The next 50 records in The Vinyl Factory’s story.
As part of the ongoing The Vinyl Factory: Reverb exhibition at 180 Studios, 100 records have been showcased within an industrial installation designed by Ben Kelly (The Hacienda, Factory Records).
The extensive collection, released between 2009 and 2024, is an artwork-led glimpse into fifteen years of vinyl releases from The Vinyl Factory’s label–a platform that represents the symbiotic relationship between art and sound.
Last week, we showcased 49 of The Vinyl Factory’s releases including essential records from Massive Attack, Ryoji Ikeda, Daft Punk and Marina Abramović and many more. Below, we’re exploring the second half of the discography, encompassing everything from Theaster Gates and Wes Anderson to Rina Sawayama and Moor Mother.
UNKLE feat. Keaton Henson
Sick Lullaby
A frequent collaborator with The Vinyl Factory over a decade, producer James Lavelle released Sick Lullaby – a cinematic-sounding UNKLE collaboration with singer Keaton Henson – on the VF label in 2017. A long-time champion of vinyl culture, Lavelle started his Mo’Wax label in the early 1990s, which later spawned his UNKLE project and sparked a global musical movement. UNKLE’s iconic debut album Psyence Fiction, featuring collaborations with Thom Yorke, Richard Ashcroft and Kool G Rap, had been a cult classic following its 1998 release.
Stan Douglas
Luanda-Kinshasa
The Vinyl Factory have staged Stan Douglas’s installation Luanda-Kinshasa twice at 180 Studios: at The Infinite Mix in 2016 and now at The Vinyl Factory: Reverb exhibition. The film depicts a fictional 1970s jazz-funk band engaged in a seemingly endless real-time jam. The band’s music echoes the then-current confluence of American jazz, funk and Afrobeat. Recorded in Brooklyn in 2013, and featuring musicians including Jason Moran, Kahlil Kwame and Kimberley Thompson, the soundtrack was released by The Vinyl Factory in 2016 on this gatefold album, with two edits of the installation’s epic jazz-jam selected by Douglas.
Patricia Satterwhite, Jacolby Satterwhite and Nick Weiss
Patricia
In 2016, The Vinyl Factory partnered with the Berlin Biennale and the artist collective DIS Magazine, who were curating that year’s program across the city. With curation and production by Total Freedom, The Vinyl Factory released three creative alliances between leading electronic musicians and artists that took place at the Biennale, including this collaboration between musician Patricia Satterwhite, artist Jacolby Satterwhite and music producer Nick Weiss. Jacolby Satterwhite’s vibrant work weaves together performance, animation, and personal ephemera. His videos and performances build on household or cosmetic products that his schizophrenic mother imagined and sketched. Satterwhite traces these objects and incorporates them into a virtual world filled with family videos and recordings of the artist dancing and vogueing in bright, tight body suits.
Fatima Al Qadiri, Hito Steyerl and Juliana Huxtable
Nothing Forever
In 2016, The Vinyl Factory partnered with the Berlin Biennale and the artist collective DiS, who were curating that year’s program across the city. The Vinyl Factory released three creative alliances between leading electronic musicians and artists that took place at the event, including this collaboration between musician Fatima Al-Qadiri, video artist Hito Steyerl and poet-artist-musician Juliana Huxtable. Titled Nothing Forever and produced by Total Freedom, the vinyl-only release was limited to 300 copies and featured artwork by Steyerl.
Rina Sawayama
Cyber Stockholm Syndrome
Long before she was sharing Glastonbury’s main stage with Elton John, Japanese-British singer Rina Sawayama was releasing her first physical record with The Vinyl Factory. This four-track EP came out in 2017: pressed on orange vinyl, it featured an exclusive remix of her track “Cyber Stockholm Syndrome” by Los Angeles-based producer Nite Jewel. A video for the track was filmed at The Vinyl Factory Space in Poland Street, Soho.
