Fine Place’s debut album This New Heaven is released today, 19th November 2021. The album is available on a limited Dinked Edition at the following stores, while stocks last:
ASSAI / BANQUET / BEAR TREE / DAVID’S MUSIC / DRIFT / FRIENDLY / JUMBO / MONORAIL MUSIC / PIE & VINYL / RESIDENT / SISTER RAY / SOUND KNOWLEDGE / SOUTH / STRANGER THAN PARADISE / TRANSMISSION / TRUCK / VINYL TAP
Today Fine Place (Matthew Hord and Frankie Rose) reveal the video for Cover Blind, directed by Clay Stephen Gardner. This New Heaven, the debut album, is released November 19th, 2021.
In 2021, Night School turned 10 years old. Back in 2020 I had grand plans to celebrate still being here, to ten years working with amazing people, incredible experiences, surpassing expectations and generally surviving. We planned a compilation of unreleased music from some of my favourite artists and collaborators. The past 18 months or so had different ideas and now, 10 years and a few months on from LSSN001, we’re all still here and that’s all the celebration we really need.
Night School started in London in 2011 with two 7″s by two DIY groups that sounded really different and everything since then has operated on the same, often chaotic but always sincere, modus operandi. The label grew to include releasing LPs by inspired musicians who’d go on to become lifelong friends, then reissuing some of my favourite ever recordings by people like Strawberry Switchblade, The Space Lady and Jackie Leven. The label has often flirted with professionalism, often adopting collective pronouns, alluding to the royal we, offices and other operational machinery when in reality it’s one guy working at night and on weekends after his day job.
All my favourite labels run like this to a lesser or greater extent. Along the way there have been junctions in the road where I could have made decisions that resulted in more financial stability but they never felt right. There’ve been plenty of failings, wobbles, time-stresses, the wonders of human error. But there’s been infinitley more moments of excitement, joy and togetherness. Night School Records has never been about me, I’m just the chief cheerleader, the pushy (or maybe not pushy enough) parent. I’ve sometimes felt uncomfortable being so visible being the sole employee of the label to the extent that writing this and including a photograph is supplying plenty of anxiety.
Just over 10 years ago I decided to sell most of my record collection to make enough money to make 2 runs of 300 7″s for two bands I really believed in. Terror Bird and Golden Grrrls would go off and do other things together or apart but LSSN01 and LSSN02 with their hand stamped or painted labels and amateurishly screenprinted sleeves will always be a source of pride for me. I don’t mind admitting it was a bit of a dark hole that forced me into action, but I’m glad for it now. Ever since then the label has ping ponged between debt and success, noob mistakes to unexpected triumphs and back again. The label has always been and always will be open, open to what’s round the corner, what’s been, open to fail and open to share. I’ve never supported myself financially with the label so I can take risks. I’m sure this is confusing for some followers of the label, maybe it’s thrilling, I don’t know. My personal listening is all over the place and so is Night School. It has always aimed to be evolving and shifting, never settling on one style or type of music. Sure some people will enjoy some of the output, but not all of it. That’s for the beholder to decide and “curate” for themselves. It’s a messy, uncategorisable (I think), slippery thing, this label, but the joy in it is hopefully what comes through.
Running a label in 2021 is, in many ways, harder than it was in 2011 but I’m as excited now as I’ve ever been for what’s next. I’m definitely more sincere now than I was back then (and I was already insufferably sincere ten years ago) so you know I mean it when I say thank you to everyone who’s ever invested their time and money in any of the artists and the releases I’ve had a hand in realising.
With that in mind, I’ve unceremoniously included some links below for some forthcoming releases or records that have come out this year, what with it being Bandcamp Friday and all.
I hope we can do it for ever.
Fine Place (Matthew Hord and Frankie Rose) reveal the second song from their upcoming debut album This New Heaven. It’s Your House is a gorgeous, half-dreamed ballad built on beds of arpeggiated analog synths and pads.
Molly Nilsson’s new album Extreme will be released digitally on January 15th, with vinyl and CD versions available from January 28th.
Molly Nilsson returns after a three-year recording hiatus with “Absolute Power”, the first track from her new album, ‘EXTREME’ out 15th January 2022 via Dark Skies Association / Night School Records.
‘EXTREME’ is Nilsson’s tenth album in 13 years of underground cult stardom that has established her as the people’s champion and voice of the heart, it’s an album that both soars with confidence and offers tender consolation.
The 15th January is the date of Rosa Luxemberg’s murder – the Polish Marxist economist, anti-war activist, philosopher and revolutionary socialist has been an inspiration to Molly Nilsson and it is the day she is commemorated in Berlin.
Order Info here.
