THEM Through the Years

If there's a label which epitomises the phrase 'tongue in cheek' but also manages to hold down a massively respected reputation on the UK's electronic scene, it's the south London based record label THEM.

THEM have been around for ten years now and are marking their milestone birthday with another ridiculous line-up this Saturday in Corsica Studios. There's a healthy dose of Irish talent on the bill with Sunil Sharpe and DeFeKT playing a live set under their Tinfoil moniker, while Eomac arrives from Berlin for a Bedouin Trax Set. Industrial techno giants AnD are billed to DJ with a monstrous set up of six decks and two mixers, not forgetting Sleeparchive and THEM regulars Joe Farr, J. Tijn, Kalli, Altar and Waterworks.

Looking back over the last ten years of the imprint, Jack Christie aka Altar aka THEM co-founder and head honcho of the label shares the evolution of THEM with us: 'I had been running parties since 2005, first in Reading then in Leeds (although I'm from London I was moving around for me and my girlfriend's uni). I was into Grime previously but not Dubstep, and hadn't considered promoting Grime really. When I got back to London I went to a few good parties, including seeing Wiley play Blank Canvas. Then Caspa & Rusko put out their Fabric Live mix and that's when I got thinking about a new mash-up night for Dubstep/Grime/Jungle/Bassline etc which became THEM.'

Through an eclectic booking policy and extensive back catalogue of unwavering releases, THEM has welcomed a plethora of mushy, mad and fiercely fast dingers to the fore of London's rave community and looking on to another ten years (we hope), Jack has plenty more ahead with more solid releases lined up, as well as 'our biggest ever event this winter.'

But before all that, we go back in time with Jack and delve into ten tracks which represent a specific period from each year of THEM, which undoubtedly shaped the direction and vision of the label. Expect everyone from Ansome to Skepta to Jeff Pills...

2008

Plastician & Skepta - Intensive Snare

I basically used this track to promote the first party. I had just arrived back in London and this was handy to explain to certain out of the loop people that I wanted to come what Dubstep and Grime was, and to remind those that already knew who Plastician was (who was headlining along with Rusko).

2009

Remarc - RIP

The highlight from our 1st birthday in July 2009 - which was also out first ever party at Corsica - was Remarc headlining Room 2. He had also played our 2nd ever party at Rhythm Factory a few months before that. He killed it both times, of course.

2010

Kuedo - Star Fox

We put on Kuedo’s first ever London show at Corsica, he was at the forefront of an exciting Dubstep spin off (people were calling it Wonky at the time) which kind of epitomised everyones fatigue with the more generic sound's dominance. 2010 was the year we stopped booking straight Dubstep and were concentrating on other sounds, championed by both organisers and residents at the time Sduk & Cntrst.

2011

Bass Clef - Rollercoasters of the heart

There was a bit of a hiatus early on in 2011 due to myself and my co-promoter both having personal life things to prioritise. My co-promoter left the country in spring 2011 and since then I have been running the party. Even though we had similar tastes, it led to some natural changes in music taste and policy. I was really into Bass Clef, Dark Sky and Fantastic Mr Fox at this time, aside from that I hadn’t really been enthralled by what was happening in dance music much and was listening to other types of music. Bass Clef and Fantastic Mr Fox played the first THEM after the hiatus along with some UKG legends.

2012

Rustie - After Light

The third birthday party really blew up, largely thanks to our headliner Rustie winning The Guardian’s album of the year award for his fantastic Glass Swords LP. Music felt exciting again thanks to a resurgence in genres like Grime and Bassline and the UK cottoning onto Trap and Footwork, as well as the fact I had some new DJ buddies, including Oli (Waterworks) who was starting out as a THEM resident DJ and contributor. All this meant I did way too many parties this year and each one was a completely different line up. One would be Techno, the next Footwork, the next Booty House & Vogue. It was confusing even for me let alone punters. This is the year I started getting into ‘proper’ Techno. It had been on the line ups from the beginning because back then DJs were playing really varied sets and would happen to play Techno alongside stuff I was into, but it wasn’t until I went to Fabric to see Pinch & Hessle Audio, expecting them to play Dubstep, and everyone there was playing Techno & House, that it clicked. I also went to Plex for the first time which was an eye opener. This year was the climax of the transition we were making at the time.

