Statement _ Interview With 3RD

New vinyl venture from ad.lib, Patrick Krieger & S-Tek. They say good things always come in 3(RD)’s..

I’ve been friends with Ste / ad.lib for a good while and was excited when he told me ages ago about the label that Patrick Krieger, S-Tek and he were planning. The previews sounded great.. and the artwork looked amazing. Totally on-point stuff and yeah; available on vinyl.

Their first release also coincided (genuinely) with a special edition that Ste was doing for subsekt 042, so it was completely natural to dig deeper and find out more about what was happening with 3RD.

In the interview, we talk about how the concept first came together and how they developed their plan for label. After putting their first release under the magnifying glass, the Lads give us an insight into how they fit together as a team and how the internet is a friend as well as a potential adversary.

The 3 Guys are well seasoned X 3; in terms of releasing tracks and performing in clubs, so it’s probably best to let them do the talking about their past, present and future as 3RD..

UPDATE: You can now download the original artwork from the first release HERE

So Guys, what was the idea behind starting the label? I know you all release music individually, so what was the catalyst for getting together? You’re all good friends, right?

ad.lib: No, not at all! Haha.. seriously, it has grown in a natural way. We all knew each other before, but we only talked in pairs of 2. Seb and I hung around on the same nerdy music websites. Patrick did a remix for me before and Seb and Patrick were talking on facebook regularly, so it was a nice thing to find out that we share the same ideology about electronic music today.

Which is?

ad.lib: Well let’s face the truth.. The scope of what can be released with common distribution channels is getting narrower. People want to sell what they know is selling. Most people involved in the music biz complain about the bad market and how hard it became. The reaction is to take no risks anymore. It’s about numbers and not about culture or art for too many people in this scene. We want to do the opposite. We’ll all continue to work with other labels and release EP’s again but 3RD should become a platform for our definition, or our interpretation of our personal sound.  Making music is kind of an eternal research project for us. Releasing vinyl on our own label is giving us the possibility to explore sound concepts. It’s about the freedom to release one track which explores something and which is not meant to fit through any grid of distributors or labels and which is not streamlined to sell to the fanboys of the latest trends.

SO, with 3 producers on-board, how are 3RD’s releases going to be organised? I’m guessing much like your first release; your own original music in a various artists vinyl format?

Patrick: Exactly! The concept is pretty simple. We always show each other previews of our latest tracks anyway, so now we’ll release these 12inches with tracks we think are representative or special. Every 3RD release will contain an original by each of us and rework by a guest remixer. We want to invite remixers that we feel can add to our palette of sound. For the 01 it’s Myk Derill who transformed the catchy push and shove groove of “Yamato” into a wild club-banger with a vulgar focus on the 4/4 kick drum.