Total Freedom & Isa Genken
Fuck Them All
In 2016, The Vinyl Factory partnered with the Berlin Biennale and the artist collective DiS Magazine, who were curating that year’s program across the city. The Vinyl Factory released three collaborations between leading electronic musicians and artists that took place at the event, including this project between LA-based producer and DJ Total Freedom (aka Ashland Mines) and one of the most influential female artists of the last 30 years, Isa Genzken. With lyrics by Genzken and music by Total Freedom, the release was limited to 300 copies with cover design by Meiré & Meiré.
Ryoji Ikeda
Code Name A-Z
In 2017, The Vinyl Factory partnered with the LUMA Foundation to present live performances and installations by artists and musicians – including Ryoji Ikeda’s test pattern – at the Elevation Arts Festival in Gstaad, Switzerland. This special 12” vinyl, Code Name A-Z, which contained 26 sonic frequencies derived from military use of Morse code, was released by The Vinyl Factory to mark the occasion. Limited to only 300 copies and pressed on transparent 12″ vinyl, with 13 locked grooves on each side, the title of each was hand-etched into the grooves.
Cameron Jamie / Sonic Youth
Massage The History
This collaboration between the artist Cameron Jamie and the band Sonic Youth was released by The Vinyl Factory in 2016 in tandem with the exhibition The Infinite Mix – staged by VF and the Hayward Gallery at 180 Studios – where Jamie’s video installation Massage the History was being shown. Jamie’s surreal documentary of an experimental dance troupe was soundtracked by Sonic Youth, and this track, with vocals by Kim Gordon, was pressed by VF as a one-sided 180-gram heavyweight white vinyl with an etching on the B-side by Jamie.
John Giorno & Ugo Rondinone
Thanx 4 Nothing
Released by The Vinyl Factory in tandem with the exhibition The Infinite Mix, staged by The Vinyl Factory and Hayward Gallery at 180 Studios in 2016, this record features legendary NY beat poet John Giorno’s soundtrack to Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone’s acclaimed film installation Thanx 4 Nothing. In the film, Giorno looks back at his life – and the people and events that shaped it – with humour and compassion. Performing in a tuxedo and bare feet on an empty stage in the Palais des Glaces theatre in Paris, as well as in a TV studio, Giorno gives thanks to ‘everyone for everything,’ before speaking frankly on the death of friends and lovers, sex, betrayal and his frequent periods of depression.
Jeremy Deller & Cecelia Bengolea
Bom Bom’s Dream
Co-commissioned by The Vinyl Factory, Cecilia Bengolea and Jeremy Deller’s 2016 film Bom Bom’s Dream was staged as part of The Infinite Mix exhibition at 180 Studios and the soundtrack was released by the VF label the same year. Bom Bom’s Dream follows the fantastical adventures of a Japanese dancer known as Bom Bom – celebrated for her gymnastic, slapstick dance moves – as she travels to Jamaica to participate in the local dancehall music scene. With its lo-fi special effects and fantasy sequences, the video is a cross-cultural, contemporary equivalent to Alice in Wonderland. The music, produced by Sanjay Ramanand, featured legendary Jamaican dancer Shelly Belly, who also starred in the film.
William Kentridge
Second-Hand Reading
William Kentridge is one of South Africa’s pre-eminent artists; globally acclaimed for his drawings, films, lecture performances and opera and theatre productions. Second-Hand Reading is composed of hundreds of drawings superimposed on pages from the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Like figures on a stage, drawings of the artist, scenes from nature, geometric shapes and phrases dance to music by Neo Muyanga. These rational sequences of words are counterpoised by the intuitive and the imaginary. The soundtrack, originally released by The Vinyl Factory in 2016, has been repressed for The Vinyl Factory: Reverb exhibition, where Second-Hand Reading is being shown.
Moor Mother
The Motionless Present
Philadelphia-based artist and activist Camae Ayewa, who performs as Moor Mother, released The Motionless Present – a collection of her poems and soundscapes – with The Vinyl Factory in 2017. Ayewa described the release as, “a statement towards understanding the disconnect between humanity and injustice”, and it featured various new collaborations and previews of upcoming projects, including Black Quantum Futurism, Moor Jewelry, Mental Jewelry and 700 Bliss. The Motionless Present was created in collaboration with The Vinyl Factory ahead of Moor Mother’s CTM festival performance at Berghain that year.
