Flamingo #34: Carpet Distro Special (06/10/21)
Flamingo is my monthly radio show on Lisbon’s Rádio Quântica, broadcasting every fourth Wednesday from 16h–18h GMT. You can find the mixcloud archive of previous shows here.
This month’s Flamingo is a special showcase of tracks from upcoming releases on the Carpet & Snares / Carpet Distribution family of labels, including my own Welt Discos.
Like many other record shops and distributors, Carpet has suffered a lot with both covid and the ongoing bottlenecks in vinyl pressing plants (which I wrote about here), so it is with both relief and joy that we can start to announce this next batch of records.
Carpet Distribution
Since it brought its distribution in-house, Carpet releases have stood for high quality, good-sounding records across the spectrum of contemporary club music. Within the Carpet ecosystem you’ll find classic and refined house (including boss Jorge Caiado’s own releases), vanguard electro-breaks-braindance (from second in command Rui Ferreira’s Dream Ticket label), sought-after UKG updates (the Carpet/Steps series EPs from DJ Chupacabra get snapped up immediately), and plenty of forward-thinking music by producers from Portugal (the modular experiments of Berllioz, driving techno from VIL, dancefloor bangers from Luhk) and further afield.
The schedule of upcoming releases continues this excellent work. In this episode of Flamingo we have Portuguese producers rubbing shoulders with artists from across Europe (France, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Germany) and the rest of the world (Russia, Canada, the UK, the US), while stylistically the selection traverses ambient, IDM, electro, techno, house, acid, UKG and even some italo.
It’s a hugely impressive achievement given Carpet’s modest means and the limited audience for this music in Portugal. I hope that more people will start to take note.
Welt Discos
The next two Welt Discos releases featured here arose in slightly different ways, but have ended up with the same wonderfully satisfying results: super fun and dynamic all-round EPs that I think will appeal to everyone.
Viewtiful Joe (IG / SC) was someone whose music I had followed since his track ‘0356’ on the first ever Casa Voyager EP back in 2017. When his Squarewave Shurikens EP was announced late last year I couldn’t resist contacting him to find out if he’d like to release on Welt. To my pleasant surprise, Jonas not only said yes but turned out to be a great person to work with. I find his futuristic-pop-meets-video-games sound completely irresistible and am thrilled with the selection we’ve arrived at for WLTD003. In this episode of Flamingo you’ll hear two of the five tracks, and the full EP will be announced very soon.
Velvet Velour (IG / SC) is someone who originally contacted me about one of my newsletters (I wrote about this here). He also sent me an unreleased tune of his as what seemed like an afterthought, but I was so into it that we got talking pretty quickly about putting out a record. What I really like about WLTD004 is how it sounds uniquely like Liam but also sounds very different to his other existing releases (on Scratch Discs). Just as with Jonas, there’s bags of both personality and musicality in each track - solos, counterpoint, non-obvious choices for rhythms and patterns - and four moods for different situations. This EP will come some time after WLTD003, but in this episode of Flamingo there are two sneak peeks!
How to support us
Since I started Welt Discos I have been slowly getting to know how the business of making and selling records works. I am still an absolute beginner, but there are some things that seem fundamental for encouraging an independent label and distro to flourish. So if you like the music you hear in this episode of Flamingo, here are some ways you can support the work Carpet is doing:
Buy and play the records! (Getting the most obvious one out of the way first.)
Follow the distro and labels on IG / SC / Bandcamp so you get the latest updates on releases.
Request the records from your local shop/online dealer. The more they hear that our records are wanted, the more likely they are to follow through and stock them for you. This supports the vinyl ecosystem rather than everything going through the big online stores, and saves a load on shipping materials.
If you’re a shop or dealer, make sure you’re on Carpet’s distribution mailing list and that it goes straight to your main inbox (not spam or marketing). We send regular updates on new releases and backstock and we know that our releases sell well.
Share. While I still have misgivings about the endless stream of liking and sharing things on social media, the evidence is incontrovertible: almost every time someone shares that they’re enjoying a Welt release, that one simple act leads to new people following the label and often buying a record. So whether you’re an individual buyer or a shop, this is an easy and quick way of supporting the labels and artists.
Buy and play the records!
OK, the sales pitch is over, check out the show and tracklist below. And keep your eyes and ears open for when these records come out over the next few months.
FLAMINGO #34 CARPET DISTRO SPECIAL (06/10/21)
Shine Grooves – Night Reverberation Jam [Carpet/Circuits]
Shine Grooves – Morning Mood [Carpet/Circuits]
ZDR – Farther Afield [Dream Ticket]
Viewtiful Joe – Into_E [Welt Discos]
Luhk – Novos Horizontes [Carpet & Snares]
Ryan James Ford – Royal Stag [Dream Ticket]
Shine Grooves – Japan Sequencer [Carpet/Circuits]
Lerosa – Karnak [Welt Discos]
Lukey – Glitch Machine [Carpet/Lab]
Velvet Velour – Wonderful World Of You [Welt Discos]
DJ Chupacabra – Finissage [Carpet/Steps]
Luhk – Não Há Volta Atrás [Carpet & Snares]
Gratts – Bright Future (New Vision Dub) [Inner Balance]
Jorge Caiado – Find Your Rhythm [Carpet & Snares]
DJ ARG – 808 Acid Inferno [Dream Ticket]
Unknown Artist – Untitled 2.5 [Carpet/Dummy]
Lukey – Utopia [Carpet/Lab]
Luhk – L.Submundo.D [Carpet & Snares]
Jorge Caiado – Say What [Carpet & Snares]
Viewtiful Joe – Cazelli’s Watch [Welt Discos]
Velvet Velour – Fruit Market [Welt Discos]
Shine Grooves – Evening Radio [Carpet/Circuits]
Pandilla Ltd – Beat Untitled [Ozy]