For 35 years, FFRR has been synonymous with innovative dance music, from early originators like Orbital, Salt‘N’Pepa and Goldie, to Diplo & Sidepiece, Obskür, new signing Sam Gellaitry and more. As the Warner Music Group imprint rebrands, Music Week meets boss Andy Daniell to talk heritage, future plans and the enduring magic of a good floorfiller…
---- BY ANNA FIELDING ---- I
t’s hard to pick just one defining track from a 35-year history, especially when that history has been based around making people get up and dance, but Andy Daniell is well versed in the power of FFRR’s back catalogue.
“I bought a lot of stuff from the label when I was a kid and was just in love with records,” says the label’s current boss. “I have a huge amount of love for it, always have. But I’m going to go with Armand Van Helden’s You Don’t Even Know Me, that one definitely jumps out. With that perfect disco loop and Armand just doing his thing on top, it encapsulates what FFRR is for me, because it was an exceptional club record, but it also went to No.1 in the charts.” Daniell knows there is a balance to be struck. As befitting a dance imprint, Full Frequency Range Recording – as it started out before slimming down to FFRR – has always found its success comes from maintaining a mix, dancing on the line between releases with immense cultural cachet and credible, commercial hits. The label was founded in 1986, under the umbrella of London Records where DJ Pete Tong was then working as an A&R. One of their early releases was Lil Louis’ French Kiss, a genre-defining
62 | Music Week
Chicago house track, known for its methodical build and orgasmic moans, that also spent two weeks at No.2 in the UK in 1989. They put out D-Mob’s rave classic We Call It Acieed and Salt ‘N’ Pepa’s Push It. In the 1990s, there were electronic albums, including the majority of Orbital’s work and Goldie’s Timeless, that were groundbreaking at the time and are now respected as classics. All Saints were on FFRR, along with Bananarama, but so were Carl Cox and Frankie Knuckles. In 2011, Tong relaunched the label and it now sits as a sub label of Parlaphone within the wider Warner Music Group (WMG).
Daniell has been running FFRR since October 2019. “The first year was laying foundations, developing a dynamic roster of artists and music,” he begins. “This year is all about building on that and having more of everything.” The label draws on the wider Parlophone team and WMG’s network, and Daniell namechecks Parlophone A&R head Elias Christidis and WMG’s dance team. But Daniell, who covers A&R and the label’s overall vision, and marketing lead Evie Grain are the two full-time members of staff. “Perhaps it’s my indie background,” he says, referencing his previous role at house-focused
Defected. “But I see FFRR as a label that truly understands the importance of the more underground aspect of dance and electronic music, and one that also happens to be housed within an environment that puts no limit on the success that can be achieved.”
The balance, now, is not just between culture and commerce, but between history and the future. “We’re not a retro legacy label,” Daniell declares. “We’re a forward-thinking, exciting label that happens to have that wonderful 35 years of history.” It’s this attitude that has informed this month’s rebrand. Daniell hopes the new logo will “categorically” still be associated with quality, while also “making the brand exciting to an 18 year old who has never heard a note of the incredible legacy, that they will see it and feel ‘I want to know more. That looks exciting. This is invigorating.’” In clean black and white, the new look keeps the ear that was part of the previous logo, giving it a more digital style. The person responsible is musician and designer Trevor Jackson (see box p64), whose work has always been intertwined with music and club culture. He’s created flyers, record sleeves and
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