Elysia Crampton
Spots Y Eduitato
American electronic producer and poet Elysia Crampton released this so-called ‘sample pack’ album of six full-length tracks and eight ‘spots’ in 2017. A limited edition of 300 copies, the release – titled Spots y Escupitaio – braids legacies from both American club culture and sonic miniature compositions. Crampton’s music touches upon themes of Aymara survival and Latino culture, LGBT and Aymara femme heritage, science fiction, references to Christian faith and ontology, and frequent utilisation of samples and arrangements from varying sources. For Crampton, this album honoured the legacies of the Aymara figure Chuqui Chinchay and her deceased grandparents.
Moses Boyd
Absolute Zero
This four-track EP, titled Absolute Zero, was UK jazz star Moses Boyd’s second solo offering, a thrilling fusion of cosmic mind-flight above the London grime, released by The Vinyl Factory in 2017. The EP’s title is an oblique reference to grime-father Wiley’s “Ice Rink”, and echoes of grime’s sour synth lines are submerged in his freewheeling virtuoso drum technique. Moses is one of a part of a new wave of jazz musicians from London injecting new blood into the form.
The John Giorno Band
I’m Rock Hard (1982-1989)
The Vinyl Factory released the first-ever compilation of legendary artist and beat poet John Giorno’s sound compositions in 2017, recorded as The John Giorno Band. Created in tandem with an exhibition of Giorno’s works in New York, the release consisted of nine tracks pressed on double vinyl. A limited edition of just 200 hand-signed copies, it also featured a 20-page booklet with exclusive images. By the end of the ‘70s, Giorno had expanded his sound compositions into the world of music and created his own record label, Giorno Poetry Systems Recordings; by 1981, he had formed The John Giorno Band. Comprised of a rotating cast of talented musicians, the group was invited to perform at various New York clubs including Danceteria and CBGB, where Giorno developed a new avenue to employ his poetic language – one that merged his spoken-word poetry slams into electrifying performances.
Isaac Julien
Looking for Langston
Artist Isaac Julien’s award-winning film Looking For Langston, made in 1989, is a visually beautiful and lyrical exploration of Black and white gay identities set in the Harlem Renaissance in New York in the 1920s and 1930s. The film is inspired by the unexplored aspects of the life and work of the poet Langston Hughes, and the soundtrack features his poetry set to blues and jazz as well as house music, featuring the voices of Toni Morrison and Stuart Hall. Pressed onto a unique ‘Isaac Julien Blue’ vinyl at The Vinyl Factory pressing plant, this edition was released on the VF imprint in 2017.
August Engkilde & SUPERFLEX
Warum sollten wir Angst vor großen Tieren haben?
In the autumn of 1996, while working on the biogas project for Tanzania, Danish art collective SUPERFLEX met composer and sound designer August Engkilde, with whom they shared a common interest in animal acoustics and fascinating images of African animals. Together they produced a series of music based on these animals and their sounds which was released on vinyl in 2018 as Warum sollten wir Angst vor großen Tieren haben?, translates to Why should we be afraid of big animals? This limited edition of 55 copies featured a hand-painted, pop-up gatefold sleeve with original artwork by SUPERFLEX, a diverse and complex practice that challenges the role of the artist in contemporary society.
Arthur Jafa
A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions
Artist Arthur Jafa collaborated with The Vinyl Factory to present a Listening Session on 9 September 2017 with musicians Steve Coleman, Morgan Craft, Micah Gaugh, Melvin Gibbs, Kokayi Issa and Jason Moran to celebrate his exhibition, A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions, at the Serpentine Gallery. The dismembered jazz ensemble improvised simultaneously but separately at secret ‘Black Sites’ across London. The resulting music was live-streamed in the gallery, where Okwui Okpokwasili performed, devising a time-based work accompanying the discordant soundtrack. The Listening Session was recorded direct-to-disc on The Vinyl Factory Lathe and captured on this release.
