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THE NIGHTBREED STORY.
A short-ish History
In The Beginning
I started Nightbreed way back in 1990 as a hobby. I was still in the post punk/Gothic/Death Rock band Every New Dead Ghost, and as part of my activities of networking in the Gothic scene, I thought it would be a good idea to put out a compilation LP made up of some of the bands I was in communication with. A few months of hard work later the New Alternatives LP came out. I stood back and waited for the expected avalanche of reviews and interest such a quality project was bound to receive from the press. I waited and waited, but the music press at that time were at their most repressive and reactionary whenever the G word was mentioned in connection with a band, so the attention from the mainstream never came, and sales of the LP were slow as a result. I promptly lost all faith in the idea of running a Gothic record label and went back to concentrating on the band only.
However as the months rolled by, I kept on getting letters from all over the world concerning other releases from some of the bands on the LP. At first I wrote back and said that they should contact the bands directly themselves and eventually the idea came to me that I could sell the merchandise myself. After talking to some bands on the LP as well as a few other bands of my acquaintance, I put together the very first Nightbreed catalogue.
It was one side of A4 and as I remember, I was offering demo tapes and vinyl records in the main. I also followed this with a simple photocopied flyer advertising the mail order service, which I sent out to fanzines and like-minded people in the Gothic underground.
The response I got was amazing! Orders for demos, LPs and singles started coming in every day. And to cut a very long story short, I put everything I earned back into the catalogue and looked constantly to expand the range and selection of music I carried.
All of this was happening at the very same time as the scene was being killed off by the music press. There was no Gothic music being played on the radio, nothing in the music press and definitely nothing on TV! I suppose it could be said that the Gothic scene suffered a cultural clampdown in this country, tantamount to a kind of racism!
Anyway, in this atmosphere it seemed a little foolish, to put it mildly, to start an underground Gothic-based company! However, I quickly discovered that the scene had a great heart, despite the attitude of the music press, and that significant numbers within the scene were up for supporting the rapidly developing underground. People started buying CDs and records from me based on my own reviews, and on the whole they were not disappointed with what they bought. Gradually things grew and another avenue for new Goth-based music developed in the form of gothic discos. Gothic club-goers began to demand new underground material from the resident DJs and as a result more and more people became exposed to the new, and generally German, Gothic music. It was a slow process, which took several years, but the Goth club phenomenon helped to advance the scene greatly in an atmosphere where it was, and in all honesty, still is, the only real avenue in this country (apart from the fanzine network and internet) to get new music exposed.
The scene gradually developed, Nightbreed was constantly expanding and later I was joined by more and more people. As a company we began to expand and diversify at an amazing rate. Our mail order catalogue was becoming almost a directory of the dark underground and many people used (and still do use) the old catalogues as a reference book for bands and their releases.
The Label Proper and Mail Order Service
After a few years of the new organisations existence, we decided to re-activate the label side of Nightbreed. From a philosophical point of view we separated the label from the mail order service. The mail order service was our main activity, and within that realm we decided to take anything as long as it was dark and underground. We embraced everything from Swedish synth pop to black metal, whilst still keeping our main focus as a progressive Gothic organisation.
The label became our contribution to keeping the Gothic scene going and growing, but allowing for, and encouraging, progressive elements to have a platform within the genre. We have always believed that diversity is strength, and that to attempt to place a Gothic template on the scene was the road to musical inbreeding and eventual extinction. Hence our very bold collection of releases, and our continued vision in the genre. Our view is best experienced via the Gothic Sounds Of Nightbreed label samplers.
As time moved onwards, we developed the mail-order catalogue and continued to take everything that was dark underground, but also found ourselves selling more mainstream material, although still connected in one way or another to our basic vision. Hence, although mostly underground, we were taking other things. Similarly, the label widened its horizons to include releases that were from EBM or industrial roots, however, again there was still a connective seed of family which in our eyes and ears made the releases consistent with our founding philosophy.
www.churchofnightbreed.com
Then along with the constant wave of change came the internet, MP3s and CDR copying. It became obvious that such a small genre as ours could not support a full-scale mail order service and shop, so we initially downsized to just the label alone, by closing the shop. After a year or so we realised that another more radical change was needed in order for Nightbreed to continue, and that was when we formed The Church Of Nightbreed. This encapsulated the idea that the Gothic scene was a community and Nightbreed Recordings was part of that community. We offered a subscription service whereby you become a member of the Church and could access selected downloads of our releases, as well as being able to post on our forum.
However, after about 18 months or so it became obvious that even this system was not going to work in our current cultural climate! The people, who wanted music for free, still wanted the music for free and were not at all interested in paying for membership of The Church. A large part of our former fan base, however, still wanted physical CDs. So in 2005 we embarked on a dual release programme whereby we released limited edition CDs, in conjunction with download versions of the same albums. Seemingly, this system is beginning to work, and we now have plans to continue the limited edition system.
In early 2006 external pressures on us as an organisation, and the lack of time needed to keep the Church running, caused us to downsize again, thereby losing the whole download side of the Church, but keeping the very popular forum section and making membership of the Church free.
So, in conclusion, as I type, things have gone full circle. Nightbreed Recordings is now back to being a special interest, but with a view to still releasing CDs as and when the feeling takes us. Thus we are still what we always were, one of THE centres of the UK Gothic underground and an important aspect of the Gothic community in this country and abroad.
Just by way of a taster of the music our label has put out over the years, check out the little selection on this site. For more info about Nightbreed releases and availability, and to join our online Church Of Nightbreed web community for free, visit:
www.churchofnightbreed.com
Trev Bamford
(Written on a warm evening in August 2006)
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Here are some collections of tracks for your interest and delictation!
Midnight Configuration's Last FM Playlist
Brother Orchid
Killing Miranda
Every New Dead Ghost
Corpus Delicti
Faithful Dawn
Catastrophe Ballet
The House Of Usher
One
Moriarti And The Sith
Intra Venus
Katscan
Suspiria
Lupine
Please visit our ebay shop in order to buy these sonic wonders!
