Hippocamp is an online record label that offers free digital download releases from a diverse range of artists. The label has just released it's 100th release - a compilation album featuring 40 tracks from their current line-up and several new names too. We got the chance to talk with founder member Jonathan Fisher about running the label, Hippocamp's future and his own music project, Blue Sky Research.

For more information, check out the official Hippocamp site.

Hi Jon, how are things?

All is going well, have just moved into a lovely new flat in leafy West Didsbury, arranged Christmas and New Year, got just enough work coming in and not too much stress.

So what is Hippocamp exactly and how did it start?

Hippocamp is one of many 'netlabels'. There at least 50 of them about, luckily we've been around longer than most so we get mentioned a lot and are one of the first people think of when they think 'netlabel'.

It started in 2000 so me, DNCN and Iermoc could play the music we'd been working on to each other and our mates, Iermoc was living down in Cornwall at the time. After a while people started sending demos but it didn't really become organised in any way until the first Christmas compilation a couple of years ago.
What are the benefits of a net label over a normal label?

It's cheaper to run. Luckily there are organisations who support projects like ours so they host all our tracks (we don't have too many bandwidth worries). No contracts, all the work comes under the Creative Commons Licence, if an artist needs their work pulled from the site we go ahead and do it (this happens when they get label interest). Timewise we can get a release out in a few days, whereas a physical label will quite often put out material that is months old.

There's obviously less risk too, it's a hobby rather than a career (it does look excellent on the C.V. though).

You've just released your 100th release, did you ever think the label would become that big?

Not at all, I'm pretty surprised it's lasted this long. God knows how.

Some other net based labels release the occasional CD, are there any plans for Hippocamp to bring out a "physical" release or even go on to become a proper label in the long-run?

If I ever have the cash or get some funding I'd like to do a series of seven inch vinyl with the cream of crop from the site. Trendy collectable ones you'd see in Piccadilly Records with nice artwork. We'll never be a proper label though, that's a major ball-ache and there's too much time involved with the whole thing as it is.

Everyone seems to be setting up paid download sites, why do you still offer a free service?

Partly cos' the site is about giving more exposure to artists, we're not in it for the money. And partly cos' I like having the moral highground. The quality of the material on the site has gone up and down but there's quite a few tracks that blow away most of what people pay for elsewhere. Plus I suppose when you start charging you're opening yourself up for criticism, at least at the moment we can turn around and say, 'It's free, if you don't like it go to some super trendy twatty place'.

What happens if someone sends you music that you really don't wanna use, do you let them down gently?

Up until now most of what we get sent would go up, we've been encouraging people to get stuff out there, it might not be the best but it'll give them confidence to continue, get some feedback and hopefully improve, when they hear stuff like DNCN, Iermoc, Finks, Screech etc etc they might get some ideas and work harder. One criticism we've had is we release too often, but we're not about releasing some super produced work six times a year then sitting back and lapping up the praise, that's for other labels to do.

Having said all that, we've been getting quite a bit of attention since the hundredth release and I'm getting way too many demos, the only solution is to up the quality control, I don't like telling people we wont be using their stuff, it's probably the worst thing about running the site. I'll be pushing the regulars to up the effort as well, hopefully without sounding like too much of an idiot.

What are your favourite releases on Hippocamp so far?

Tricky question. 'Shaheen' by Screech is probably my favourite single track, plenty of Batfinks, Nybbl knows what he's doing too, 'Sad Song' by Fredo, hmmm, plenty of others.

Do you get proud when someone gets signed like Jim Noir?

Absolutely, we're doing something right when that happens, I like nothing better than to take down work cos' the artist's getting attention from a label, thankfully it happens fairly often. They're my proudest moments.

What's next on the agenda for the label?

The quality control is going up for a start. I'm currently recoding the whole site (we've been having server trouble). There should be a Christmas compilation coming out around the 20th. Most likely more drunken parties in the new year. More visual work. More collaborations. A physical release of some kind.

I'm keen to keep it fairly small and low-key, there'd be no point doing it if it stopped being fun.
I heard something about a new Hippocamp offshoot named "Sundara", what's this project all about?

How'd you hear about that? That's a secret! There's a couple of off-shoots coming up, me and DNCN had a drunken conversation about doing something solely for dance floor music, stripped down serious dance music with a sky-high quality control level, the deepest of deep house (this was at Sequence at the Attic, we danced like a spaz for hours).

I'm also setting up a visuals project / site for programmers and installation artists, a good source of information about various development environments and code examples.

Which one will be called Sundara I've not decided, Sundara is a lovely sounding word, it's Sanskrit for "beautiful".

Besides running the label you also make music yourself under the Blue Sky Research alias, how did you get into music making and can you tell us a bit about your music?

The usual, started going clubbing with disco biscuits in '96. I had a shitty MC303 I couldn't use, DNCN showed me how, then I met Lever (Iermoc) and his stuff blew me away. I've been playing catch-up with those two ever since, I soon found I wasn't too great writing beats so I went in a different direction and started writing more ambient soundscapes. That's where I'm at now and I'm happily writing music without trying to compete with anyone else. There's a half-finished album on the go with plenty of collaborations on it with other Hippo artists which I'm really pleased with. Should be ready in a few months.

You and a host of Hippo artists just performed at HCGREEN last night, how did that go?

I got way too pissed. We had to set do a line-level check at three o'clock so me and Phasic were stuck in town with nothing to do for four hours, we'd necked a good few pints before we even got started. We had some awful volume surges which i'm still confused about.

The artists were all great though. Olly Farshi, Maroufleur, Phasic, Paperball, Scrubber Fox. Batfinks ended the night with some filthy gabba. There were some folks from Daylight doing filming and interviewing people in a side room (I never want to see the one done with me). There weren't that many people there, we only had two weeks notice the night was on and I didn't get final confirmation until a week before, on top of that there were several big nights on in Manchester, Horace Andy at the Academy, Twisted Nerve had a night at BOTW (Band On The Wall) plus there were a couple of charity nights (it was World Aids Day).

Apparantly I hijacked Scrubber Fox's set to play a Christmas tune, I think it's just as well I can't remember.
Is this a regular Hippo night and if not, any plans to do so?

No plans for a regular night, but we'll still be arranging the odd party with Xander (Phush / Flux), and we'll be helping out with the odd 'See Things From Space' events. On top of that we're quite friendly with the folk at the Font (Manchester) so there'll probably be more nights there. Quite keen to get back down to London for a gig or two as well.
Thanks for your time, we look forward to Hippocamp 2005!

Thanks a lot, let's make 2005 better than 2004.