Anlou Music Press Release
This year has already seen the start of many amazing things; one of which was the birth of trance and progressive house label Anlou Music, created by DJ and producer Richie Alexander Franklin.
Anlou Music was established to give voice to the lesser known talents of house and trance, who stand out because of their innovative approach towards music production, promotion and distribution.
Currently on the roster is Vrije Staat, Paul Moloney, Joe Made and Snoop Progg. A&R is important to us and we want to give emerging new talent the break they need, and keep the label consistently fresh.
The label is only months old, and each of Anlou Music’s three releases have sparked attention from some of trance’s biggest names including Roger Shah and Armin Van Buuren, who played Anlou’s first release, Vrije Staat’s Departures, on his radio show A State Of Trance.
Anlou Music officially launched at Manchester-based trance night Agenda, on 22nd May 2010, where Vrije Staat and label manager Richie Franklin graced the decks. There has been a growing relationship between the label and Agenda, and it only seemed appropriate for the label to launch there. We’re looking forward to see what else this collaboration can bring.
In the next few weeks, Anlou Music, will be launching it’s very own MusiCast; a monthly internet based radio show bringing you the very best in electronic music, presented by Richie Franklin, Vrije Staat and Paul Moloney, on a rotational basis. The show will be a good insight into what we’re finding hot at Anlou HQ.
As well as the releases, the launch and the MusiCast, Anlou Music has been working closely with The LimeLight Podcast based in the States, whose goal is to expose new artists to an international audience. We hope that this partnership creates opportunities for our music to be heard all around the world.
Vogue Talent Contest
He was a human tornado. One of the most explosive people I have ever met. Even at thirteen years old he was addictive to me. For as many drugs as he took, he was one of mine. His name was Pete. Infectious and beautiful, I wanted him before I knew what lust was, and fell in love with him before I was old enough to handle it.
It’s still hard to write about him. It forces me to remember all those things I thought I’d forgotten, it makes me experience emotions I haven’t felt for years. Even now when a boy walks past me wearing the same aftershave as him, I get a lump in my throat, my heart stops for what feels like a minute and I momentarily regress into that desperately in love teenager.
The countless times we got together and broke up, I was relentless. I never wanted to give up on him. He was that archetypal bad boy with the troubled past, and I was the well brought up middle class girl who wanted to ‘fix’ him. It’s not a unique story; it’s undoubtedly one that you’ve heard before.
I changed the way I dressed in a shamefully pathetic attempt to make him like me. I started smoking weed, sniffing poppers, going to the right parties, hanging out at the skate park, looking ridiculous and feeling out of place. Looking back, I’m confused at how I thought blending in would make me stand out. Somehow though, it did. My persistence paid off, and in the first year or so of our feeble excuse of a relationship, I went from thick black eyeliner and baggy jeans to bleached hair and white trackies.
We became inseparable, fucking like it was a commodity soon to be rationed. Our naivety was astounding, and at the beginning of January 2005, my monthly visit from Mother Nature didn’t appear. Having seldom used protection, I’m not sure why I was surprised. I suppose I thought only slags who had sex on park benches got pregnant. Not me. I’d only slept with one person.
The woman at the clinic told me said it in such a blasé way, “So you can see from that blue line, you are pregnant”. I remember everything about that moment; turning to Pete, his nervous smile, the squeeze of my hand, and me bursting into tears. For how I felt in that moment, she may have well said, “So you can see from that asteroid there we have about thirty seconds until the end of the world”.
The few weeks following were a blur. Pete decided that he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t be a dad that young and, as much as I wanted this tiny bunch of cells growing in my stomach, I didn’t want to be a teenage single mum, which I would have inevitably ended up being. The spectacular lack of support I received from my family and the abortion service still affects me now. I was treated as a problem that needed to be fixed, and once it was, the job was done and it was time for everyone to move on.
I didn’t move on however, neither did Pete. We decided that the best way to forget about things was to take an incredible amount of drugs. He’d been into Class As for years by that point and I had dabbled, but we took a well informed decision to take a lot of drugs, as often as possible. During this time, our dependence on each other only grew further; it was our mission to destroy ourselves and each other.
With drug use comes paranoia. He would tell me what I could and couldn’t wear. He would go through my phone and delete every male’s number aside from my dad. He’d tell me to stop acting a certain way, stop saying certain things. He’d wait until we were alone, and then shout at me for embarrassing him in whatever situation we’d just been in.
For seven months I tried to break up with him. Every time I did, I’d get tears, I’d get threatened with suicide. It was hard to believe that this boy, on his knees crying and begging was the same boy I once revered as this almost beatific super-human being. I needed to not be with him, not be near him. I felt so trapped.
In July 2006, I moved 135 miles away to Liverpool. I didn’t have the mental strength to stay living near him, and to keep away from him. It took me a long time to build up my esteem and my confidence after that relationship, but I still don’t hate him. I feel sorry for him, because I have grown such strength and developed as person, and he still hasn’t.
I have a serious issue with fashion trends. Controversial, I know, but if you look at some of the most highly regarded fashionistas in the world; Anna Dello Russo, Lady Gaga, and more recently teenage blogger Tavi Gevinson, I highly doubt they have ever reported to some leader of the fashion hierarchy to check whether the bizarre, mismatched ensemble they plan on wearing is ‘ok’ or not.
Put simply, I don’t agree with people telling you what to wear, with others believing that if you don’t follow that religiously, you fail in the fashion stakes.
For me fashion is about innovation, creativity and self-expression. It’s about using the body as a canvas to display artwork upon. Of course if you like something in the shops, by all means buy it and wear it to your heart’s content, but when dubious styles reminiscent of the notoriously horrific nineteen-eighties regurgitate themselves onto today’s society, don’t feel you have to comply. Neon and spandex are very rarely your friend.
Women (and men!) should have a lot more confidence in their own personal style. Of course if you walk into Topshop, (or any other popular high-street shop) with £200, you will undoubtedly walk out looking good. But you will also look like three-quarters of all other females walking down the same street as you.
I believe style is something inbuilt somewhere in DNA. Right next to your eye colour, hair colour and whether you’ll be good at maths or not; you either have the style gene, or you don’t. You may go through your dodgy style moments, like when you’re fourteen, and you don’t care that your friends all look like they’re two years away from a Jeremy Kyle episode, you want to look like them. Essentially, deep down, if you were born to be stylish, it doesn’t matter (sort of) what you wear, just how you wear it.
Not only is it incredibly fickle to change your wardrobe every three-to-six months but it’s also very expensive! If you do lack confidence, it’s much more sustainable to choose three or four celebrities whose taste you really admire and pick out key features which you can then go and buy at a budget which suits you. One of my new favourite ladies on the block is the ghetto fabulous Jessie J, she’s paraded onto the scene rocking an unusual mix of hip hop and gothic. Her look is fresh, edgy and exciting and she is definitely someone I am currently looking up to and taking tips from.
Trust yourself. I’ve heard so many times, “Oh I love it, it’s just not ‘me’.” Just go ahead and make it ‘you’! Is there a handbook women read which says you must only follow certain strict guidelines? I must have been busy the day they handed that out. I overheard a girl the other day calling my trousers ‘ridiculous’ and I loved it. Whether she loved what I was wearing or hated it, she felt the need to comment on it, and what’s the point in fashion if you’re not going to get noticed?