Ninja Tune presents Counter Records

For 16 years we've held steadfast to our label mission of bringing the finest in electronic / hip-hop / jazz / etc.. to the homes and clubs. We've seen the cycle of trends turn over four or five times in all the different territories we deal with. We've been hip, then not-hip, then hip again many times over depending on what the cannon of press and popular underground opinion happens to be clocking at that moment. And all the while we really didn't give a shit what people were thinking/buying and just kept putting out what we believed to be excellent in our field.

Back in 2006 the good people of Ninja Tune decided they wanted to start a rock label. But not any old, boring, run-of-the-mill rock label. Not a rock label pumping out the latest British indie four piece bands, or carefully crafted facsimiles of classic rawk. Not a label peopled by ironic Hoxtonites playing pisstakes of ACDC. Not a rock label licensing in already-successful US acts and re-packaging them for the UK market. A rock label that took the same irreverent, iconoclastic, vaguely psychedelic attitude towards that type of music as the parent label had taken to various aspects of dance music.

Counter Records is as varied and uncategorisable as the musicians making up the labels roster. Drawn from Liverpool, the West Country, Wisconsin, Australia, Darlington and so on and living everywhere from Los Angeles to Baltimore to New York as well as London (and, erm, Darlington), the only thing they share in common is their attempts to re-write the rule book of what can be done with their chosen form of expression.

Counter Records Roster
Pop Levi, Spokes, The Heavy, Cougar, Ape School, The Death Set, John Matthias