Label Focus – Imagenes Recordings

Disco, Latin and everything else funky

With more than 120 releases on the label over the last decade, some of them clocking up very tidy sums indeed on the second hand market, and support from a wide array of DJs from Dimitri From Paris and Jose Padilla to Dave Lee and the ubiquitous Gilles Peterson, we thought it was about time we got under the hood of Imagenes Recordings and discovered what makes them tick….

WHAT’S THE NAME OF YOUR LABEL, AND WHO RUNS IT?

Imagenes Recordings is the name of our label which is run by my childhood friend and business partner Juan Laya and myself, Jorge Montiel. ”Imagenes” in English means Images, so we thought of the name as some kind of “sonic image” or “audiography”.

WHEN & WHY DID THE LABEL START?

Imagenes Recordings was founded back in 2007 and it started along with the creation of Los Charly’s Orchestra. Juan and I came up with the first EP  which consisted of ‘Disconsolidation‘ on the A-side and ‘Jazz Funk & Broken Beats’ on the B-side. The B-side was also our very first collaboration with the mighty Xantone Blacq delivering the dreamy Rhodes on this lovely tune, and we decided to release it independently so that was the start of the label.

Since my early DJ days back in Venezuela, I always dreamed of becoming a producer and having my own record label, so I followed my dreams and objectives I guess.

GIVE US A BRIEF SUMMARY OF WHAT YOU’VE RELEASED SINCE THEN….

Our catelogue today is up to 120, releases, and from the early days of LCO till today we’ve taken an incredible journey across an entire spectrum of sounds ranging from Latino funk to Soul-Jazz-Motown-ish joints, Neo Boogaloo, Balearic Fusion, and the newly produced Disco & Boogie which we have been making since the early days of the Nu Disco movement.

Some of the producers and singers we’ve collaborated along the way include Dave Lee, The Reflex, John Morales (M+M), Jose Padilla (Cafe Del Mar), Pete Herbert, Seamus Haji, Yam Who?,  Opolopo, Atjazz and artists like Omar, Heidi Vogel, Xantone Blacq and Andre Espeut as well as a few others.

WHAT QUALITIES ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IN THE MUSIC YOU RELEASE?

I think the first quality that comes into my mind would be “organic sounds’’. Even if it is electronic stuff I’m always looking for that organic angle. Secondly would be “balance in between the overall elements” as we have a concept but it’s always accessible. Lastly it would be “outstanding musicianship”. FYI Juan is an amazing musician, multi- instrumentalist himself 🙂

WHAT KIND OF VISUAL IDENTITY DOES THE LABEL HAVE (ARTWORK VIDEOS ETC) ?

Our eclectic philosophy of music making also applies to our visual identity and  if I have to define it I would say that we tend to lean towards vintage-looking designs. Lately with the Electropical stuff we’ve incorporated more Latin-influenced art.

WHAT’S BEEN YOUR BIGGEST SELLING RELEASE TO DATE? TELL US A BIT ABOUT IT AND WHY YOU THINK IT WAS SO POPULAR.

Los Charly’s Orchestra’s ‘Disco Funk EP’ as well as ‘The Groove & Its Synonyms’ EP, which were both very strong sellers and important for us.

The ‘Disco Funk EP’ was a key turning point in the development of Imagenes as it had a re-edit from Dave Lee and that re-edit became very popular, opening many doors for us, including the Jazz Cafe.

‘The Groove & Its Synonyms’ brought us to the attention of Jose Padilla and from that connection we were invited to play at his party at Blue Marlin in Ibiza, an event that also opened many doors for us. The production, arrangement and musicianship of those EPs is exceptional and that is one of the factors that made those releases so popular. Another important factor is simply there weren’t that many people producing the Nu Disco sound at that time…there were just a handful of us back then.

NAME ONE RELEASE THAT YOU THINK DESERVED TO GET MORE ATTENTION THAN IT DID:

Perhaps

IF YOU COULD SIGN ANY ARTIST, ALIVE OR DEAD, WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WHY?

Prince! “We all wanna be Prince!” Haha!

WHICH OTHER LABELS DO YOU ADMIRE AND WHY?

Whoah, difficult question… there are quite a few quality labels out there that I admire, but I reckon from the current ones Toy Tonics is one of my favourites. `in my humble opinion I think they have a really well-crafted sound and a really solid output.

Favorite Recordings is also a nice gem due to its authenticity and sensibility and Jazz Is Dead is just raw quality.

Going a bit further back we have those which shaped us, such as MAW, BBE, Strut, Z Records & Talkin’ Loud and going deeper into the core I’d say Salsoul, Prelude, Motown and Fania Records.

WHAT CAN WE LOOK TO FROM YOUR LABEL NEXT?

There are plenty of goodies in the pipeline!  Our latest release is the Atjazz Remixes of ’Amazonas Secret Kingdom’.

Regarding vinyl pressings, we kind of stopped it when the pandemic started due to that same reason, and then we stayed on the digital side since, but will restart again in the new year. We are planning on pressing a new Electropical album, plus some of the stuff that we have released digitally over the past couple of years.