Label Dive: Rhythm Section International

In Label Dive, we take a look at labels–big and small–that have been bringing top-quality vinyl releases to fans across the world.

Rhythm Section is a tour-de-force in London electronic music. Initially founded as a radio show and party series before launching a record label under the name Rhythm International in 2014, the collective, led by Bradley Zero, has been at the forefront of innovative cross-genre music from London and further afield for well over a decade.

Counting releases from Al Dobson Jr, Klein Zage, Nicola Cruz and many more in its catalogue, Rhythm Section International has been a steady source of consistently excellent discoveries for its audience both at home in Peckham and around the world.

As the label celebrates its 10th birthday with an expansive six-disc box set, VF sits down with label head Bradley Zero and label manager Emily Hill to discuss Rhythm Section International’s origins and journey to this point.

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Talk me through the origins of Rhythm Section International.

Bradley Zero: First of all, it’s best to differentiate the various Rhythm Sections. It’s confusing because we celebrated our 10th anniversary in 2021, but then we’re also celebrating our 10-year anniversary this year and that’s for the label. 2009 was the first radio show, 2011 was the first party and 2014 was the first release. 

The label came about essentially with no real plan and was a reaction to just having a lot of unreleased music. At that time, I worked at Boiler Room and had already been doing radio for five years. I started to DJ pretty regularly – doing a couple of international gigs here and there. The root of everything I do is collecting and sharing but it just got to the point where I had so much music that I knew wasn’t coming out that it was like, “Well, if no one else is gonna do it then I guess I’ll have to”. 

I’d initially heard Al Dobson Jr. play a set at Boiler Room. He hadn’t released anything then, and a conversation with him led to putting together this first record. That came out in November, which is when I also went on a holiday probably for the first time in two years, and never actually went back to work at Boiler Room.

In those early days, were there any particular labels that you were looking to for inspiration?

Bradley Zero: I suppose there were a few classic labels, certainly with the inspiration for the house sleeve, like XL. They were a big inspiration with how they managed to do so many different things and straddle the boundary between commerciality and underground dance music for however long it’s been.

At the time, most of the labels I was interested in and excited by were more like hyper-local DIY labels like Mood Hut. I think they released their first record a year or two before we started and, from the outside, I found it fascinating how they created this little world of music and had a tight-knit crew around all the productions and an in-house studio and everything in this scene in Vancouver.  

Was there a guiding ethos in what music you wanted to put out? Any type of genre or general vibe?

Bradley Zero: No, there wasn’t but, in a roundabout way, that first release by Al Dobson Jr. had all of those elements that the label went on to explore in future releases. You could call it a beatsy, hip-hop record, but it’s got elements of club music, live instrumentation, drums, and vocal samples. It’s got this kind of worldy, jazzy influence going on. It’s really hard to pin down and give it a genre in the same way that the label went on to be quite hard to pin down. I’ve never felt restricted by that.

From the start until now, how has the structure of the label operated?

Bradley Zero: Initially, it was just me winging it. I’d made a logo for the parties and the radio and Jack J made this sort of template that became the classic Rhythm Section in-house design. Shortly after putting out the first release, a friend of mine – Morell Mason – who I’d met at Worldwide Festival, came on board. He’d been an intern at Brownswood and helped to set up a lot of the processes we have in place now, from distribution and publishing to A&R. He was there for the first couple of years and then left for Young Turks, which is now Young. Since then he’s been at Burberry.

Then Mali Baden Powell aka Z Lovecraft came on board to help with events and label stuff. Anu joined as a label assistant and Emily joined eight years ago. That’s been the core team for a long while. Anu left and focused on her own thing and Emily is now label manager and has done an amazing job of growing the scope of what we do and making it more professional. 

At a time when fans have unlimited access to music, how do you approach marketing your releases in such a crowded field?  

Emily Hill: We have such a loyal intrinsic fan base that receives all the different sounds that we put out. We also work with amazing PRs like Jess Goodchild. We met when she was working at Dawn and was based in Berlin and then she moved on to start her own company. She has been someone that we rely on and trust so deeply. 

In the changing face of the algorithm, it’s so difficult to get people really stuck into something. It’s important to make it as personal as possible so that listeners actually see the people in the process behind what is happening and how the music was made. 

Bradley Zero: Every release is slightly different. It’s also sometimes quite conflicting to balance this desire to back and believe in things for what they are rather than necessarily the stats they produce. We are a business and we have a responsibility to give the artists the biggest chance to make a decent living through putting the record out. I don’t think having this wishy-washy glass half-full approach necessarily cuts it when it comes down to it but I do think it’s important not to get lost in the numbers game. 

Rhythm Section has maintained quite a quintessential Peckham vibe. How do you balance that localised energy with appealing to a global audience?

Bradley Zero: I think the fact that we’ve had a party every month for the last 15 years underpins the local element of what we do – certainly when we started, less so now as the reach evolved and as venues have closed and times have changed. For the first seven, eight years, it was every two weeks in a pool hall in Peckham and it was mostly local artists, a few people that we connected with in different places that were doing similar things to us like Beautiful Swimmers, Rough Dog, Mood Hut – those kinds of collectives and people.

That created this hyper-local micro scene and then my intention with the label – which is why I called it Rhythm Section International. I wanted to have no limits and be able to take it globally and connect with people doing things in different places. From the start, it had quite a global manifesto. 

Do you have any standout memories from the first decade of Rhythm Section International?

Emily: I think being asked to do a South by Southwest showcase was a pretty big moment and managing to get TONE over – that was really cool. They’d managed to print out the Rhythm Section logo and it was on the side of a wall next to Jazz Refreshed. It was a real struggle to make that happen because barely any of the gigs you get there are paid. Bradley managed to wrangle it and brought us out. George Riley, Poppy, Judah, TONE, Hiatt dB and Goya Gambani all played. That was a real moment where I was like, “Whoa, we’re officially a big fucking deal”. 

Bradley Zero: It’s hard to say. It’s the little things at the beginning. For example, I remember hearing Giles Peterson play our Al Dobson Jr. record on BBC Radio 1 and it was the biggest buzz. Similar to what Emily said, it was this feeling that we’ve made it to have Giles Peterson bigging up the label and saying that he loved the record. It was a big real moment because there was never a game plan. It just snowballed. Having that momentum at the beginning and having these hugely influential figures you admire sort of co-sign it was just unbelievable.

Other things feel incredibly special like going to Australia and selling out a big event with a thousand people. The feeling that what you’re doing has been appreciated a long way away from home and seeing, hearing and feeling the connection in person – it all connects the dots.

10 Years of Rhythm Section International is available to pre-order now. Rhythm Section International’s 10th birthday party takes place at Earth Dalston on December 13.