Actress, Gwilym Gold, Holly Pester & Evan Ifekoya & Victoria Sin
To Corpse
In July 2017, the city of Naples and The Sicilian island of Stromboli hosted I Polpi, a festival of contemporary art presented by Fiorucci Art Trust and curated by Milovan Farronato, in partnership with The Vinyl Factory and spearheaded by Eddie Peake. Electronic producer Actress, musician Gwilym Gold, interdisciplinary artists Evan Ifekoya and Victoria Sin, poet and writer Holly Pester and the natural sound of the island of Stromboli each created unique compositions to accompany Peake’s performance in five variations, To Corpse, performed live by the composers along with the dancers Valeria D’Antonio, Kieram Corrin Mitchell, Emma Fisher, Sara Lupoli and Francesco Russo across five different locations in Naples and Stromboli.
Jeremy Shaw
Liminals
In 2017, The Vinyl Factory staged artist Jeremy Shaw’s video installation Liminals at 180 Studios. Having premiered at that year’s Venice Biennale, the 20-minute film is set against a 1970s cinema vérité aesthetic, drawing parallels between the experimental spiritual gatherings of the ’70s and the effect-laden release of contemporary hedonistic subcultures. It follows a group of eight dancers as they enact ecstatic rituals in an attempt to access a new realm of consciousness with the potential to save humanity. The soundtrack, composed by electronic music producer Konrad Black in collaboration with Shaw, was released on this 10” vinyl pressing by The Vinyl Factory.
Róisín Murphy
All My Dreams
The Vinyl Factory first collaborated with Roisin Murphy to release her Italian-inspired extended player, Mi Senti, in 2014. Four years later the partnership continued with this, the first of four dancefloor-orientated vinyl EPs by Roisin Murphy produced by Maurice Fulton and released by The Vinyl Factory. All My Dreams featured some of Murphy’s most pleasure-centre-stimulating music of her career. With graphic design and artwork from Portuguese New Yorker Braulio Amado, each 12” was pressed by VF on the iconic EMI 1400 as a limited edition of 1000 copies.
Joakim
The Venezia Sessions
In 2017, The Vinyl Factory collaborated with the French artist Xavier Veilhan to release musical recordings created on-site in the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, which he had transformed into a space he called Studio Venezia. This instrumental double album by Parisian producer Joakim was one of them. The Pavilion design was inspired by the grotto-like Merzbau by Kurt Schwitters. Containing an impressive collection of rare instruments – from medieval horns to rare modular synths – Studio Venezia was an amazing creative playground for the adventurous musicians who played there during the Biennale, which included Brian Eno, Sebastian Tellier and Christian Marclay.
Various Artists
Untitled
This incredible compilation of seven collaborative recordings by some of the UK’s most exciting musicians – including Shabaka Hutchings, Kojey Radical, Wu-Lu, Nubya Garcia, Roxanne Tataei, Joe Armon-Jones, Kwake Bass and Coby Sey – was released by The Vinyl Factory in 2019. Inspired by the life and work of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who had been the subject of a major exhibition at the Barbican in 2017, the album spanned genres and eras, touching on jazz, electronic, post-punk, dub and ambient influences, painting a diverse picture of the UK’s expanding underground sound.
Emma-Jean Thackray
Ley Lines
This eight-track EP by one of the UK’s then-freshest jazz stars was released on The Vinyl Factory in 2018. A trumpet player and multi-instrumentalist, Emma-Jean Thackray recorded the mini-album single-handedly in her home studio in London. Thackray said that Ley Lines took its inspiration from Madlib, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Fela Kuti. “I wanted to step away from my work as a band leader and do something self-contained”, Thackray said at the time. “I love improvising in the moment with a band but wanted to take the chance to create at my own pace and be true to my own vision.”
