09/03/08
Text: Nik Mercer
D.F.A. Records is simultaneously one of the most outwardly public labels around and one of the most secretive and opaque. No one knows for sure what keeps the James Murphy/Tim Goldsworthy-founded LLC going and promoting an ever-changing, dynamic roster, but whatever it is, it's working.
The Fader magazine recently profiled the N.Y.C. company with flying colors. The article leaves you wanting more, but at least it clues you in to some aspects of the impressively shadowy dance label.
"When dance music first emerged across America three decades ago, it was a much sloppier culture. There was no mainstream audience, no Ibiza, no glowsticks, just an organic convergence of classic R&B, new technologies and a growing gay club scene. In Chicago, Detroit and New York where the house, techno and disco that forms DFA’s backbone first emerged, it was still underground music. DFA began with the Rapture, a band who had previously released records on a hardcore label before discovering the backbeat and slapbass in Gang of Four was actually kind of funky. The Rapture beefed up its own rhythm section, concentrated on the high-hat and became surprisingly successful, new recruits acting as dance music ambassadors to uninitiated fans. Now, six years into DFA, artists and fans alike have had the time and tools to absorb a broader dance history. Whereas the Rapture’s success was due in large part to untamed enthusiasm, the tracks being released by DFA today are studied and careful; made in bedrooms for bedrooms, music for club speakers and headphones no longer mutually exclusive.
Maybe it’s a natural alteration to dance music’s lineage. Disco is nearly 35 years old—old enough that a bulk of its social history was not soaked up by the young artists on DFA firsthand. And while that doesn’t change how that music sounds, it does change how it’s heard, and, thus, how it’s created. “No longer am I treated like a wizard with the computer,” says Goldsworthy of technology’s new ease, and this evolved simplicity allows for a wider field of musicians to emerge; so much more chaff but also better wheat. And while such quality goodness has always been a part of DFA, the following artists—Black Meteoric Star, Holy Ghost!, Still Going and Hercules and Love Affair—represent a broad and deep new guard for the label: enthusiastic men at work, turning catchiness into a 21st century science."
