The Top 10 labels of 2021
Our guide to the labels that did the business this year
Despite the pandemic’s tolls on proximal and financial freedom, there’s been no end of exceptional music – backed by no end of exceptional labels – released this year. It took us a good while to put together this list of our favourites.
Rather than picking out the more obvious indie majors, we went for the smaller, more curated imprints pushing only the best underground music on an international scale, all the way from Ireland through to Jamaica and Japan.
Brace yourself for Juno Daily’s top 10 labels of the year…
Top of our list are low-key Dubliners Wherethetimegoes, a loose collective of Irish artists run by the artist Dean McGrath. These lot have a keen, unmatched ear for the beauteous, with their palette spanning every abstraction of ambient noise, dub, folk, shoegaze, and new age.
2020 saw them release a gut-wrenching hat trick of EPs and albums – including Nashpaints’ humble dream pop epic Blindman The Gambler, and lastminuteman’s timestretched ambi-warper ‘%%%%%%’. 2021 for them, though, might have just come out on top. Frog Of Earth’s self-titled debut, for example, has gone down as one of our favourite concept albums to date, and deservingly netted the artist an interview spot on Maria Somerville’s NTS show in September.
A fascinating – and not your average – reissue sublabel. Mixed Signals’ motto is “playing out of time”, and while the meaning behind this mantra is dubious, we understand it as a recognition of timelessness, referring to the lasting quality of each EP recognised under the tag.
Housed under the vast empire that is Seance Centre, MS focuses on limited reissues of underappreciated 90s oddballs, with most of their vinyl sleeves simply being blown-up images of the riso posters that come with each release. 2021 saw three new releases: house duo Wet Silk’s debut 12”, best-friend NY rap duo Me & E’s first EP, and finally, a reissue from husband-and-wife duo Dennis Wize and Czara, under their old Corps Of Discovery alias.
Dean Blunt’s tongue-in-cheek World Music imprint has been going for a long time, but 2021 has proven its deserved place amongst our top ranks. After Black Metal 2 (technically a Rough Trade alnum, but whatever), the first EP to hit the World Music shelves in 2021 was a 5-strong dub remixes EP of the album by Kwake Bass. Two newer projects curated by the ‘lo-fi trickster god’ later surfaced: Bar Italia’s latest indie album ‘Bedhead’, and the as-yet unidentified producer Yakub on a strange neoclassical drowner, ‘Popcorn’.
It would be criminal not to mention the recent World Music night at Corsica Studios, which revealed Blunt, Tirzah, Coby Sey, Bar Italia, John Glacier, Klein and Vegyn to be all in cahoots with Blunt, sharing the same lineup. A stonking year for Blunt, we can only wonder what’ll be announced next via his ‘unofficial’ Twitter account, evilarrow1997.
The Danish powerhouse run by Croatian Amor (Loke Rahbek) has seen a stonking 17 new releases this year, rendering it among one of the most prolific labels we have the pleasure of stocking at Juno.
Kicking things off with Frederik Valentin’s heartfelt twinned albums – ‘0011000’ and ‘0011001’ – the label continued to secure a boundless slew of ambient electronica, with works between Croatian Amor, Scandinavian Star, CTM, August Rosenbaum, Varg2TM, and even a whopping 3 new singles from neo-AI lyricists H2OP. For everyone wanting to explore the forefront of Scandinavian music beyond Drain Gang’s recent trailblazings, Posh Isolation is still your next port of call.
Today’s revived enthusiasm for cassettes among young music collectors just might be the partial fault of Good Morning Tapes, the French label and new age brand run by an exceedingly playful character, DJ Biscuit.
16 new releases came in 2021, with the latter half of the year seeing the ayahuascan assembly line refocus its efforts towards producing LPs. Standouts included new bits from Salamanda, Nueen and Ultravillage – all coinciding with each artists’ personal lunar cycles – while the year’s climax centred on the third edition of their ‘All Welcome’ compilation series. Rad sticker line too.
After a sudden name change from the label formerly known as Experiences Ltd. – run by D. Tiffany and Special Guest DJ – were were duly reminded of this Berlin-based institution’s heavy impact on the game.
Only 3 new EPs (by xphresh, mu tate and hoodie) made it to the main label’s digital stock this year. Like most fans, however, we’re most intrigued by their xpq? sublabel, which saw a further two new submerged illbient-dancehall fusions hit the discog: PVAS’ ‘Accepting eEntropy Loss’ and La Fe’s ‘Rico!’.
Once an earnest collective of screenprinting enthusiasts and punks from Brighton, Where To Now? have come a long way in their embracing of electronica via post-punk aesthetics (they started in 2007). Four new releases, respectively from NR/MA, Max Winter, Dekalb Works, and the label bosses’ favourite artist U, hit the shelves this year. They deserve all the support they can get, especially after their recent staunch rejection of tapes for LPs.
Check out our label focus on them too.
A comparatively new venture, 2021 marks the third year of operation for Osare! Editions, Elena Colombi’s ambitious new (and so far LP-only) label. With new releases from Free Range, L.F.T. and Inkasso, Colombi’s curation abilities are top-notch, and her attention to detail – in both the musical and fashion departments – riveting.
Most of all, we’re extremely excited to have gotten our mitts on their new V/A cassette, ‘Donne Che Corrono Coi Lupi’, which contains musical interpretations of the Jungian archetype of the ‘wild feminine’, with contributions from Lolina, Bergsonist, Cucina Povera, Ece Ozel and Eva Geist.
The story goes that Bokeh Edwards’ blessing to Sun Araw to start a Bokeh Versions sublabel led the latter artist to head to Portmore, Jamaica to seek out only the best underground dancehall MCs and artists. The result? A crazed take on the sound, tinged by Araw’s glitzy and unpredictable post-production style.
In 2021, Duppy Gun championed new, crispy dancehall bits by DJ Smurphy and RDL Shellah, two fresher faces to the label, but whose production and MCing chops shone just as brightly as I Jahbar or G Sudden’s tapes did in 2020.
Not a new label, Japan’s EM Records has been going since 1998, but it still appears here thanks to its keen ear for fresh, otherworldly sounds.
Notably, we must thank them for introducing us to Taiwanese stoner rapper JUU4E, whose ‘Crazy World’ album shot off our shelves rather quickly. That’s not to mention throwback reissues from Compuma Meets Haku, as well as brand new Emerson Kitamura and hyperpop intrigues from NTsKi.