DIAGONAL RECORDS share brand new Autechre Remix ahead of 4-piece vinyl box set and tour marking 13 years of the label

DIAGONAL RECORDS SHARE BRAND NEW AUTECHRE REMIX

LISTEN TO RUSSELL HASWELL ‘HEAVY HANDED SUNSET 

(AUTECHRE FORM CONVERSION)’ HERE

4-PIECE BOX SET + TOUR MARKS THE LABEL’S 13TH YEAR

13 – OUT 18 OCTOBER 2024

DIAGONAL RECORDS TOUR IN OCT / NOV – STARTS HALLOWE’EN IN BRISTOL

31/10/2024 Strange Brew, Bristol - Powell, Not Waving, Russell Haswell, Gescom DJ 

02/11/2024 Centrala, Birmingham - Powell, Not Waving, Russell Haswell, Regis 

15/11/2024 Quarry, Liverpool - Powell, Not Waving, Russell Haswell, SOTE 

16/11/2024 Exit, Glasgow - Powell, Not Waving, Russell Haswell, Scott Gordon, Modern Institute, TRSSX 

30/11/2024 White Hotel, Manchester - Powell, Not Waving, Russell Haswell, SOTE

Diagonal Records have shared a brand new Autechre remix, taken from their forthcoming release, 13, celebrating 13 years of the label. The new remix is accompanied by two “pay what you like” tracks available now on Bandcamp. 

Listen to Russell Haswell / Heavy Handed Sunset [Autechre Form Conversion] and head over to Bandcamp for Yally’s ‘Payday’ and Powell’s ‘No U Turn [Mark Broom edit]’, both available for whatever price you choose to pay.

As it hits its 13th year, shifting out of childhood into awkward teenage years, Oscar Powell and Jaime Williams’ Diagonal label releases a multi-faceted family portrait more than three years in the making, comprising a compilation of new and unreleased tracks from across its roster, with some of its most influential collaborators brought along to the party across 4x12”s (+ digital bonus package), as well as a book and an tour that opens in Bristol on Hallowe’en with a line up boasting Powell, Not Waving, Russell Haswell, and Gescom DJ.

DIAG050 marks a milestone in the label’s history, even as the releases have racked up past it. “Our catalogue numbers are up to 70 now, which goes to show how much we’ve been delayed, by having families, by bereavement, by huge life events, but we always kept DIAG050 reserved to do something really special,” says Powell.

Within this release and its accompanying publications, events and ephemera is a capsule not just of the label’s history but its energies: the places it travelled; the people it met; the jokes it told; the people who lent the support to get it off the ground and the ones who bring its revitalised energy now.

The series of 12”s (in effect a 19-track compilation) has been designed by Guy Featherstone and spread across four releases and bound together with rubber bands – it is a label that has always been elastic in its modes of connecting people and music: “The music is what binds us together, but all the artists are characterised by a certain spirit of independence,” says Powell. The tracks across these releases reflect the label’s catalogue, making connections between electronic experimentalism, club productions, avant-garde sampling and vanguard computer music, in wriggling energies, uneasy rhythms and righteous individuals working in abrasive, esoteric, noisy or unhinged modes.

As well as the 12”s, the label also releases a book designed by Guy Featherstone, with texts by Jonnine Standish, Sue Tompkins, an interview with Powell by Jennifer Lucy Allan, and photo series by Marte Eknaes, Michael Amstad, Lorenzo Senni, Carl Kleiner and Sarah Lucas. “Sarah’s house was a kind of nesting ground for us in our late 20s,” says Powell, “we'd go out in East London and go back to Sarah's – it was a total meeting point for us, and so she has a special connection to the label.”