Exotourisme (Dominique Gonzales-Foerster, Julien Perez)
Tornado Alley
Citing Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner as an inspiration, influential contemporary artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster drew on the synthetic French new wave of Lizzy Mercier Descloux and Serge Gainsbourg to weave a seductive, neon-soaked sound evocative of Paris’ nefarious 1980s underground for her debut EP as Exotourisme, a collaboration with producer and musician Perez. Released on The Vinyl Factory in 2018, this was one of several collaborations between VF and Gonzalez-Foerster, which included several vinyl releases, live shows in London, Venice and Gstaad, and an installation of the artist’s holographic tribute to Maria Callas, Opera (QM.15), as part of The Infinite Mix exhibition, staged at 180 Studios in 2016.
Wes Anderson
Isle of Dogs
In 2018, 180 Studios staged an exhibition of film director Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs. Curated by Anderson himself, the exhibition presents the intricate sets that make up the city of Megasaki where the film is based, alongside the original puppets of the canine characters. The exhibition also featured a life-size recreation of the film’s noodle bar, serving ramen by Akira Shimizu, set against a background of the original score by Alexandre Desplat, classic Kurosawa scores and The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, who all feature on the film’s soundtrack. The Vinyl Factory released four of the film’s songs – composed by Desplat – on this limited release, pressed on red vinyl and housed in a sleeve with artwork from the film.
Theaster Gates & The Black Monks of Mississippi
Black Madonna
In 2018, The Vinyl Factory partnered with the artist Theaster Gates to create a new joint record label called Black Madonna Press. This four-track EP by the artist’s musical collective The Black Monks was the precursor to a wide-ranging collaboration between The Vinyl Factory and Theaster Gates during the artist’s exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel in June 2018, where a series of live performances by The Monks were recorded direct-to-disc on The Vinyl Factory Lathe.
Goblin / Claudio Simonetti
Super Dario
In 2018, The Vinyl Factory partnered with luxury streetwear brand Aries to release two iconic tracks from legendary Italian musician and producer Claudio Simonetti’s progressive rock band, Goblin. The two-track release, a limited edition of 300, included “Suspiria”, from Simonetti’s soundtrack to cult director Dario Argento’s 1977 film of the same name. The cover artwork, designed by Aries’ creative director Sofia Prantera, was inspired by the 1980s gaming icon Super Mario.
Kahlil Joseph
Fly Paper
In 2017, The Vinyl Factory collaborated with artist and film-maker Kahlil Joseph to produce his film installation Fly Paper, which debuted at the New Museum in New York and was subsequently shown at 180 Studios in London as part of the group show Strange Days: Memories of the Future in 2018. Inspired by Joseph’s admiration of the work of Roy DeCarava, a photographer and artist known for his images of celebrated jazz musicians and everyday life in Harlem, Joseph’s film celebrates black culture and the black community in New York both visually and sonically, creating a rich and polyphonic portrait. The soundtrack, pressed on purple vinyl and released by The Vinyl Factory in 2018, featured many musicians Joseph calls friends and collaborators, including Kelsey Lu, Alice Smith, Flying Lotus and Thundercat.
Taryn Simon
An Occupation of Loss
This recording was made in April 2018 on the occasion of the London performance of artist Taryn Simon’s An Occupation of Loss, a work in which professional mourners simultaneously broadcast their lamentations, many of which trace their origins to pre-Islamic and pre-Christian times, enacting rituals of grief. Their sonic mourning was performed in recitations that include Northern Albanian laments, which seek to excavate “uncried words”; Wayuu laments, which safeguard the soul’s passage to the Milky Way; Greek Epirotic laments, which bind the story of a life with its afterlife; and Yazidi laments, which map a topography of displacement and exile. Released by The Vinyl Factory in 2019 as a limited edition which combined a hard-bound art book and two vinyl records, the release was commemorated with a special performance in the concrete basement of 180 Studios.
Pipilotti Rist / Soap&Skin
Sleep/Spiracle
In 2017 The Vinyl Factory collaborated with The New Museum, NY to stage a large video art exhibition at 180 Studios called Strange Days: Memories of the Future. One of the many works in the show was Pipilotti Rist’s mesmerising 4th Floor to Mildness, an installation shot largely underwater, projected onto two screens hanging from the ceiling, with visitors laying on beds underneath, offering viewers an opportunity to immerse themselves in the work while lying alongside one another. The soundtrack, consisting of two songs by Soap&Skin, was released by The Vinyl Factory in tandem. Referring to her art as a ‘glorification of the wonder of evolution,” Rist maintains a deep sense of curiosity that pervades her explorations of physical and psychological experiences.
