- El records
Infobox record label
name = él
image_bg =
parent =
founded = 1984
founder =Mike Alway
defunct =
distributor =
genre =Post-punk Esoterica Soundtracks Latin Jazz
country =United Kingdom
location =London, England
url = [http://www.cherryred.co.uk/el/]él Records
él Records is an
independent record label from the UK founded by Mike Alway. Alway, who cut his teeth in the late seventies working withThe Soft Boys and promoting clubs and concerts in Richmond, south-west London, joinedCherry Red Records in 1980 to work alongside the company's founder, Iain McNay.Over the next few years he signed many of the artists who would become most closely associated with the label -
The Monochrome Set ,Felt ,Everything But The Girl ,Marine Girls ,Fantastic Something ,Eyeless In Gaza etc. This was widely recognised as a golden period for the label, culminating in the release of'Pillows & Prayers' , the budget priced compilation that encapsulated the label's emerging style. It dominated the then prestigiousUK independent charts in 1983.Alway then misguidedly (by his own subsequent admission) formed the
Warner Brothers -backedBlanco Y Negro withGeoff Travis ofRough Trade , taking several Cherry Red artists with him, notably Monochrome Set and Everything But The Girl. The relationship with Warners did not gel, however, leading to a return to the Cherry Red family and the high concept él Records, which he had founded as a subsidiary outlet while at Blanco, became his new focus. él combined the technicolor exoticism ofPowell and Pressburger with the escapist fantasy of The Avengers. The stylised visual aesthetic ofThe Prisoner with the dry-witted late seventies British television comediesThe Good Life andThe Rise and Rise of Reginald Perrin .Richard Briers andLeonard Rossiter were, to Mike Alway, whatMalcolm McLaren was toAlan McGee .él's playful humour and highly visual aesthetic spoke to the Japanese and was a significant influence on the
J-Pop phenomenon that involvedCornelius ,Pizzicato Five andKahimi Karie . Indeed, él and Alway were immortalised in Kahimi Karie's domestic top ten hit, ‘Mike Alway's Diary’, that was written by the high-priest of ‘J-Pop’,Keigo Oyamada .Although Alway had recruited a cast of performers he would describe as the best English pop writers of their generation -
Vic Godard ,Bid (Monochrome Set),Karl Blake (Shock Headed Peters ), Jessica Griffin (Would be Goods ), Nick Currie (Momus ), Philippe Auclair (Louis Philippe ) and formerJonathan King teen prodigy Simon Turner (The King of Luxembourg ), critical acclaim was not matched by sales and in 1988 the project was abandoned.In 2005, él reinvented itself (again under the Cherry Red flag) with Alway applying his eclectic taste to the restoration of historic editions;
film soundtracks ,jazz andflamenco guitar , Brazilian and Indian recordings, vocal andModern Classical musicelected list of él artists
ORIGINAL LABEL
Shock Headed Peters The Monochrome Set (Bid )Vic Godard Momus Would-Be-Goods Marden Hill The King Of Luxembourg Bad Dream Fancy Dress Louis Phillipe Anthony Adverse HISTORICAL LABEL
Andres Segovia Antonio Carlos Jobim Baden Powell /Vinicius de Moraes Brigitte Bardot David Axelrod Edda Dell'Orso Edgard Varese Elis Regina Ennio Morricone Erik Satie Four Freshmen Gabor Szabo Gary McFarland Gilberto Gil Henry Mancini Jacques Brel Juan Garcia Esquivel Nino Rota Orson Welles Quarteto em Cy Ravi Shankar Roy Budd Sabicas Ustad Ali Akbar Khan ee also
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List of record labels
*List of independent UK record labels
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