2013

Untold - Stereo Freeze

My favourite booking/DJ/producer at this time was probably Untold, who played our fourth birthday. Alongside 2012, 2013 was another exciting year for us and the year we started to hone in on Techno. THEM will always be a mixed genre party and you are always likely to hear banging rave music, like Jungle for instance, but where Dubstep had anchored everything together and given us a way to explain/sell the parties 2008-10, we had lacked that hook in 2011-12 so it was inspiring and made promoting easy again. It felt like certain Dubstep/Bass artists were on the same journey, Untold being one of them and one who was playing the most interesting and uncompromising sets at the time (shouts to Pangaea and Actress too).

2014

Hiroaki Iizuka - The Run (J.Tijn remix)

The year THEM relaunched as a label. It had actually been in the works for over a year by the time the first record came out in July 2014. Through following Pangaea we discovered THEM label artist Hiroaki Iizuka and through following Untold we had been getting into J.Tijn who we hit up for a remix. It took fucking ages to figure the non-music related bits out like mastering, pressing and distribution. We also did Perc’s album launch in 2014 which was a really memorable party, and did our first room at the Plex three room beast party, Ansome tore our room a new one. A busy year.

2015

Cardopusher - Dehydrated (JoeFarr remix)

Another kind of hiatus here - I had been away travelling and organising our only one party of the year while away and promoting it from internet cafes in South America. It didn’t work that well. In the 2nd half of the year things picked up again - we had our second release on the label which was more successful, due to great tracks by Cardopusher and JoeFarr, and great artwork, Plex/Bleed/THEM 2 was great too and we started our monthly show on the now defunct Radar Radio.

2016

Ansome - Dragon’s Dynamite (Perc Remix)

At this stage we felt like we had some good regular contributors building around the events/label, such as JoeFarr, J.Tijn and Lag. Our third release was with Ansome, with remixes from Perc & JoeFarr. All six tracks on the EP are amazing but the Perc Remix is utter pure carnage and you will still hear it at nearly every party. Thanks Perc! We had two other great releases that year from Lag and Hiroaki Iizuka, and began our collaboration with Samsara Sessions with two big 'VS' events, alongside Mord and 29nov films.

2017

Kalli - Frozen Yoghurt

Thanks a lot to KillEKill for hosting our debut party outside of the UK last year, at the killer Griessmuhle in Berlin. It was for the launch of Scalameriya’s EP for THEM006, and the line up included Scalameriya, Lag, Chontane and Altar & Waterworks. We had a great time. We also put on THEM vs MORD 2 which was fantastic fun too. We put out two Various Artists EPs, called Forecast as they feature tracks from alot of artists who themselves have EP's forthcoming on the label. The tracks signpost a branching out for the label and parties musically, and there are so many notable tracks in those two EPs it's hard to pick, but I was happy to finally put out some music from probably the first ever artist myself and Oli had talked about for the label, the one-off that is Kalli.

2018

Jeff Pills (Royal Tweedy) - The Donks

It was great fun to collaborate with DSNT, a great label. The more diverse line up for that party was a conscious effort to reflect a new direction for us. While it’s been fun to gravitate towards hard Techno for the past 4 years, THEM has never just been about one thing. In the early days Room 2 was always seriously banging and a bit tongue in cheek. At the THEM vs DSNT party, you had Myler playing Jungle, Mumdance playing Happy Hardcore and Bleaching Agent playing Gabba. Expect a similar heart racing attitude this Saturday at 10 years of THEM. Thanks for any of your support over the past decade. We’ll meet you front left.

#THEM #Altar #Waterworks #Lag #JoeFarr #MORD #DSNT #JTijn #Kalli #AnD #Tinfoil #JeffPills