Richie Hawtin presents F.U.S.E.
Dimensions (25th Anniversary Edition)
The Vinyl Factory collaborated with Richie Hawtin in 2019 to release a vinyl box set celebrating the 25th anniversary of the electronic producer’s original F.U.S.E. releases including the classic albums Dimension Intrusion and Train-Tracs. The set also included the unreleased album Computer Space, completing the extended range of Hawtin’s recording persona in the formative year of 1993. Original artwork was provided by visual artist Matthew Hawtin, Richie’s brother. The release was accompanied by an immersive exhibition by Richie and Matthew Hawtin at 180 Studios.
Thom Yorke
Suspiria
Released by The Vinyl Factory to celebrate the UK opening of Luca Guadagnino 2018 supernatural horror film Suspiria, inspired by Italian director Dario Argento’s 1977 film of the same name, this record featured unreleased and previously unheard material from Thom Yorke’s original score. With performances by The London Contemporary Orchestra and choir, the release featured sleeve artwork by long-time Radiohead collaborator artist Stanley Donwood.
Yussef Dayes & Alfa Mist
Love is the Message
Recorded at Abbey Road Studios and released by The Vinyl Factory in 2018, jazz drummer Yussef Dayes collaborates with musicians Alfa Mist, Mansur Brown and Rocco Palladino on an epic live jam session ripping through a fiery rendition of their track “Love is the Message” in a single take. “Growing up in the big smoke, we’re used to recording in basements and bedroom studios, so to get the opportunity to elevate our sounds in the legendary Abbey Road studios was a beautiful moment,” said Dayes.
Hassan Khan
Superstructure
The Superstructure EP, artist and musician Hassan Khan’s first release with The Vinyl Factory from 2019, is comprised of two long, powerful tracks produced out of the recording sessions of his critically acclaimed video installation Jewel (2010) which The Vinyl Factory exhibited at 180 Studios in 2017 as part of the group exhibition Strange Days: Memories of the Future. Recorded live at Khan’s sold out 2012 Louvre Concert, the delicate electronica of “a short story based on a distant memory” and the heavily percussive “Superstructure (the ammunition of the nation)” were pressed on 180-gram heavyweight vinyl with sleeve artwork by Engy Aly.
Theaster Gates & The Black Monks
Furthermore
Theaster Gates and The Black Monks’ second release on Black Madonna Press, the artist’s joint label with The Vinyl Factory, was a mesmerising live jam that fuses the jazz-orientated spiritualism of his musical collective with the groove-based metronomic beat of their native city Chicago’s house music legacy. Recorded live at the Spriegel Museum, Hannover in 2018 and pressed on heavyweight black vinyl with an etching of one of Gates’ mask artworks on one side, this 2019 release also featured images of Gates’ striking masks on the outer and inner sleeves.
Hito Steyerl / Kojey Radical / Susumu Yokota
Power Plants
The soundtrack to Hito Steyerl’s installation This is the Future, now showing as part of The Vinyl Factory: Reverb exhibition, features a collaboration between British musician and rapper Kojey Radical and one of the world’s most influential and important visual artists and thinkers, and a beatific ambient classic by late Japanese producer Susumu Yokota. Produced by The Vinyl Factory, Steyerl questions how the future might evolve in unpredictable ways using AI. Situated between cinema and fine art, Steyerl’s work develops from research, interviews and found images, culminating in installations that interweave documentary with dream-like montage.
Soundwalk Collective & Nan Goldin
The Women’s March, 1789
Released by The Vinyl Factory in 2019, the soundtrack to artist Nan Goldin’s exhibition, The Women’s March, 1789, at the Palais de Versailles, captures one of the most pivotal moments of the French Revolution. Featuring a sound installation by Soundwalk Collective, this release uses the voices of well-known women including Isabelle Adjani, Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Isabelle Huppert and Charlotte Rampling to extol their rights as defended by the French Revolution.