Those included on the releases represent a cross section of the label’s multigenerational family, from father figures like Karl and Russell who originally inspired Oscar and Jaime to start the label, to the newer additions to the roster. "We were like children when we started, Russell and Karl were father figures, but the label spans generations now. As we're growing up and starting families the label becomes like a family too," says Powell. Its origin story begins with long-time funcle of the label Regis, who remixes Powell’s ‘Nomad’. It’s this coupling that is the origin story of the entire project, when Powell gave Regis a burned CDR with what Powell says was a “beautifully typeset, but wholly pompous” letter, which nevertheless caught O’Connor’s eyes and ears – he replied the next day insisting Powell should release the material. That original CDR has recently resurfaced in Regis’ mother’s attic.

"The label turns 13 this year. They’re putting out music. They’re going on tour. They’re releasing a book. They’re still idiots!” - Karl O’Connor (Regis)

Typical of the daft tongue-in-cheek energy of the label’s earlier years is the inclusion of a new Autechre remix, of a track previously already remixed by Autechre (Haswell’s ‘Heavy Handed Sunset [Autechre Form Conversion]’). It also includes a collaboration between Powell and Kae Tempest, plus an unreleased track from his 2018 collaboration with Wolfgang Tillmans. Other immediate label family included in the release series include but are not limited to: extreme computer music daddy Sote; two tracks from unpredictable noise daddy Russell Haswell; gloopy synth patterns from punk daughter Viviankrist and shimmering pulses of sound from little brother Not Waving, as well as a clutch of compelling oddities and experimental bangers from long distance friends and penpals like the unheimlich acne concerns of Patiño and glassy atmospherics from Jim O’Rourke.

The compilation reflects the evolution and reorientation of the label after 70 releases, and serves to restate its purpose for being, coupled with a five date tour: “The label was established as a group of friends; like-minded people from all over the world,” says Powell. “We have grown up, and in doing so, the label has become a sort of family, at the same time as some of us have started our own.”

“DIAG050,” Powell continues, “brings it all together and makes a physical tangible connection – the elastic bands are what we can throw around ourselves to keep us together. I still see the label as a reflection of our own interests,” says Powell. "There are always so many forces at play; questions over whether we should continue under pressure from changing tastes, the decline of the music press and other pressures. We realised some time ago that we needed to find a different way of operating; a different source of strength: it’s got to be about the music; about the family. We’re putting something out there, and one day I’ll show this all to my son, to show him what we did — what we all made together.”

Pre-order 13 HERE

Full tracklist:

LP1

A1 Russell Haswell / Heavy Handed Sunset [Autechre Form Conversion] 

A2 VIVIANKRIST / Creatures
B1 Powell Tillmans / Stairwell 

B2 NHK / Binah
B3 Russell Haswell / Hypersonic

LP2
A1 Powell / Nomad [Regis Remix]
A2 NOVO LINE / Miasme Drumapella 

B1 Streetwalker / Limelight
B2 Patiño / Skin Careless [DJ TOOL]
B3 Stabudown Productions / Moody Runes

LP3
A1 Jim O’ Rourke / ror bypass
A2 Powell / Kate [featuring Kae Tempest] 

B1 Simon Pomery / Heard in the Womb 

B2 Sote / Ataraxy [featuring Arash Bolouri on santour] 

LP4
A1 Russell Haswell / Various Recordings [James Ruskin Amalgamation] 

A2 L/F/D/M / Non Death
B1 Not Waving / Rolling in Thoughts 

B2 Dale Cornish / Back in the Room 

B3 EVOL / Wabbit Trax 7

Diagonal Records Presents ‘13’ / UK Tour FW2024
(Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester) 

31/10/2024 Strange Brew, Bristol
Powell, Not Waving, Russell Haswell, Gescom DJ 

02/11/2024 Centrala, Birmingham
Powell, Not Waving, Russell Haswell, Regis 

15/11/2024 Quarry, Liverpool
Powell, Not Waving, Russell Haswell, SOTE 

16/11/2024 Exit, Glasgow
Powell, Not Waving, Russell Haswell, Scott Gordon, Modern Institute, TRSSX 

30/11/2024 White Hotel, Manchester
Powell, Not Waving, Russell Haswell, SOTE

Diagonal Records