During the course of its 26 years, Relapse Records has become one of the most respected American labels to specialize in metal. Last year alone, it put out praised albums from Inter Arma, Cough, and Tombs. But amidst the sludge and doom and all other manners of heavy stuff, some of the Relapse bands that have garnered the most attention in the last couple of years make music that differs from the label’s perceived bread and butter. Most notable is S U R V I V E, those Austinites whose instrumental tracks are indebted to the anxious synth scores of VHS science fiction and horror films. Their Relapse debut, RR7349, got a boost after two of its members handled the music for Netflix’s “Stranger Things.” In a similar musical (though more Euro-feeling) vein, Zombi made their long-awaited return with a new album on Relapse in 2015. And 2016 also brought Between Waves, the first album from post-rock veterans the Album Leaf on Relapse, as well as Tired of Tomorrow, a new full-length from shoegaze crew Nothing.
Here, Relapse founder Matthew F. Jacobson explains how these seemingly outlier acts fit in with what the label does.
Pitchfork: How did you get into these non-metal signees?
Matthew F. Jacobson: Historically Relapse has had a broad scope. We always had pretty diverse taste in music and actually put out a pretty diverse range of records through a subsidiary called Release Entertainment. Some of the things that fell outside of the metal spectrum didn't gain a lot of traction or get a lot of recognition. We put out electronic stuff and harsh noise. We put out this fantastic Australian act called Trial of the Bow that the best reference for would be Dead Can Dance. But in general, most people are only aware of us for what we've done in the metal or the heavy music spectrum.
Why do you think that the Release stuff didn't get as much recognition?
Some of it was just super niche by nature. Putting out Brighter Death Now, death industrial dark wave from Sweden, or Merzbow, harsh Japanese noise, is only going to appeal to a certain number of people. Then certain things that could have potentially reached a larger audience went almost totally unnoticed. One of my favorite records that we've ever released was an Australian DJ who went by the name Terminal Sound System. At the time [2002], he did something that he referred to as illbient dub. It was very glitchy, lots of heavy bass, but it was pretty sparse. I just thought it was fucking fantastic. One of the reasons it didn't gain momentum is that it's hard to sometimes pivot with marketing when the people who are going to be receptive to that particular genre are just a different crowd than what your tentacles reach into regularly.
You had Release in the past—was there any consideration of putting out things like S U R V I V E or the Album Leaf under a different imprint?
No. We got rid of the imprint for a couple of reasons. Because we were putting out so much diverse stuff, it wasn’t cohesive enough to gain traction in any one given spot or subgenre. And then we also decided that we've always felt like we do whatever we want and put out things that we love. We're very proud that what we're known for is putting out things that are maybe left-of-center or sometimes weird or don't follow the trends of some other labels that might coexist in some aspect of scenes that we participate in. We decided, “Why do we even need an imprint to differentiate when we really should be able to put out whatever we want?” That's how we ended up with Zombi and Broughton's Rules and Don Caballero and S U R V I V E and some of these things on Relapse.
Do you see those bands as having a tie to metal or heavy music?
Yes and no. One thing that's super interesting is depending on when and where you grew up, I've found that there are music scenes that were either separate or together. Depending on the population and the amount of people interested in underground music, it may have splintered in different ways. When I was growing up [in Colorado] there was a lot of overlap where I was between the hardcore world—which is totally different than what they call it today—and metal, and that was kind of a unified scene. In my world there were also a segment of people who were into some gothic stuff and some electronica and some industrial—that could all coexist in one scene. My understanding is that in a bigger town like Montreal, there was a point in time where the people in the goth and electronic scenes were rivals with the people in the metal scene. If you liked Iron Maiden, you hated Skinny Puppy. I feel like the internet is probably is some factor of leveling things out.
Another thing that I found very interesting is some of the most amazing, less metal or non-metal records that we put out were actually either later projects or side projects of people in really killer metal bands. [Also] I feel like a lot of times there is a similarity, where people who like metal often like horror movies, and guess what? Horror movies have killer soundtracks. There are a lot of dots that connect.
Have you found that people who come to Relapse as a metal label end up being interested in the non-metal acts?
For the most part they are, especially now. In the early days, there was a segment of the Relapse fan base that was pretty insular. There was a period of time where people who were into, like, brutal death metal, just wanted brutal death metal. Interestingly, one of the most related genres to brutal death metal, especially in the early days in its purist form, was grindcore. There were a lot of people in the grindcore scene that were super into Coil or Throbbing Gristle or any of these things that were considered more industrial back in that era, which certainly bordered on electronica. It's always been interesting to see how things are segmented or overlap.
I remember in our very first mailer or catalog, we all had our playlists, and I had the Cure and the Go-Gos and Depeche Mode on my list. Some people in the metal scene were not into that at all, and I really don't care what those people think, so whatever.
With S U R V I V E, did you in any way anticipate this level of interest?
No, but there's really no way we could have. We thought that the music was just awesome, straight up. We definitely did not foresee this amount of interest, especially it accelerating so quickly. We are so stoked. With those guys doing the “Stranger Things” score, having the band associated with something so awesome just goes so far.
Between them and Zombi, is that a type of music you listen to a lot?
Yeah, I love all kinds of different stuff. Some things recently are Boards of Canada. I went to Vancouver to see Crystal Castles play a little while ago, which clearly isn't the same, but it isn't Mastodon either. Coil is one of my all-time favorite bands. I've been a big fan of horror movie soundtracks, which definitely ties into what we're talking about here.
Is that a subgenre of music you're looking to release more of?
We've never been one of those labels to be like, “This band is popular now, so let's sign eight of those things.” And maybe [that’s been] to our disadvantage in some ways. I've definitely seen times where a certain scene will explode and certain labels will go and they'll sign ten bands from that town or that new subgenre or that new collision of scenes. It really works well for them, but we've never really been that calculating. It's more just about what's inspiring and what's resonating.
So do you not consider Relapse a metal label?
I recognize that we're recognized as a metal label. By percentage, we have probably put out more metal than anything else, but there's probably a lot of stuff that people don't realize we've done. Even though I was a teenager at the time, part of the reason I chose the name Relapse was that there are some names that could have sounded more metal. I wanted something that was vague and wouldn't necessarily pigeonhole us.
