Label Focus – Mukatsuku Records

A ton of top grooves

We love a milestone here at Juno Daily. And milestones don’t come much bigger than a label’s 100th release. So when we discovered Mukatsuku Records, that London-based but truly internationally facing purveyor of jazzy and funky grooves of many, many different descriptions, had just reached that rather momentous number, we decided the time had to be right to give it the Label Focus treatment. We did just that – so, it’s over to Mukatsuku Records boss Nik Weston….

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

Mukatsuku Records – Nik Weston (pictured below, left, with Amp Fiddler)

WHEN & WHY DID THE LABEL START?

2006. I was working as A&R for Exceptional Records and being sent lots of demos. A lot of artists were sending us albums which they wanted us to release a full album but often there were only one or two tracks that I was particularly interested in personally.

One artist Paul Mac Innes had two killer tracks on his submitted album so I had an idea to make a label that was a vinyl only singles only and no digital. My idea would be every track would have some significance and not just the mentality of ‘’this track is ok’’ we need another track let’s stick it on the B-side. Hated that idea – in my head each track on a Mukatsuku release should be a worthy one and not just for the sake of it.

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

With my involvement and contact in the Japanese music scene since the mid 90s it made sense to pull on those resources and work with artists and producers I already had a relationship with.  By the time I started the label I had already done a few compilations for Japanese, American and European Labels so that made it easier to connect again those artists for licencing.  

I have put out lots of new music on the label but also as time went on I started licencing rare tracks that I couldn’t find clean copies of for myself as a DJ.  Found out who owned the master rights and then did deals. I went through a phase of looking through my wants list of unaffordable rare records and then contacting labels, artists , producers and those who could allow me to put out those hard to find items especially if they had previously been album only tracks , remastering the originals.

Went through a heavy African Funk and Colombian period so many singles on the imprint reflect that but my tastes as a music lover are very broad so there is nu jazz… soul… hip-hop… disco… reggae… jazz fusion funk… West African and even ambient/Balearic, plus a heavy Japanese artist influence (see pic of Nik below with Calm). The last two releases on the label have been from Modern Living/Virgo and Kyoto Jazz Massive.

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

Something that makes my spine tingle and that I think I enjoy playing out/listening to that will stand the test of time.

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

The label artwork has been consistent with my designer Ninety who I have been working with for over 20 years. He’s simply the don dadda.

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

Probably the Kaleta 12’’ release back in 2009. It was the first release that I had produced with Guy Benton which had music parts of such magnitude. At the time we got Frank from The Carvery to laboriously go through the hours and hours of audio to cherry pick the stems that we could do a couple of remixes with.   

The 12’’ was championed by Mr Scruff at the time and was released at the right time as  the interest in African funk and African disco had been exploding especially with labels like Soundway.

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

Well, I remember putting out Billy Hawks in 2017 with a screaming Hammond Organ 60s funk mod jazz monster which had been something I had got amazing reactions at South London Soul train where I was resident but the reaction with sales was somewhat lack lustre from a point of view from the stores. Still love that track though and it sold through in the end…

WHICH OTHER LABELS DO YOU ADMIRE AND WHY?

Really like Jazz Room Records… Athens Of The North as they have both put out such consistency of releases over the years but then also Soundway… Jazzman… Strut… Analog Africa… amazing mastering and introducing tracks to my ears that I might never have discovered otherwise

WHAT CAN WE LOOK TO FROM YOUR LABEL NEXT?

New single out this week from Kyoto Jazz Massive and later on this month we have Smokin’ The Jazz … a Japanese hip-hop jazz outfit with a 7’’ and then later in the year a reggae jazz 45 from The Juks with two interesting cover versions. Going into next year we have a release from a Dele Sosimi project licenced from Wah Wah 45s.

To check the Mukatsuku catalogue on Juno Records, click here