Really, really excited to be able to finally share the news: Frankie Rose and Matthew Hord‘s new group Fine Place have signed to Night School and will be releasing their debut album This New Heaven on November 19th, 2021. It’s a superlative, deep dive into synthesized post punk and melting vocal performances from Rose. We’re also really excited to team up with Dinked Edition to offer a beautiful package that features, among other things, an exclusive extra track on a flexi disc and lush design by Glasgow based designer Manuel Fernandez. You can head to the Dinked Edition for links to where to buy this edition. To support actual record stores in these weird times we won’t be selling this edition direct. Support your local record store if you can!
We are so excited to introduce Straight Outta Caledonia, a compilation of songs by the late songwriter Jackie Leven.
I’ve been running Night School for 10 years this year. It’s been a tumultuous, hugely rewarding thing in my life where the positives massively outweigh the negatives. Maybe I’d have less grey hair without it but I’m learning to live with that.
When I’m announcing a new release, something I’ve worked on for a while with the artists it’s a really anxious time. Often the feeling is akin to being on the edge of a cliff face looking into azure water. I’ve been working on Straight Outta Caledonia, a new compilation on Night School’s subsidiary label School Daze of songs by the artist Jackie Leven, for over 3 years. I first heard his song The Sexual Loneliness Of Jesus Christ in 2016 maybe and it had an instant, powerful, healing, transcendent effect. It reminded me of why I do this. Why I like music in the first place. Since then I’ve made it a kind of personal mission to try and show Leven’s music to as many people as possible and the best way I can do this is by making Straight Outta Caledonia.
I was really lucky to have the author Ian Rankin and singer Molly Nilsson on board to write some liner notes about how much Jackie’s music means to them. I wrote a bit too. I’m really, really nervous because I’ll never meet Jackie Leven (he passed away in 2011) and for some reason I’ve got into the situation where I’m releasing the first vinyl release of his in decades. It’s almost a make or break type affair for the label, I’ve put so much energy and everything else into this. I really, really wish that his music reaches some new people and it helps them as much as its helped me. I really feel like this is one of the most important projects I’ve been involved in to date.
I’m going to paste the liner notes I wrote for the release below but in the meantime, I sincerely wish you all the best time possible with the music on this comp, if you decide to dive in. I haven’t been the same since listening to Jackie Leven
Michael
Hey Moon is probably Molly Nilsson‘s most popular song. Originally released in 2008 on her self-released debut album These Things Take Time – a hand-burnt CDr with folded “origami” artwork – it became one of her earliest successes, reaching out to the lonely wherever they heard it. Though it remains one of Nilsson’s most popular songs she never plays it live and has come to distance herself from it. A few years after its release it suddenly became the property of other people, in a sense. Covered, used on television programmes, it slipped from her sphere.
It’s time to reclaim Hey Moon. In support of the Black Lives Matter movement, Nilsson’s label Dark Skies Association and Night School are teaming up to release a 7″ of Nilsson’s Hey Moon backed with a rare early song, Silver. All profits for the sale of this digital and physical release will be donated to Black Lives Matter. Hey Moon 7″ will be available direct through Dark Skies Association, Night School Bandcamp and in your favourite local record store soon. We’re anticipating it to be ready by the end of March. We’re thrilled to already have sold so many of these and to be able to donate a sizeable sum.
“In case anyone was wondering, I’m a lifelong supporter of Antifa. Like most of us, I was appalled by what we saw in DC this week and by the people present there. In response to this DSA and Night School Records have decided to release a 7” single of my original song Hey Moon (2008), with ALL PROFITS from the sale donated to BLACK LIVES MATTER worldwide.”
– Molly Nilsson, 2021.
Made by Röy Film.
Starring: Manuela Iwansson.
Director, photographer, editor: Lisen Ellard.
Stylist, camera assistant, flashes: Agnes Östergren.
Producer, hair/makeup, props: Sara Fors.
Order the new seafoam green colour vinyl repress of The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits here.
In 2013 I was living in London, working in record shops, cycling two hours a day to save money on public transport and running my small DIY record label at night and on weekends. It was going OK, just about breaking even if you didn’t factor in my time, which I never did. Mostly I released my friends’ music on short runs, often hand-making things and carrying records around town. In 2011 I heard The Space Lady on a mix CD and, I don’t know, it kind of felt like time stood still for a few minutes. It felt like this was music from another dimension, like a loving presence charged with looking after humanity, a benign alien who’d taken the pop music of the 20th century and reimagined it sublime, blissed out, shorn of machismo and ego rendering it as a direct communication between souls. You might find it a bit rich or incredulous to think a 5 minute cover of Peter Schilling’s Major Tom by a woman on a Casio could do this to someone, but then perhaps you’ve never heard Susan “The Space Lady” Deitrich Schneider’s music.
