Falling A Records is a British

Essex, England Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

-based

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

, founded in the late 1970s by

Barry Lamb Barry Lamb (born 9 May 1963 in South Shields, England) is an English experimental musician. Biography Barry Lamb is an English composer, author and musician. He was born in South Shields, but lived in Holland-on-Sea during his secondary scho ...

and

Peter Ashby Peter Ashby is an English musician and composer, and a founder member of the bands Frenzid Melon, Spasmodic Caress and the insane picnic, as well as co-founder of Falling A Records with Barry Lamb. He was the original bass player and composer i ...

.,''Record Collector'', October 2011, no 393, page 54 born out of the D.I.Y cassette movement. It owned a shop in Clacton-on-Sea which sold new and second hand records, distributed

fanzine A fanzine (blend word, blend of ''fan (person), fan'' and ''magazine'' or ''-zine'') is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by fan (person), enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) ...

s such as

New Crimes New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

, Vague, Vox, Flipside,

Juniper beri-beri Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' () of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arcti ...

, Blam!, and D.I.Y magazines/

comics a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

including the very first copies of '' Viz''. It also distributed leaflets for various causes such as "anti-

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

" and "anti-

vivisection Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for experiment ...

", music and politics being interlinked at the time. It had a roster of several bands on its own label, such as the insane picnic ''(sic)'', Standing Ovation and

Spasmodic Caress Spasmodic Caress were an English post punk/ new wave band, formed by Peter Masters, that played many gigs along the East Coast in Essex, Ipswich, Colchester and London between 1979 and 1984. They recorded a track for the 4AD Records 12" compilatio ...

, as well as cassettes and some vinyl it distributed for other D.I.Y cassette labels including

Cause for Concern William Patrick Spencer Gold (born 14 September 1996), known professionally as Wilbur Soot, is a British Twitch streamer, YouTuber, and musician. He first became known in 2017 for his work with the group comedy YouTube channel SootHouse, where ...

Subway Subway, Subways, The Subway, or The Subways may refer to: Transportation * Subway, a term for underground rapid transit rail systems * Subway (underpass), a type of walkway that passes underneath an obstacle * Subway (George Bush Interconti ...

Adventures in Reality An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme ...

Music for Midgets Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

Third Mind Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (disambiguation) * Third Avenue (disambiguation) * High ...

and Colortapes. Many notable bands were distributed by Falling A, including

The Cleaners from Venus Martin Newell (born 4 March 1953) is an English singer-songwriter, poet, columnist and author who leads the Cleaners from Venus, a guitar pop band with Jangle pop, jangly, upbeat arrangements. He is also regarded as a significant figure in the ...

featuring

Martin Newell Martin Newell may refer to: *Martin Newell (computer scientist), British computer scientist, creator of the Utah teapot *Martin Newell (musician) (born 1953), British singer-songwriter, poet and author * Martin Newell (priest) (born 1967), English ...

the Modern Art The Modern Art (sometimes spelled Mødern Art) was a psychedelic rock band formed by Gary Ramon in the 1980s. It had a loose lineup that never played gigs but did see the release of two studio albums and a number of self-produced cassettes. Ramo ...

Attrition Attrition may refer to *Attrition warfare, the military strategy of wearing down the enemy by continual losses in personnel and material **War of Attrition, fought between Egypt and Israel from 1968 to 1970 **War of attrition (game), a model of agg ...

The Pastels The Pastels are an indie rock group from Glasgow formed in 1981. They were a key act of the Scottish and British independent music scenes of the 1980s, and are specifically credited for the development of an independent and confident music scen ...

, The Membranes and

Wavis O'Shave Wavis O'Shave is a surreal English musician and comedian, who regularly appeared on Channel 4's music show, '' The Tube'' (1982–1987). Description Wavis O'Shave performed many original comedy characters including the cult figure "The Hard", ...

(also known as Foffo Spearjig). Some exclusive material was recorded for Falling A by The Cleaners from Venus and Foffo Spearjig among others. In 1985, the

cassette culture The cassette culture (also known as the tape/cassette scene or cassette underground) refers to the practices associated with amateur production and distribution of music and sound art on compact cassette that emerged in the mid-1970s. The cassett ...

was threatening the fabric of the established music industry, and Falling A's profile was such that it received the largest write up in the annual ''Music Week'' directory of UK record labels,''Music Week'' directory of UK record labels 1985 even more words than

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...

. The label is still in existence as of July 2021. It is currently reissuing back catalogue on CD while releasing new music and creating a vast archival resource from all the memorabilia, ephemera and past product in its vaults.

References

External links

Official site
{{Authority control Cassette culture 1970s–1990s British independent record labels

See also

References

External links