MUSH RECORDS
With four feet planted firmly on L.A. asphalt, Robert Curcio and Cindy Roché - the brains behind independent upstart Mush Records - have found the ideal environment to nurture their unorthodox musical tastes while at the same time basking in the warm rays of the Californian sun.
Grown from the creative seeds planted at Dirty Loop Music Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mush has blossomed into a cottage industry of sorts - releasing the rawest cuts from a rag-tag band of leftfield instrumentalists, electronic envelope pushers and iconoclastic hip-hoppers (Boasting releases from Aesop Rock, cLOUDDEAD and Daedelus to name a few).
"Lulu Mushi (Cindy Roché) and Boom Bip (Bryan Hollon) were using the studio (Dirty Loop) to make some downtempo electronic tracks," Curcio explains. "As far as we knew, there was no outlet for the music, so Cindy and I decided to start a small boutique label to release it. She named it Mush.
"Some five years and several geographic relocations later, Curcio and Roché have amassed a micro empire built on strong full length releases, wise distribution deals and a brand that tends to sell itself. "It seems like people have come to expect that an album with the Mush logo on it will be both something different and very high quality," Curcio says. The trust that he and Roché have established with their audience allows the duo the freedom to release music that they believe in - a practice almost unheard of in today's music industry.
"In the past year, we have released albums by Andre Afram Asmar, Curse Ov Dialect, Clue to Kalo and Octavius that some labels would look at as too risky since the music is left of center and the artists are relatively unknown," Curcio explains.
With over fifty releases in the bag and a promising year ahead - including a new cLOUDDEAD album, a full length from Lulu Mushi herself and a project from Los Angeles up and comer Thavius Beck - Mush appears to be on the brink of blowing up. All achieved without compromising the label's dedication to artistic integrity.
"Continuing to release music that is viewed as exceptional and important is much more attractive to us than reaching any particular sales goals," Curcio says. "We would love to look back on a catalog of releases that really made a mark in independent music and a handful of releases that are considered landmarks."
MATTHEW NEWTON