Bernie Krause
The Great Animal Orchestra
In 2018, The Vinyl Factory partnered with the Fondation Cartier to stage the UVA: Other Spaces exhibition at 180 Studios, showing three large immersive works by the pioneering audio-visual collective. One of these was The Great Animal Orchestra, a hugely popular collaboration with the sound ecologist Bernie Krause where his bio-acoustic recordings were paired with UVA’s accompanying visuals, featuring colourful abstract spectrogram landscapes of the environments where the animals live. The soundscape was released by VF as this gatefold album, comprising the recordings, installation imagery and sleeve notes.
Lawrence Lek
Temple OST
Originally commissioned by The Vinyl Factory for the 2018 exhibition Transformer: A Rebirth of Wonder at 180 Studios, the installation Temple by Lawrence Lek was a reimagined futuristic karaoke club: an elegy to nocturnal euphoria and to the memories that linger when the lights go on and the dance floor empties. The soundtrack, comprising seven original tracks by Lek, filled the neon-lit room, while screens displayed video game walkthroughs of a new subterranean tunnel that leads virtual ravers from Temple Tube Station to Diva’s club, through the burning rubbish bins of a future-wracked London.
Duval Timothy
Help
Duval Timothy is a multidisciplinary artist, whose practice is centred around colour and involves the use of music, photography, textiles, painting, sculpture, design, cooking and video. Recorded in London and Los Angeles, and released by The Vinyl Factory in 2020, Duval Timothy’s album Help found him collaborating with co-producers Rodaidh McDonald and Marta Salogni with collaborations from Lil Silva, Melanie Faye, Vegyn, Desta Haile, Mr Mitch, Dave Okumo, and Twin Shadow. This vinyl edition featured an art print of Duval’s plasticine figurine from the music video to his song “Slave”.
William Kentridge, Philip Miller & Thuthuka Sibisi
Kaboom!
The soundtrack to a three-channel film installation by William Kentridge released by The Vinyl Factory in 2019, the music for Kaboom! was composed by Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi and adapted from the South African artist’s critically acclaimed performance production The Head & the Load, which premiered at the Tate Modern in 2018 and subsequently toured the world. Featuring an incredible collective of over 30 vocalists and musicians, the music on Kaboom! is as expansive, rich and moving as the performance project from which it was derived. With sleeve artwork by Kentridge, the release also features additional recent compositions by his long-time musical producer Philip Miller comprising a trio of distinct recordings by some of South Africa’s finest musicians.
Julianknxx
In Praise of Still Boys
Interdisciplinary artist, poet, and 180 Studios resident, Julianknxx collaborated with The Vinyl Factory to release the soundtrack to his 2021 film, In Praise Of Still Boys, commissioned by and exhibited at 180 Studios. Featuring compositions from the film as well as additional original music by Julianknxx alongside a cast of close collaborators including Melo-Zed, Aron Kyne, Thabo, and anaïs, the record was pressed on ultra-blue vinyl in keeping with the film, told through the lives of young Sierra Leonean boys who live by the blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Nan Goldin, Mica Levi, Soundwalk Collective and Franz Schubert
Memory Lost / Sirens
The soundtracks to two of Nan Goldin’s most elegiac films were composed by Mica Levi, and released by The Vinyl Factory in 2021. Dedicated to Nan Goldin’s activist group P.A.I.N (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), Memory Lost recounts a life lived through a lens of drug addiction. The captivating, beautiful and haunting journey of the video unfolds through an assemblage of intimate and personal imagery to offer a poignant reflection on memory and the darkness of addiction. Sirens was the first work by Goldin made entirely from found footage. The single-channel video includes scenes from thirty of her favourite films and is accompanied by Mica Levi’s score.
