Neo-Psychedelia has become the fastest growing musical trend, and the genre that everyone who wants to be associated with. With that in mind, it’s easy to forget that it is people who make all of this possible and get the music out into the public domain in the first place.
Say Psych plans to address this issue by speaking to some of the labels most keenly associated with the best new psychedelia emerging and finding more about the men and women who are taking the time and energy to makes this great music accessible.
Next up, we speak to Anthony Nyland from Salvation Records based in Liverpool, UK.
Hi Ant, thanks for speaking to us. Firstly, what was your motivation to start a record label?
I think it was born out of being a record buyer/collector since the early 80’s. I fell in love with labels like Zoo, Factory, Alternative Tentacles etc. and just felt I wanted to release at least one record at some point in my life.
Why the Psych Rock genre?
That was almost by mistake. I’ve been a big 60’s psych fan since my early 20’s and I came across a psychedelic folk rock album that was mentioned in most of the psychedelic music guides but had never been reissued. I managed to track Paul Levinson down and his Twice Upon a Rhyme album became the first release on the label. With the psych revival starting to grow around this time I just carried on in that vein until I saw that all my contacts were in the psych rock world.
Where did the name come from?
The name is taken from a rare and fascinating Christian Psychedelic album from the early 70’s called ‘Sounds of Salvation’. It inspired me start a now defunct blog that morphed into the record label.
Did you have a vision for where you wanted the label to go?
My vision was laughably to release just one record and leave it like that. I think it quickly turned into an addiction!
Biggest triumph/high to date?
That has to be releasing Klaus Johann Grobe’s debut ep in the UK. Not only do I still work with them as their manager, seeing them gain success on both sides of the Atlantic, but we also became close friends.
On the flip side, have there been any disasters/downsides?
No disasters really although we did release an acoustic Folk album which gained more reviews than any other release but never sold. It taught me that my contacts really are in the psych world and going beyond that without the relationships in place is very difficult.
What to expect in 2017?
The plan for 2017 was to concentrate on the management side of the label, especially as we’ve picked up a rather exciting young electronic artist. True to form though we’ve been approached by a Swiss musician/producer who has a motorik project he’s looking to get released in the UK, so that’s something we might be putting our name to before the year’s out.
Plans for the future
We don’t really have long term plans in place, we tried but it doesn’t seem to be our style! What we are concentrating on now is this new electronic artist. There’s no name or band involved yet but he’s started arranging and recording songs for a label who we can’t mention right now.
Anything else you want us to know?
The bands/artists we’ve worked with on the label come from all over the world, I think our forte is releasing foreign language music in the UK and on the label side of things that’s something we’ll be concentrating on more in the future.
The bands/artists we’ve released are:
Paul Levinson (USA)
Devizes (UK)
Klaus Johann Grobe (Switzerland)
Beau (UK)
Psyence (UK)
Forever Pavot (France)
The Solo Artists (Germany)
The Revolutionary Spirit (UK)
Strange Collective (UK)
Inca Music Project (Wales)
Loka (UK)
https://www.facebook.com/thesoundofsalvationrecords
