Beneath the Label: Wet Play

Sometimes things just turn out right. The right people, the right time, the right scene, the right records. Modern clubbing and music scenes are built on a foundation of heritage, both real and occasionally revised. Meanwhile, some people just know everything about great records.

A collective of purist producers and record store masterminds operating without a hint of pretence, Wet Play the night and their bimonthly parties have, over the past few years, inspired a devoted following to head to various pub back rooms, mills, basements and multi-purpose jerk chicken venues, keen to indulge in a night that gradually nudges from welcoming, oozing boogie to relentless and crackling house.

Having fallen pretty quiet since a Christmas party that featured a huge drone experimentation system in one room and Tim Burgess jamming in a pirate hat with a Cornish psych band in the other, Wet Play (the club night) returns this month and brings with it a four-track EP, representing the beginning of the moniker as a burgeoning wax institution. The label launch party at Kraak on Saturday 18 May sees sets from usual residents Ste Spandex, Kickin' Pigeon and Randy Marsh, as well as those on the EP.

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"If something's worth its salt, you want a pressed, physical copy of it, so it doesn't have to exist in cyberspace. Cyberspace is for porn and for emails" – Kickin' Pigeon

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Tell us about the new EP?
Ste Spandex: There's one of my tunes, which I did when I first got my MPC in 2007. It's a live take, called Edit V2. I keep playing it out and it still really works, and I need to get it out of my mind. Then there's Jamie Logan, aka Loge, from Halifax, and that's all analogue stuff, lots of stuff with tapes.
Kickin' Pigeon: Then there's a track from Metrodome, who's our mate Ruud, who's younger than us but has been DJing since he was about 12, when we played a boat party with him and he smashed us all. Jonny Dub was booking him at the age of 14 because he was amazing at scratching.

One of the things I like about the night is the variety of tempos and styles. Randy is better known for the boogie side of things, whereas it gets a bit weirder or heavier when Spandex takes over later on. Is the plan to reflect all of these styles throughout the releases?
Randy Marsh: Yeah, with the first 12" especially there's a bit of boogie, a bit of housey stuff. We mainly want to represent all the sounds and people we've been wanting to put out for ages.
SS: The fourth track is Skanky Magic, which is a collaboration between me and Preston Brooks, and that's got more of a techno kind of feel, both in how it sounds and how we made it.

You all dig pretty deep and principally play wax, but is there any chance of any digital releases?
KP: Nah.
SS: I dunno, maybe.
KP: What?!

You don't have to do it through Beatport though, you can run it through a specialist like Juno or Boomkat?
SS: If it's going to reach people and it gets to people that want to hear it, then I don't see why not?
KP: I think all the sub-standard stuff should be released digitally.
RM: There won't be any sub-standard stuff.
KP: Exactly! If something's worth its salt, you want a pressed, physical copy of it, so it doesn't have to exist in cyberspace. Cyberspace is for porn and for emails. You don't shag a computer, you shag a pussy! You listen to a record! I don't hate digital, but the records that sell well are the ones that state there will be no digital release.

There exists a personalised Wet Play phone jingle, but what other exciting Wet Play merchandising is in the offing?
RM: There's a keyring too, and we've already done a series of cassette mix releases, which have all sold out. Pidge has done one, there's another from Seahawks, which is original stuff.
KP: We don't really know where the label's going to go. We didn't anticipate doing this when we were in the back room of The Crown, so who knows.

Who are the biggest influences on the template and aesthetic of the label?
RM: Easy one. For me it's PPU, People's Potential Unlimited, putting out mad tape jams from the 80s.
KP: Jamal Moss is my biggest inspiration. Not because of sound, the sound isn't Wet Play, but his stream of consciousness – anything that works, basically. His label, Mathematics – you can trace so much to that even though I rarely play any of that at Wet Play.
SS: I really like old French house records, old Armand Van Helden and Roger Sanchez stuff. I started reading Mixmag in 1995, that mid-90s scene where everyone's out their head for a big, fat kick drum, big piano riffs.
KP: Ron Hardy and Daniele Baldelli are big influences.