Alex Ives just loves putting out records. ‘It’s an incredible way to spend time before we die’, he says, which is, in my opinion, the exact kind of over the top energy you want from a curator – the correct level of keenness for someone who’s gonna be handling your music. He brings this unbound enthusiasm to First Terrace Records, an experimental music label he runs with musician Joe Summers. Launched in 2016 with releases from Ives and Summers themselves, the label has expanded from its ambient leanings into territory unknown: harsh noise, free jazz and choral music can be heard through their releases, as the duo continue to simply release music they’ve been bowled over by.
So much of what First Terrace is about is the community it exists in, and how it requires everybody to build it up. Ives and Summers still just love getting to know new people, spending time with music that was previously unknown to them. Time and time again, Ives brings up the stuff that exists around making a record – the early moments of the process, and the aftereffects that come with a release, are as much a part of the music as anything.
First Terrace is very much a collaboration, with all aspects of the label overseen by Ives and Summers. It’s important for the duo to be on the same page with every release, to be as keen for the record and have the same belief in it. Ives has memories of him and Summers sat on the floor of his flat in South London, assembling the final product for early releases, performing the gloriously menial tasks of people who’ve chosen to start a record label. Cutting out cassette inlays? You’ve got to love it. If you’re starting a record label, you’ll be doing a lot of it.
Thankfully, Ives really likes the work that goes into First Terrace. He talks about it with as much enthusiasm as he does making music: ‘I really like putting out records. I chat to Joe who I do the label with – I just really like doing it, I find it top to bottom fun. I love getting the masters, I love figuring out what we’re going to do for the artwork… I love chatting to distros! I really get a kick out of it, but what I’ve found the most rewarding is that it’s a vehicle for other things, like getting to meet people.’
Ives and Summers are realistic about running an experimental label: the gains are social and artistic, and that’s enough. The belief starts with them: if they love a record, and if they think it needs to be heard, they’ll be the ones to put it out. ‘With releases, it’s like, we’ll press 300, and worst case scenario, we end up with 300 copies of something we personally really like!’.
Below, Ives highlights a few records from the First Terrace catalogue, as well as some of his favourite moments running the label.
The First Terrace Split Series
We started a 12” split series in 2017 with the aim that we could pair two artists together on each side of a 12” bringing different worlds together on one disc.
There are a few things we wanted to focus on, outside of the music: we wanted to have these priced at a really accessible point of £10 so that the cost wasn’t prohibitive (something we try and consider with all our records), and so that people could get into a couple of artists at once if they are curious for not too much price. So often you see boutique labels with costs so high it feels like it can only be in the domain of those with deeper pockets, pricing those younger or with less disposable income out of the game.
Secondly, we wanted to make sure there wasn’t any sense of hierarchy on the split series. So we consciously don’t have an A/B or Side 1/2 we instead have I / O. This is reflected even down to the etching on the vinyl. Perhaps this seems a small point, but we really didn’t want any artist involved to feel like an A or B side and similarly with fans to not receive it that way.
On the music front it’s such a treat as we get to double the amount of fun as we are working with two artists on each release – so there is a lot of music to be able to work with. They are really rewarding to do so even though it’s been a little while since the last release in this series, it’s one intend fully to keep going with. The most recent split release we put together included Anna Homler, Dave Tucker & Adrian Northover paired with Pierre Bastien, and we managed to host a dual show for both artists at London’s Café OTO, which felt like a milestone for us as a label. It was a really special evening.
These 12s are a great example, also, of us having a lot of fun figuring out how we can put together a package which we think looks nice, while keeping the costs in a place where we can price them affordably. We had a lot of fun designing these and hopefully people enjoy them.
Bora – Noyée
We did this record with this artist called Pauline and it’s a great example of what I love about doing records, because it came about through all these little meet-ups and new friendships. We got to meet Pauline (Bora) on tour through our friend Vida Vojic, who we released one of our first split 12” releases, and we ended up putting out Pauline’s record because of that introduction. I’m so glad we got to put out these records by Vida & Pauline, because one thing I love & admire so much about them is how unimpressed by labels they are – they just do stuff and don’t seem to care if people come knocking, it’s a very pure form of creativity that seems totally untarnished by commercial ideals & so it was a real privilege to be allowed to put out music from them both respectively.
Pauline had an incredible project with another friend called Vagina Forest – the crux of it is them being women and growing up in these college and music school spaces where they never quite felt like they could express themselves creatively, spaces that can feel quite alpha and not helpful to anyone who isn’t a man and so created this world ‘Vagina Forest’ which they can operate creatively. We were initially talking to them about doing a release of this project through First Terrace but they decided to take it in a different direction in the end and not release it through a label.
