To celebrate the label's 20-year history, owner Ian Boddy is making seven of the DiN sampler albums available for free download (name your price) on the DiN Bandcamp site. See below for details.
In The Beginning
Writer Sid Smith (most notably the author of In The Court Of King Crimson) gives a personal insight into the label and its releases through his recounting of the pre-DiN meetings in local pubs whilst Ian Boddy was formulating ideas for DiN.
"It's Newcastle upon Tyne sometime in the autumn of 1998. Ian Boddy sits in a pub with a pint of beer that's going flat as he talks. And talks. And then talks some more. He's got an idea. It's exciting and it's dangerous. He's thinking of starting up a new record label."
In the 20 years that have passed since Boddy left that pub in Newcastle and embarked on a journey that saw him put his idea into practice, DiN has become one of the key record labels in the burgeoning, ever-evolving international Electronic Music scene. With over 60 physical releases and over 20 download albums under its belt, the label plays host to no less than 40 artists and performers hailing from the UK, Germany, USA, Japan, Norway, France, and Australia.
A trawl through the albums released since DiN's foundation could be said to fall broadly under catch-all titles such as 'ambient,' 'electronica', 'industrial', 'Berlin School', 'abstract', 'experimental' and so on. The sheer range of artists that have been attracted to the label should act as some kind of guide to its authenticity and the respect it has commanded from its earliest beginnings. While Chris Carter, Robert Rich, Mark Shreeve (as ARC with Boddy), Tetsu Inoue, Node and Erik Wøllo might well represent some of the higher profile names in the EM firmament whose work graces the label, DiN has always been assiduous in its desire to provide a platform for artists with less visibility.
And then came Tone Science (DiN 49). Released in February 2016 Boddy had no inkling that this album would eventually lead him to create a specialist sub-label, DiN:Tone Science. Evidence of the label's ongoing curiosity and support for individual performers and composers came with the release of Tone Science Module No.1 in 2018 and its follow-up, Tone Science Module No.2 in 2019. Just like other regular DiN releases they come housed in striking artwork. Here however their smart diagrammatic certainties belie the diaphanous, ephemeral ghosts haunting the output of those modular machines. Nino Auricchio and Paul Borg, better known as d'Voxx, who made their label debut with 2019's Télégraphe have christened this thread of ambient electronica as New Modular." by Sid Smith
Robin Rimbaud – Scanner said: "DiN has continued to offer listeners music that inspires, intrigues and moves people over two decades. Having listened to various releases over the years, I was honoured to feature my own exploratory work within the framework of the label on the Tone Science series, a new outlet that embraces electronic soundscapes and experimentation. I love how the label has managed to reflect the development in musical technologies over the years, with an emphasis on the hardware and especially a new-found interest in modular synthesis. Here's to another 20 years!"
Seven of the DiN sampler albums are up for free download (name your price) on the DiN Bandcamp site. These are DiN10, 20, 30, 40 & 50 as well as DiNDDL10 & DiNDDL20.
