New York’s Wierd Records formed from a weekly music party known as the Wierd party. The party was established in 2003 by artist and DJ Pieter Schoolwerth and has long been NYC’s premier showcase for artists and DJs working within the Cold Wave, Minimal Synth, and Experimental Electronic/Industrial Noise genres of alternative pop and dance music. The party began as a small group of friends spinning records weekly at the Southside Lounge in Williamsburg, Brooklyn who in 2004 began staging larger, roaming monthly live music events in lofts and warehouses nearby. By the end of 2006 the party had outgrown its Brooklyn home and relocated to Home Sweet Home on Chrystie St. in Manhattan where it is held every Wednesday evening to this day. With the move, Pieter expanded the party into a record label to unify the label and party and give the community a geographically consistent home base. The label describes itself as a “hot new frozen cold record label for contemporary Post-Wave music under the very rare influences of early minimal synth, European coldwave, and classic British and American post punk.”
In the last 3 years Wierd has released music by many of the bands who have DJed and performed live at the party, such as Frank(Just Frank), Xeno and Oaklander, Led Er Est and Automelodi. Their releases began with The Wierd Compilation, a collection of music by their resident bands. In a feature on the label in FADER magazine, Schoolwerth explained the significance of the cold synth sound today: “In the world in general, and New York in particular, in a time when people are more and more becoming isolated all day by the internet alone at their computers and staring at the tiny sad glowing screens in their cellular hands, it only makes sense to me we are all feeling a slight sense of loneliness and (hopefully) desire for connection with others which is slowly slipping away year after year…this is one of the predominant feelings of the Wierd world—an affirmative sense of humanistic longing for true human connection conveyed through emotionally melancholic sounds.”
Apart from the over 400 weekly parties and live music events and over 200 released trax of frozen cold music Wierd has produced, both the party and label remain a vital part of the energy of both latenight downtown New York City and the outermost recesses of Brooklyn, and represents an underground spirit that is truly very rare in this day and age.
http://www.myspace.com/wierdrecords
Wierd Records Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/WIERDrecords
Wierd Live Performance Archive: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wierd/sets/
Artist: Frank(JustFrank)
Title: The Brutal Wave
Label: Wierd Records
Genre: Indie : Alternative
UPC: 616892093268
Territory: Worldwide
Release Date: 07.06.10
Artist: Automelodi
Title: Automelodi
Label: Wierd Records
Genre: Indie : Alternative
UPC: 616892093367
Territory: Worldwide
Release Date: 07.13.10
Artist: Various Artists
Title: The Wierd Compilation Volume II: Analogue Electronic Music 2008, Part 1
Label: Wierd Records
Genre: Indie : Alternative
UPC: 859700626788
Territory: Worldwide
Release Date: 05.15.08
Related Posts:
Tags: Automelodi, Frank(Just Frank), Led Er Est, Xeno and Oaklander