We sort of stumbled across Pauline’s Bora project by mistake through this, we listened to these demos she had of the album Noyée and mentioned that we were super into it, she was so embarrassed, and was like, ‘I wrote that ages ago, it’s not for release, that’s just Soundcloud stuff’… a little crestfallen but not defeated we let a few months go by and then gingerly Joe dropped Pauline an email to see if she had any second thoughts about doing the record – she’d been listening back and had decided she could do it now, and we were so gassed. I’m so glad we got to release Noyée, and it’s just funny thinking back on that story of it being Soundcloud fodder now, because it just sounds like nothing else at all, a really special release.
We put this show on with Bora in Berlin, and she’s so creative. Her live show is incredibly immersive. We spent two days putting together this show that people could walk around in. It was an emotional show and we really spent some special time all together putting it on & at the end of the day whilst the record’s wicked (and I really believe it truly is) that it can be a vehicle to sharing these priceless moments with other humans is just so special and what really makes everything worth it. Getting to hang out and share these intimate, unique things, teary hugs and exhausted smiles. I’ll remember this record and that we loved it but I’m so grateful for all the experiences it gave us too. Even like, figuring out XLR leads, was good.
Sunik Kim – Zero Chime
Sunik is a really impressive human. Their whole outlook, their creativity, I just fuck with what they do so much. I was in New York, and they live in Harlem, so we got to meet up after chatting a bit online and we sat there for a couple of hours and they talked me through their record (Zero Chime) and all the politics behind it. It was a privilege to be invited into something so personal to them in a culture that I’m quite ignorant to, and to do that record. It very quickly didn’t become about how many we sold – it just had to exist.
The guy who did the artwork for this is another friend called Joe, who very quickly got it and was a fan – I remember him saying to us chuckling, ‘I was listening to this with my housemate and we were laughing – very few people are going to buy this record but I’m really into it!’. I’m convinced however there will be at least 300 people in the world who will buy it.
Parts of it are beautiful – although it’s a harsh noise record, there are some bits on that record that are really glorious. The very first mixes we got from Sunik were a lot less forgiving on the ears, but they tweaked the volumes a little and, it’s much like Sofheso, who we released a record by – again, on first listen, it could sound quite abrasive. But I think Sunik’s record is the perfect, rich palette, abrasive with quite beautiful moments. It’s really rewarding.
Every record I’ve had the privilege of working on means something, but there’s a few that just have to exist, and have to live in someone’s house. And that’s not a vanity thing, but when someone opens up Sunik’s record, and they take it out of the sleeve, and it’s got the declaration of Korean independence on it – I could see how much it meant to Sunik, and that just has to exist. Not every record does that.
Ben Vince + Jacob Samuels – I’ll Stick Around / The Beacon Sound Choir – The Complete Works
Two other releases I wanted to highlight that are perfect encapsulations of what I mean when I say ‘human’ records are Ben Vince & Jacob Samuel and The Beacon Sound Choir albums.
There are so many intangibles that will make me fall in love with a record but if I feel like a record is a really ‘human representation’ of music I just get chills. Both these albums are exactly that, recorded in exactly the way they should be, as if you are a ghost in the room, a fly on the wall… they just happened and by some miracle they were recorded and we have the privilege to hear them.
From creaky floorboards, breaths between blasts on the saxophone, children laughing in the room, shuffling feet, all of it is perfect… I wouldn’t want them edited or changed in any way. I almost don’t consider the compositions when I listen to these now – I’m just transported with these records into the room, back in time to when they were happening – not recorded but happening. I hope it is not overly grandiose to say but I think they are timeless, they could have been recorded at any point in time, they feel relevant and current whilst also feeling nostalgic… perfection!
First Terrace Tours
As you may have gathered by now a big part of the fuel to our fire is getting to meet and interact with people, pretty early on we started considering taking First Terrace Records on the road and touring with a bunch of mates associated with the label in some way.
We have done three so far – Europe twice, and most recently Japan in 2020 just before Covid locked everything down. I had been extremely lucky to have toured with the old band I was playing in and it really is just so nice – the summer I left that project we took First Terrace on its first tour around Europe with Me, Joe, Vida, our mate Jake (JC leisure, who runs a dope tape label called Pale Master), Joe Nerssessian our buddy and driver and Lucie who also does the First Terrace socials.
It was such a thrill to step straight back into tour with these amazing people, no egos, no delusions of rockstar fame, just pure excitement to be on the road, sharing stories and playing music with your buddies each night. Touring for me is like being a fish in water – I need to keep moving to stay alive and not being able to do any of that in the last year has been tough. But I know as soon as it’s safe we will get back to planning the next First Terrace tour – it’s the final piece of the puzzle that goes along with putting out records, working on the creative process and finally getting to go and meet and hang with as many people as possible in new place. It’s a very fulfilling way to spend time, and we’re lucky to be able to do it – we have a live gallery on our website where we add in photos from shows, tour and other events to just give a glimpse into the First Terrace family and our adventures.
