Rhythm Lab Records: Career Start

Over the past 6 months, Reform Radio's in-house record label, Rhythm Lab Records, has been reinvented and revitalised by 7 young people, led by Sound with Mike’s music business expert, Mike Burgess, and it’s all thanks to Youth Music’s Incubator fund. After a carefully curated recruitment process, the young professionals were given specific roles and responsibilities within the business to train and deliver a real-life, hands-on record label experience. Not only were they trained by one of the most respected specialists in the business, they were all paid the national living wage throughout. 

The team were given a budget to deliver a string of releases from new budding talent in the Manchester area. Keeping within the label’s previous experimental, collaborative ethos, the “Sonic Synthesis” concept was born. Sonic Synthesis is a compilation release made up of two EP releases, “STEMS” and “ROOTS”, with the addition of a bonus track from press officer, Iyun (LINDT) and musician/producer Callum Hultquist. As you can probably gather, the group decided to embody and support a naturalist approach to the label’s attitude and aesthetic, with plants and climate awareness at the forefront of the design and ideology.

The EP releases feature 2 artists doing an original track each. Then, each artist would remix the other artist's tracks. Ending in a 4 track collaborative EP. These EPs are then combined into tt various artist compilation,

Finishing off the process, the team have gone through the reissue process, remixing and re-releasing a release by Manchester’s Swing Ting collective, a group that the label has had previous affiliation with.