Gabriel Moses
Ijó
Photographer and filmmaker Gabriel Moses’ soundtrack to his film Ijó was released by The Vinyl Factory in 2023. Commissioned by 180 Studios and featuring an original score by James William Blades, Ijó follows a group of young ballet dancers in Lagos, Nigeria, exploring common themes within Moses’ work through the intersections of art, family and culture. The film premiered at 180 Studios as part of Moses’ acclaimed exhibition REGINA, which took place in April 2023.
Wes Anderson & Jarvis Cocker
Asteroid City
Curated by 180 Studios and Universal Studios, the Asteroid City exhibition took place at 180 during the summer of 2023, featuring original sets, props, costumes and artwork that capture Anderson’s style, visuals and sounds. Available exclusively from the show, this vinyl edition was released by The Vinyl Factory in celebration and includes two tracks by Jarvis Cocker from the film’s soundtrack: “Dear Alien (Who Art In Heaven)” and “You Can’t Wake Up If You Don’t Fall Asleep”.
Es Devlin & Polyphonia
An Atlas of Es Devlin
Artist and polymath Es Devlin’s genre-defying practice encompasses art, activism, theatre, poetry, music, dance, opera and sculpture. This LP, produced and released by The Vinyl Factory in 2023, captures 20 of her iconic works’ soundscapes, with music produced by long-time collaborators Polyphonia, mixed with her voiceovers, personal stories and poetry. The soundscapes created by Polyphonia aka composers Jade Pybus and Andy Theakstone include music from Es Devlin’s hugely popular immersive artworks A Forest of Us (2021) at Superblue, Miami, BLUESKYWHITE (2021) at 180 Studios, London, and several works shown in Devlin’s exhibition at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Museum of Design, New York (2023).
UVA & Daniel J Thibaut
Chromatic
Commissioned by 180 Studios as part of the UVA exhibition Synchronicity staged in 2023, Chromatic is a software-driven optical instrument that explores the harmony of form and the interaction of colour and sound. Each line, shape, and colour plays a role in constructing this generative audio-visual installation. With a dynamic score by composer Daniel J Thibaut, this vinyl release reflects the generative nature of the artwork itself – each of the 100 sleeves comprising the vinyl edition is unique, featuring a fine art print with artwork generated by UVA’s Chromatic installation.
Fred again…
Tiny Desk
A collaboration between The Vinyl Factory and IRL (In Real Life), this vinyl release is a recording of a live performance by British musician and producer Fred again.. from April 2023 when the electronic artist performed seven songs from his Actual Life album trilogy in 26 minutes for NPR’s Tiny Desk series. In real-time, Fred again.. played the piano, marimba and vibraphone while singing and looping beats throughout the showcase, which was set in the foreground of a screen displaying videos for each song. The vinyl release featured a photograph from the set, hand tipped onto each cover, with each copy of the edition of 3000 hand signed and numbered by Fred.
Ben Kelly & Scanner
Columns
In 2022, British artist Ben Kelly – famed for his industrial design of Manchester’s Hacienda and Factory Records – staged two new audio-visual works at 180 Studios as part of the exhibition Future Shock. His works, titled Falling Columns and Columns 22 were soundtracked by electronic music producer Scanner. Kelly had previously exhibited at 180 Studios in 2017 with RUIN, a collaboration with the late designer and artist Virgil Abloh that depicted the ruins of a nightclub, echoing the decline of such social spaces around the UK. The soundtrack to Falling Columns was released by The Vinyl Factory in 2024 as a limited edition of 300 copies, pressed on heavyweight 180-gram vinyl with design and artwork by Kelly.
Stan Douglas
ISDN
Originally commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada for the 2022 Venice Biennale and now exhibited as part of The Vinyl Factory: Reverb exhibition, ISDN is a two-channel video installation by Stan Douglas that explores music as a form of cross-continental cultural collaboration. Titled after a technology introduced in the 1980s used to transmit high-quality digital audio over copper phone lines, ISDN features London-based grime rappers Lady Sanity and TrueMendous trading verses with Cairo-based Mahraganat rappers Raptor and Joker.
Read more: Ben Kelly’s Record Room embodies the spirit of vinyl
The Vinyl Factory: Reverb runs until 28 September 2024 at 180 Studios. Book tickets online
