When it comes to legends in the scene, they don’t come much bigger than Cause4Concern. Releasing their own music for nearly two decades and more recently nurturing new talent via their C4C Recordings and C4C LTD digital imprints, Mark and Edd have maintained a position at the forefront of the tech and neuro scene. We caught up with them to find out what keeps them inspired, how they sign music and what lies ahead for the labels. Get to know…
DNB Dojo: Ez guys, how are you doing? Where in the world are you right now and what’s on today’s agenda.
Cause4Concern: Hello there! We’re doing great thanks!
Mark: I’m currently back in office in the UK after an epic gig last week in Budapest where we celebrated 20 years of Virus recordings, was super sick!
Edd: I’m currently in Edinburgh with my family at the moment, I also celebrated 20 years of Virus, last weekend, I was over in Berlin for that event, was a really great party as-well!
Very busy week with the labels as we’ve just had a new release from Tobax on C4C and a new LTD release from Volatile Cycle and Barbarix. Were also preparing for the IHR remixed album which is imminent!
DD: You’ve now been releasing D&B for 19 years, no mean feat! What keeps you coming back to the sound after so long?
C4C: Yes, that’s right 19 years, time flies. We’ve always stayed super focused on what we do and the reason we keep coming back after so many years is that we love the scene and everything about it, when you have that drive and motivation everything else just falls in to place. It’s also very rewarding using the labels to bring through new artists as-well as releasing amazing music by established producers we admire!
DD: You’ve had a steady stream of releases featuring some big names and some relatively unknown artists. Do you find it hard to choose what to sign with so much music out there?
C4C: The labels have certainly been busy over the years and there’s no let-up in that for the foreseeable future.
With regards to what we sign, no not at all. We have a very particular sound and tone we like to hear when representing the labels, choosing the music happens very naturally and we find ourselves in a lucky position after all these years where quality music just seems to find us. The labels receive a lot of demos these days, we listen to everything and if it’s got a vibe we will release it. It’s great being able to turn around to up and coming artists and say yeah, your music is sick, we’d love to put it out. People don’t really get that opportunity these days. It’s a great feeling for us and feels good.
DD: Some of the recent label releases have also seen you collaborating with artists you may not have worked with before. Which collab has been the most interesting or fun to get involved with, and why?
C4C: We’ve certainly had some amazing experiences along the way. All our collaborations have been inspirational and have taught us discipline and insight into how people work, I hope we’ve also returned that in some way.
Working with Fierce back in the day was great, he bought a real energy to the projects with his character and thoughtful ideas. More recently we’ve loved working with Pythius on Battlecruiser. The Current Value collaboration was fun, Tim was really quick at bouncing back ideas, which is always creative as it keeps your interests fresh and evolving!
Same has to be said about the Italian trio of Inward, Hanzo and Randie, such an amazing work ethic these guys have, so much love and energy for the music and the scene, was a great experience. You’d send them an idea and it would come back flipped into something you weren’t expecting, we love that and look forward to working more with them in the future!
DD: There have also been some top remixes of some early C4C tunes. Can we expect more of this? We’d love to hear a new remix of Angel Dust or Epox!
C4C: That’s right, always really cool when you get approached by artist who shows an interest in remixing some of the older tracks. There certainly will be more on the way, we have a few new one’s forthcoming from some very well-established producers, all a little bit hush hush at the moment but all will be revealed soon!
We’d love to remixes of Angel Dust and Epox, the only problem is with some of the early tracks we just don’t have the parts. I think those two tracks you mention are the only ones we don’t have. Maybe they are salvageable from the original tracks or we have the samples somewhere on an old hard drive!
DD: Are there any plans afoot for 20th anniversary celebrations?
C4C: Yes, we have some very big celebrations planned as we mark the labels 20-year milestone. Watch this space!
DD: What else can we expect from C4C this year?
C4C: You can expect our focus to be concentrated and precise with lots of great new music. We have some very big album projects planned for next year from ourselves Optiv & CZA as-well as Impak, his album is very near to completion and will include a new collaboration track from myself and Edd.
As I mentioned in an earlier question we have the IHR Consistency of Error Remixed project planned for October! New main label music from Mean Teeth and Akov as-well as Fragz and Juno representing on the LTD imprint with their fresh new projects. Plenty going on for the rest of this year with a packed 2019 schedule also!
Catch us playing in the UK and worldwide for the rest of 2018 and 2019! For all booking enquiries please contact: jef@methlab-agency.com
You can keep up with Cause4Concern online via the following links:
Bandcamp → bit.ly/C4C_Bandcamp
Beatport → bit.ly/C4C_Beatport
Facebook → bit.ly/C4C_Facebook
Instagram → bit.ly/C4C_Instagram
Soundcloud → bit.ly/C4C_SoundCloud
Twitter → bit.ly/C4C_Twitter
YouTube → bit.ly/C4C_YouTube