathy begins: Wellington, New Zealand 2003. Two guys (Shannon McKenna and Mark Rickerby) have some mates who make tunes, they reckon the stuff their mates are making in their bedrooms is better than half the stuff they are hearing on the radio. So a simple prototype release of drum n bass music entitled ‘empathy’ is released – it includes tracks from Double_Negative (John Henderson and Nick Gardiner) as well as a new friend cform (Shane Bradbury). Another school mate who has been mixing beats as ‘Codec Seven’(Peter Howman) has a couple to offer as well. The CDs are sold on a ’sale or return’ basis in central Wellington. The packaging is subtle and discreet. The concept simple: this music needs to reach the ears of those who will love it. Encouraged by the response and a love of the process, the guys decide to push it one more time. More tunes come in. The whole process takes on a life of its own; those that want to help join in and offer their expertise. ‘empathy recordings’ is born. The next release is a compilation called ‘plug_in drummer’. James Robinson (www.jamesrobinson.co.nz) agrees to let us use his art work for the cover. We put out the word for more tunes and more producers crawl out of their bedrooms with shady demos. Some are gems. We meet the likes of ‘Kovski’ and the enigmatic ‘lorax’. We come up with this notion that these tunes would sit nicely with some of the country’s more established artists, and approach The Upbeats and Agent Alvin, who agree. Our first distributor is Adrian from Solidwax. He gets rid of the lot. In 2005, we cant believe the tunes coming out of this country. If we could bridge the gap between the three scenes of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, that would be cool. We like to get people together. Remixes start happening with people we have never met. Demos range from obscure to sublime. Mark is overloaded by his day to day grind and steps back from running the show. Shane, John and Nick along with Shannon take up the slack and push things forward. Our third compilation and most ambitious project yet arrives back from the factory. Is this code. Its all breakbeat music to us. We approach a specialised distributor, Rhythmethod Ltd and they take us onboard. This time local visual art genius Welfe Bowyer (www.neonsleep.com) gets in on the artwork thing, we love the pink. Our friends at bassdrop.co.nz help us put on a wicked series of gigs promoting the empathy thing and our new cd. Things start to demand a hell of a lot more attention. Bassdrop provides us with our next project. Rumble in the Jungle (the search for New Zealand’s premier breakbeat DJ) needs a prize and a mix CD is born. Mr Smith wins the competition with a blistering array of turntable tricks. The Rumble in the Jungle CD expands empathy recordings’ horizons to the far side of the planet and features a combination of New Zealand and the World’s best producers: Fanu, Psidream and Concord Dawn feature with up and commers State of Mind, Trei and Dose. Aaron Beck (www.apbworks.co.nz) provides empathy with explosive artwork he well is renowned for. The same year also sees our first experiment with hip hop. Tommy Ill releases his first ep through empathy and Solidwax – “toast and teakettles”. His bastard hip hop tops independent charts across the nation and sells out in stores. Once again empathy team up with Welfe Bowyer to create an impressive boutique CD package. Empathy next launches a digital indent: Empathy Digital. This gives us the ability to release up and coming artists to a global audience. Trei, Demus, Cern, Opiuo, and more join the empathy family and take on the global mp3 market. This project starts to bear fruits as some of the artists gain world wide attention. Shannon is given an offer he can’t refuse and Nick heads to the hills to make babies. This leaves Shane and John to continue to expand the empathy story. Rumble in the Jungle comes calling again. Empathy finds a new distributor in the form of Samurai Distribution, a specialist electronic music distributor who helps empathy market 2008 Rumble in the Jungle winner Import’s first mix CD. The CD once again features a host of established and new artists including Bulletproof, The Upbeats, Mayhem and Optimas Gryme. Aaron Beck supplies customarily dark mecha-art for the cover. This brings empathy to the present era. With more CDs planned and more EPs in the works the future looks bright for empathy. We continue developing the identity and brand side of things, a split second message that says what we are about. The empathy story.