WINK: Well, a little bit of everything. A lot of the press is interested in what's going on in this whole hype on electronic music, even though that has slowed down a bit. I'm happy it did too because it's one of the reasons I wanted to stay out of things for a while. I didn't want to be incorporated into the hype. I didn't want my album to be hyped, I wanted my album to be anticipated and respected in coming out. As soon as there's hype you have to deal with expectations and weather on not they're met or not. I know you, you know me; we've been in this shit for a long time. For people to come around at the end of '96 and say 'Wow! Electronica! What's this?!' There was so much hype around it and then it died down. The Prodigy lived up to the hype but that was it.
DMA: Do you operate Ovum based on your artists having major commercial potential like a Prodigy or a Chemical Brothers?
WINK: It's hard to say, but King is an avenue to sell records because he is R+B-based. I'm not saying we want to be underground and that we don't care how many records we sell, we're concerned with quality music. If we have a hit with it that's great, if not then we'll just plug along with our quality music. A lot of people look to our label and they're like 'we dig Ovum' and producers send us tapes because there's very few labels they dig. They talk about how our record jackets look good, and we're an artist-driven label looking out for artists' needs. This is all stuff we've picked up along the way and we're applying it now. In the long-term this makes us happy. Our concern is just putting out quality music and product. If we have hits along the way, sure that's great and we would strive for them 100%, but that's not our 100% goal. We could sign La Bouche acts and stuff like that but that's not where our heads are at.
DMA: Are you mostly interested in Philly-based talent?
WINK: Not nessessarily. We're about music from wherever it's from, it's just happened that our initial projects are from here. We're very interested right now in the Boom Boom Satellites who are from Japan. Right now, Philly is hot producer-wise. Two of the Wamdue Kids have moved here, DJ Trace moved here from the UK, labels are starting up -- King's room-mate Dozia has started up New Lion, the Wamdue Kids are doing Magic Water, there's another label called Earth Recordings, Robbie Tronco is doing a label called Forbidden. There's a lot of action going on right now here musically.
WINK: So did you like the album?
DMA: Yes! I love it...I play many of the tracks in my mixshow. it's also really interesting work to listen to all the way through.
WINK: Well, we basically have only talked about Trent on the album, but I really had a great time getting to the next level for me as a producer working with vocalists. I always wrote songs, but they didn't have vocals in them they had instrumentation in its place llike a 303 or a sample of me or someone else so working with vocalists like Trent or Carolyn Crawley and Hershel Gerr from the Interpreters ["Simple Man"] which is going to be the second single. There's a great balance on the record; I didn't want to make an album that was too weird, and I think I accomplished that.
Written 4/28/98
Originally posted by Jennifer Warner, reposted with permission.
