AMR Winter 2014 Update

Well, it’s that time of the year again…to ponder how the last 12 months passed and discuss what’s on the horizon for the upcoming frame.

We can say that we released some good music last year. Less than we wanted to, but true to our style of deepness nonetheless. The “Emerald Cities Project” collaboration (AMR-28) with John Heckle was a great success. And we were really pleased to finally get the LAAK joint (AMR-31) out, after a nearly two-year delay (big thanks especially to the boys in Birmingham for being patient with us!) There were other projects that we wanted to release as well, but time constraints and logistics did us in again.

We’ve also been doing a lot of thinking about the future…not just the near term, which we’ll describe in a minute, but what happens five, ten years down the road? As we near our tenth anniversary (some articles say it’s already passed, others say it’s next summer), what do we want to do? What legacy do we want to leave? These are all questions that don’t yet have answers, and whose decisions are still very much up in the air. We’ve noticed that a lot of labels out there seem content in staying in a very narrow range of styles, and we have suffered from that, too (if for no other reason than we really enjoy the style we’re in!) But that’s no real measure of success in our minds – when the question is music, there are so many answers, and while trying to connect all the dots might seem foolish, limiting oneself to a single group of styles is kind of boring and lame to be honest. Besides, more styles of music mean more opportunities to connect with you, our fans. No, we won’t be taking any junkets into stuff like dubstep. But expect a few twists and turns as we adjust to a broadened realm of musical possibility.

The short term is everything you’ve come to enjoy us for over the past while – good, deep, moving music. The first release this year will be the “Rotate. Freely.” (AMR-35) compilation, due out in a month or so. It features Chicago Skyway, Natan H, Mick Welch and label head Malcolm Moore delivering 4 sweet grooves that celebrate the annual Freerotation music festival that occurs every year in July. Malcolm and operations manager Debra Jones-Davis made their first pilgrimage to the festival in 2014 and had a wonderful time. They plan to return this year. After that, we’ll evaluate who we will release next and provide more information around the time. We can say that we haven’t felt better about the upcoming release queue in quite a long time!

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank our fans for giving us the opportunity to show you the deepness.

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