Secret Records creates exquisite visuals for vinyl reissues.
Just because a label is based in Madison doesn’t necessarily mean it works with local bands. In fact, there are several independent labels operating in the city that specialize in working with artists from outside the area.
Among them is Loretta Records, an active and extremely niche hip-hop label that specializes in small-run releases from artists that are mostly based on the East and West coasts. Launched in the late 1990s by Justin Pauls, who at the time was a rapper and a visual artist, the label shut down after a few years but recently rebooted with a new focus — promoting releases by artists who emulate classic hip-hop. “We sell nostalgia,” Pauls says.
Pauls, who now works in sales, founded Loretta with hopes that he could put out his own music and that of his friends. But he quickly realized how much work and capital it takes to keep an operation going. “Back then it wasn’t easy [to run a label],” he says. “You had to press at least 300 records, then you were selling them out of your car and on consignment. We were kids in our 20s who were broke, and it cost a lot of money and time that we didn’t have.”
It was the tragic murder of Pauls’ friend and former collaborator, DJ Soultwist, that prompted him to re-launch the label a few years ago. “His death kind of brought on a weird sort of nostalgia for that time period and made me revisit making music again,” Pauls says. He bought a record player and started sampling tracks to make a memorial tape for his friend. When he went to sell the tape online, he was surprised to learn that there had been a resurgence in the popularity of cassette tapes — and a community of people hungry for classic-sounding hip-hop. He started selling tapes and networking with musicians and labels, eventually building a following and stable of artists. Now he’s putting out three to four releases a month on cassette and lathe-cut vinyl, frequently selling out runs and distributing to fans all over the world. “The demographic we’re selling to is usually [people] in their late 20s to early 40s [who] grew up during the golden age of hip-hop, during the late ’90s and early 2000s,” he says. “They’re not a fan of what’s on the radio right now.”
There are no Madison-based artists on the label, but Pauls says he’s not opposed to signing local acts, as long as they fit the vibe. “I’m looking for [artists] that are at the top of the game in terms of lyrical ability,” Pauls says. “People who are pushing the envelope of an art form that the rest of the world has moved on from.”
Secret Records is a Madison label that specializes in vinyl reissues. Run by Vincent Presley and Lacey Smith, who both play in the metal band Zebras, the label started as an avenue for the couple to release their own music and eventually shifted to putting out old, limited-edition and previously unreleased music from bands including The Residents, a culty, experimental avant-pop group from Louisiana that’s been active since the 1960s. “Reissues are huge right now,” Presley says. “Everybody’s trying to get in the game.”
Presley, a huge Residents fan, wanted to put out a live album by Snakefinger, a Residents collaborator. A bootleg of the recording had been floating around for years, but Presley wanted to release the music on quality vinyl. “Being a record collector, I’ve seen a lot of reissues that are crappy work,” Presley says. He reached out to the band and spent two years negotiating the rights, but when the project finally came together, the band loved the finished product. The Residents already had a label, but they wanted to partner with Secret on future reissues and even started sending Presley and Smith unreleased tracks. “This one really opened it all up,” Presley says.
Secret’s products are magnificent to behold — instead of basic black vinyl, the records are colorful or even marbleized, and the covers and liners feature high-quality album art created by Smith, a graphic designer by trade. They also add extras to the package, like stickers or patches. “We try to do something extra, like using pictures that have never been released,” Smith says. “It’s lame when you get a reissue and there’s nothing new.”
Other labels with Madison connections are documenting international music. Ankur Malhotra, who splits his time between Wisconsin and his native New Delhi, founded Amarass Records, which highlights Indian folk music and seeks out traditional musicians via “field expeditions” into rural parts of the country. “It struck me that for a country the size of India there was still hardly any music being recorded and performed from India. Just Bollywood Bollywood Bollywood,” Malhotra told Isthmus in 2017.
Melissa Reiss
Bobby Hussy of No Coast Records wants to put Madison on the map.
No Coast, a garage-punk label run by Madison musician Bobby Hussy, also got its start partnering with international bands. Formerly known as Kind Turkey Records, its first release was a 2010 split cassette tape featuring two bands from the U.K. It has since worked with bands from all over the U.S., and one group from Canada. “I’ve always focused on a little bit of everything,” Hussy says.
In contrast with many other local musicians running labels, Hussy has intentionally avoided putting out his own music on No Coast, although he did reissue a tape from his garage-rock duo, The Hussy, in 2016. Instead, he focused on bands in other towns and touring groups that caught his attention when they came through Madison. “I wanted to make my label not about me — it’s supposed to be about other bands that have my stamp of approval,” he says.
Though its focus is national, No Coast has done releases for a few Madison bands, including the full-length debut from recently disbanded punk group No Hoax, and currently has a tape in the works for local noise-drone duo Emilie Earhart and Dan Woodman. Hussy says labels like Rare Plant and Kitschy Spirit — both run by Madison musicians who are passionate about documenting the scene — do such a great job focusing on the community that he’s pulled away from putting out music from local bands. Still, he says labels like his put Madison on the map in a different way.
“Bringing eyes onto some sort of out-of-town band has just as much of a place as trying to lift up our own town, because at the end of the day, the music community in the U.S. is actually really small,” Hussy says. “Fostering that national community is just as important as fostering the local community.”
