ARTWORX: Richard Earnshaw on the making of his new label

Richard Earnshaw is one of our favorite producers, globally recognized as one of the proficient and skilled house music producers of our time. His work on his own and with Spiritchaser, on labels like Soulfuric, Purple, Swing City or Ministry of Sound is a lock to move bodies to the floor.

So it’s good news when he announced Artworx, a new addition to a family of labels that includes Duffnote, One51, KMG, Guess and the iCulture Radio and events brand. 5 Mag talked to Richard about the emergence of the new imprint, conceived as “a place where people can freely create music without boundary.”

I just noticed that the Duffnote Recordings SoundCloud page has an epitaph on it: “Soulful House Record Label 2004-2024.” I didn’t even know it was sick. What happened to Duffnote?

Rest assured Duffnote is alive and well. Despite the trend, we don’t subscribe to the quantity model with any of our label output. We are lucky that we have a healthy and productive catalog, and extra lucky that some of the catalog has performed incredibly well in various territories. And with this comes the job of managing performance and publishing. Creating new music, songwriting and collaborating is at the very heart of why we do what we do, but it’s also super important to look after the catalogue that’s already out there.

Tell me about the new label. What is Artworx? I don’t suppose you’ve written a manifesto but if you did, what would you say? What would you tell my friend at the record shop about its sound?

All the other labels operate within a fairly specific space, and we wanted and needed a platform to serve as a home for any and all ideas. To encourage musicians, songwriters and producers to come together in collaboration. The work we have been doing, particularly on EP and LP projects that combine multi genres needed a place to live.

And as my studio (also called Artworx) is space where creative freedom is absolutely encouraged, it seemed like the logical move. So there will be house, Drum n Bass, R&B, lounge/chillout… and everything in-between. [It’s] a place where people can freely create music without boundary.

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Duffnote featured an active A&R and a lot of different artists from the jump. Will this be mostly an outlet for your own material or are you still doing active A&R?

As we get the ball rolling with the Artworx output, it will be fairly in-house heavy, purely because we have all the ideas there ready to share. But we most definitely will be working with Artists and their repertoires. To support new and established acts creating original music/songwriting as best as we can.

Tell us about “Better For Me” and Sabrina Chyld, your first release on Artworx. No pressure, but this record is going to be at the top when people look up the listings for your label forever.

There’s a lot of noise and distraction out there these days so the process in the making of this record is exactly what we want to focus on and promote, not just through Artworx but across all our labels. Bringing people together in person (where possible) to create and collaborate together.

“Better For Me” was a very basic idea which led to Sabrina coming down to the studio to indulge in a true “in the room” collaboration. We didn’t set out to make a house record, it just so happened to end up this way.

You’ve seen some highs in this industry and while I am not in your business, there have probably been lows too. Is there something you know now about running a label that you wish you knew in 2004?

This is a question we ask ourselves almost every day. The “if only we knew this when we started…” Since we literally had no idea what we were really doing in 2004, I think the only thing that would have helped us out would have been to have a better understanding of how all the component parts of sound recording and publishing worked. We learned everything on the job.

And whilst we were trying to figure things out, the industry itself was changing, with downloads/streaming etc. I’m sure we’d have been in a better position to react and respond to these changes if it wasn’t for the fact we were still trying to ensure we had the basics understood.

How much do you think about streaming as an artist? How much as a label owner? I’ve talked to some people who you’d think would be indifferent, but they’ve told me that streaming kinda makes the difference between losing a little money on their label business and making a little. Does that ring true for you?

I was talking about this to someone earlier today. Whichever role I think about it in, I come to much the same opinion. As an independent artist, an independent business, how do we improve our presence and operational space with the streaming model? And therefore better opportunity to increase streams/streaming revenue. We are lucky to have releases in our catalog that stream in their millions. And it makes a significant difference to the artist and the label.

A new label is a blank slate. What are you going to fill it with?

A passionate and authentic approach to music making.

The first release from Artworx – Richard Earnshaw & Sabrina Chyld’s Better For Me – is out now.

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