1983: Big Tony
The very first release for the Belgian label was a cover of Barry White’s Can't Get Enough (Of Your Love Babe) by Big Tony, a singer mostly overlooked in music history.
“We had to start somewhere! It was the end of disco and at the time, covers were very in vogue in Belgium. The Stones also started with covers… With this record, we made our first steps in the industry. We started learning all the crafts, production, distribution, and of course studio work. It was my first time in a studio, and that’s exactly where I wanted to be. I was 26 years old, I had been working in a record store and as a DJ since I was 14: I created the label to be closer to musicians. Our ambition was to become the new Virgin, or the new Mute, both success stories I wanted to emulate. The goal was to go as far as possible while remaining fully independent. Back then, the entire industry was in the hands of the British and the Americans, so I told myself: why not launch a Belgian music label? And the rest is history…”
1987: Derrick May
String of Life, one of the very first techno hit songs, was released in 1987 on Transmat, Derrick May’s own label (before being released again in 1998 on R&S). The start of a long history between the Belgian label and Detroit’s techno scene.
“When I received the first white labels from Detroit, I immediately called the phone number that was on the label. That’s how I got talking with Derrick May, Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson (“the Holy Trinity of techno music”). I got them plane tickets to come over to Belgium. Nobody knew them at the time. I got into electronic music through the Detroit scene; they convinced me that this was the way forward. It was a fascinating scene, the music was deeply futuristic. Thirty years later, it’s hard to define what is and what is not new, but back then, it was really clear! It was a very underground scene, and even today, our releases don’t touch on mainstream music. This has always been my philosophy. If I love an album, I release it, that’s it. And if nobody else likes it, I release it anyway.” 1987: Derrick May
1988 : CJ Bolland
Born in England but with a Belgian heart (he moved to the Belgium at the age of 4), prodigy CJ Bolland released his acid-house hit Move It in 1988 (not even a year after Phuture’s Acid Tracks) under the alias The Project (along with, among others, legendary sound engineer and producer Cisco Ferreira).
“It was the start of the New Beat era. This scene was extremely popular in Belgium, it launched the electronic community. At the time, I was installing my own studio, people were coming and going, and CJ Bolland came by. He was a fan of Cisco Ferreira, a.k.a. The Advent. Cisco was also there, and they started making music together, which gave birth to this track. CJ was one of R&S’s first artists to gain international acclaim. We started building our own identity; everyone was trying to gain expertise and experience with the equipment. I must admit that we had no idea of what we were doing back then. But we finally had a platform and we exploited it 100%.”
1990 : Joey Beltram
If there ever was a pioneering album, it is Energy Flash. The foundation of modern techno, this rave anthem composed by New York producer Joey Beltram propelled R&S onto the international scene.
“This album changed everything. It was the most important, no doubt about it. It was our first big success, it was played all over the world and it’s a track that had a huge influence on other artists. When you look back on it, these albums were really really strange… This track propelled the label into a completely different universe, while giving it a progressive aspect. Following Energy Flash, we started receiving demos from all around the globe.”
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