Upon hearing it, I went on a fact finding mission and eventually tracked down an email address for The Space Lady. I found out that The Space Lady had been a busker in Boston and then San Francisco in the 80s, dressing up as a kind of hybrid space age viking angel and instantly becoming part a legend of the Castro during its heyday as an epicentre of gay culture in the USA. She’d set up on the same spot and play for tips to feed her family of three who invariably slept in cars, squats, hollowed out trees and eventually more stable lodgings in San Francisco. She’d recorded all of her repertoire for a CDr she handmade around 1991 and then hung up her blinking helmet and Casiotone to retrain as a nurse. I had an idea to reissue this CDr, to share this special music with people if I could. I just felt more people should hear it.
At the time my label, Night School, had released three 7”s and a couple of tapes so the idea of an album reissue was pretty exciting, if probably a little out of my reach financially. I fired off an email at the tail end of 2011, more as an introduction and exploration than anything. 2 years passed by and while I listened to The Space Lady a lot the idea of releasing her music drifted to the back of my mind. I ended up putting albums out (by Molly Nilsson, Julia Holter plus a few things that were perhaps a little too niche for mass consumption but those are beans I won’t spill right now). At some point in 2013 I got an email reply from The Space Lady – or to be more exact her husband Eric Schneider – saying they were interested in working with the label to reissue The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits. Floored, I arranged a long distance Skype call.
On the phone, Eric explained that around the time I emailed they had been receiving other emails from fans around the world asking when The Space Lady was going to come back. Susan was also on the call, a gentle voice charmingly confounded as to why this guy in London would be interested in her music. Eric said that following all these emails he asked Susan what they were about as she hadn’t spoken about The Space Lady and when she explained it he asked for a performance. So in their living room in Boulder, Colorado Susan dusted off the space helmet, the Wizard of Oz lunch/ tips box, the Casiotone and did her first Space Lady performance in 25 years or so for her husband. It was this performance that prompted them to think maybe there was a point in responding to some of these emails.
What followed was a whirlwind emotional and geographical trip for Night School and, I’m sure, for them also. I wanted to present The Space Lady not as some novelty or curio but as what she was, a brilliant musician with a dry sense of humour, an incredibly intelligent artist with a unique gift to transcend so many boundaries to touch people. Earnest, human, relatable, her takes on these classics are like transcendent messages between souls. It’s a testament to her sense of humour that she wanted to call the album “The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits” because they were, of course, other people’s greatest hits. Personally speaking, I’d take her versions of any of these songs over the originals any day of the week.
On top of this, there were originals on the album written by her first husband Joel Dunsany which are probably my favourite Space Lady songs. I remember her introducing Synthesize Me at an instore in a record shop in San Francisco while their grandson played with toy trucks at her feet. She explained that Joel had become terminally ill around 2012. A life-long collector of pretty much everything – including records – he never got to realise his dream of seeing his songs released on an album as he passed away the month before the release of The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits. Synthesize Me was a love song he’d written about her, for her to sing and then she played it. I’m getting emotional just writing this story down if I’m being honest with you.
It’s my firm belief that music shouldn’t only be accessible courtesy of the expensive music industry PR machine. I wanted and will always want to present the music I believe in as a on a par with “the classics” that get pushed at you day in, day out. This was the ideology behind presenting our release of The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits the way we did, almost like a Numero Records release, with archive photos that captured the jubilant, sometimes down-at-heel reality of life on the streets of San Francisco in the mid 80s, with some liner notes from Susan about her experience. I felt this music was important, too, and deserved to be taken seriously.
It was taken seriously and to heart by so many people. Following the release of The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits, Susan’s music took her on several world tours, releases on other record labels including Castleface, Mississippi Records, TV features, articles in every publication you could care for. Susan had never played a gig before 2014, when we’d arranged a tour of the West Coast USA. I flew over for the occasion and to this day it remains one of the most rich, albeit at times stressful, endeavours I’d ever set out on. In upstate Washington, Susan played her first ever Space Lady “gig” to some noise fans. Hearing Synthesize Me through a large PA for the first time, she said on the microphone “wow, that’s power!” I reckon there’s a lot of stories I could write about that tour but I’ll save them for now.
The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits is, to date, the biggest selling release on Night School. Eventually we licensed it out to sympathetic ears who could help keep it in print when we didn’t have the cash flow. I went out on that first Space Lady tour after quitting my job at the London record store and when I came back from that tour I managed to land a job at the record store I’d always wanted to work in, Monorail Music. Monorail had made The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits their album of the month on its release in 2013 and it’s been a steady seller ever since, whenever we can get a hold of it.
It’s 2020 now and I’m basically doing the same thing I was doing in 2011 when I first heard The Space Lady. Working days in Monorail, writing e-mails like this one, working nights and weekends putting records out that some people buy, some people don’t. That’s the nature of things I suppose. Greatest Hits has been out of print for about a year now so we decided to repress it on a new colour, on a small pressing of 500. We’re anticipating it being ready for November. Hopefully, hopefully, Susan will be able to make it out to play again when the world has healed sufficiently but in the meantime I hope you take the time to listen to The Space Lady’s music beaming out from 1991 to you now, online or on one of these records.
Michael, Night School Records
