Guns, floods and 45s: Mr Bongo spill the beans on five of the label’s most important reissues

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Hareton old

Hareton + Meta
KM110 EP

This is a really interesting one because of the timing of it. You don’t often get this. Normally when you track down a reissue, it’s fairly well known or established, but this one was just breaking in the last few months. And there’s not many left where things are really rare and everyone wants them.

I think Ed Motta had it about a year ago and I saw it on his Instagram or something like that, and then Floating Points got hold of it as well, and then I think Gilles got hold of a copy a month ago or so.

It’s this guy Hareton Salvanini. We managed to get hold of Ayrton Salvanini who is his son or his brother through a website and rung him up. He was a bit grumpy and he wouldn’t sign the contract he just wanted money. He said “I’ll sign the contract once you send me some money”, which is not a great way to do things.

hareton back

Anyway, I sent him some money in good faith and the next thing I knew I got this parcel in the post. I couldn’t believe it. There was a contract in there and he just knocked it out and sent it in the mail, so I’m lucky it wasn’t broken.

He used to give them away. Meta was a theatre group and he used to give them away and sell them at each performance, and I don’t know how many got into anyone’s hands, but he reckoned he made one or two thousand. If you’re just giving them away people might just even bin them. It never got released, this is the first distributed released.

AT8W5863 copy

And luckily his pal directed this orchestra, the Campinas Orchestra, so that’s why you’ve got the strings on there which just gives it that depth. And I think that’s why people are picking up on it. It’s got a funky beat, big string riffs, bit of psych and it’s an EP so four tracks erring from a romantic track to a couple of psych tracks and a funky track.

It’s rare for it to be genuinely so rare, and then to get hold of it quickly enough that you’re just on the cusp as people are finding out about it. That timing is unusual. Normally most things have been around a while. You can be in the stage with some things where you’re the only one who’s got it, but then you’ve got to build it up because it might just die on its arse. As it was, when the Brazilians found out we were putting it out, a couple of guys started putting ones they had on Discogs for a lot of money. I think Gilles [Peterson] might have bought one, for like £3-400 maybe. I think what’s been established these days is that there are enough people who’d still want the original even if it’s been reissued, we know a few don’t we, who live in Brighton, that will only buy originals.

Ayrton wasn’t able to shed much more light on it, really. I guess he didn’t think much of it. And another thing that was exciting is that you’ve got some really great artwork. Andy our designer spent a long time getting the colours together, you can imagine it takes a bit of time.

hareton on desk

The artwork: Andy (Mr Bongo)

Most people would love to have a collection of all original records, but it’s not always possible to own them. The aim for all our reissues is to produce a replica that matches, or – in cases where there were obvious production flaws – exceed the originals. So in more detail, we will use the same print method, and use special inks and finishes to produce them as authentically as we can.

Firstly, we start by tracking down an original copy, first pressing, in the best shape possible. This is sometimes in itself a lot of work. We work with record dealers worldwide to source the best condition copies we can. Some are easy, we have them ourselves; but others are a lot of work, we can wait months (a year even) for the right one. With Hareton + Meta – KM110 EP, we were lucky; J. Ayreton (Hareton Salvanini’s brother), sent us one of (maybe his only?) copy… Although it was a miracle it arrived, having travelled 9000km to us, in an unsealed jiffy bag.

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hareton new in photoshop copy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The original Hareton + Meta – KM110 EP was very limited, printed in four colours, three of which are unusual, being fluorescent colours. We spent around 30 hours on the artwork. It was a really lengthy reproduction process, we had to separate a scanned file into the four complex layers that would print over each other, and mix perfectly to create all the colours you see in the cover. The files we sent to print were prepared in Adobe Photoshop, we drew diagrams of each colour to make sure all the colours were present, in the right place, and would mix correctly.

The originals are quite poorly printed, the colours overlap / mis-align, but we continued this error in our reissue, I think it gives it more character, and keeps it’s authenticity. This is something we do with all our reissues, imperfection is perfection for a lot of these releases.