Meet In The Lab Recordings. Back in 2021, Kendot and Spectra T started their label, wanting to focus on the futuristic and experimental side of drum and bass. “You can fit a lot under this umbrella,” explains Kendot. “That’s why there’s probably something for everyone to be found in our catalogue. There’s liquid, neuro, jumpup…”
Fast forward to 2024, and In The Lab have gone from playing small bars in Northampton to taking over Motion Bristol and opening Rampage Sportpaleis. They are now residents for Worried About Henry, are part of the Hospital Records Business Mentorship programme and are signing some of the most promising artists in the scene.
Something tells us they are a label to watch out for…
How are you doing? It’s been quite a big year for you guys so far already…
Spectra T: We’re doing amazing. The first big thing this year was playing at Rampage, Sportpaleis in particular. Being able to grace that stage is absolutely unreal and to be able to showcase our label, our artists, and our sound to that wide of an audience both online and in the arena was insane. There are so many artists and labels who still haven’t had a chance to play that stage!
Kendot: For me, Steelyard was one of those venues we were able to tick off our list. That’s such a legendary space. For us to be able to go there and play friggin’ Crazy Frog bootlegs? It was just amazing.
Spectra T: Another one is playing the outdoor stage at Motion. That’s one where I remember being at Run All Day a few years ago and just thinking, wow, the vibe here is just absolutely unreal. That is the best of Bristol, when you get the sun shining outdoors at Motion, and then when we got the chance to play that! That was one of our favourite sets we played this year. We really vibed on that one.
Kendot: It was a 90-minute one, so we were able to proper expand on all the stuff that we like to play. It was really cool. It was a great set.
Spectra T: Another thing I’m really proud of, aside from sets, because it’s not obviously all about where you play, would be the amount of big artists, either online or in person, who have given us recognition. That’s still something that’s so surreal to see because for us, we’re still the little label from Northampton, and we don’t really expect everyone to know who we are, but it’s nice when they do.
Talking about support, you’ve got a big support group behind you with the label. How is it working together?
Spectra T: They always come through when we need it. We’ve got our friend Connor (Kendot’s brother-in-law), who has been there from the inception of ITL. He designed the In The Lab logo. That just shows how long he’s been there. He’s helped with set-up, set-down, everything… From the tiniest gigs to the biggest ones. He helped with design stuff and building little things for projects. We’ve got the core residents as well, like Trinity and Aduken. They’ve always been there to support us with anything we ask, whether that be sharing stuff on social media or giving ideas, and feedback. We have got that team, even if we don’t utilise them as much as we should.
Kendot: It’s kind of hard to ignore the support that we’re getting from other companies within drum and bass as well. The consistent bookings that we get through Rampage and Worried About Henry, if we want to talk about gigs. And then, label advice and support that we’re getting through the Hospital Records Mentorship Programme. We’re so lucky to have ‘friends in high places’, giving us advice, help, and support. We couldn’t be more thankful for that.
Spectra T: The guidance we’ve been able to get from those brands has been invaluable. We’ve really gone into this blind. Neither of us have studied business or music or anything like that, it’s purely out of passion. We just love music. So, to be able to ask those questions when we need it and receive that support is brilliant.
Where do you feel that you are now?
Kendot: I would like to think that we’re a couple of years away from our peak, because everything started to ramp up in the last 18 months to two years- and it doesn’t seem like it’s plateauing yet. We keep being dumbstruck by the opportunities that are coming through. Rather than everything being business as usual, it’s still exciting and jaw-dropping and nerve-wracking, so I still think we’re on an upward trajectory.
Spectra T: Even if we don’t realise sometimes, everything is still moving forward. I would say that we’re signing some of the strongest music from some of the strongest artists that we have so far. Coming off the back of our first-ever full festival season, it just shows that stuff is well and truly in motion in the best way possible.
Let’s talk about the sound you want to push with In The Lab Recordings. A lot of labels have their signature sound, but you guys have quite a varied palette.
Kendot: People who know myself and Andy (Spectra T) personally, know that our music taste is quite broad, which is why we get along so well. If it’s good music, we’re interested. We listen to pretty much anything as long as we like it and as long as it’s good. That is reflected in our label now. We are a drum and bass label mainly, but we don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves on that.
Spectra T: I’m through and through a dance floor D&B and commercial D&B head, that’s where my love of drum and bass came from initially with Wilkinson. But Kendot is now more into the minimal and deeper side of drum and bass. When you get those two elements mixed- get the darker, more technical sound design paired with the big anthemic euphoric leads and vocals, that leaves you with the releases that you’ve been seeing from In The Lab recently.
Kendot, you said, “We like something as long as it’s good.” What is good for In The Lab?
Kendot: The technical execution of an idea is what’s good. If you’ve got an idea and you do it well, and you stick the landing, I would say that that’s good.
Spectra T: It’s that musical flow that we care about with our label. Looking at the VAs for example, we’ve got Antimatter and Matter, they are absolute parallels and absolute opposites to each other. Antimatter showcases the deeper, darker, heavy, techy side of In The Lab, and Matter is where we let loose our more melodic light-hearted side.
Kendot: We’re dipping our toes in other genres as well, and that means we can grow and experiment with these VAs a lot more. We’re able to find homes for music that previously wouldn’t have fit on the label. There have been so many times when we’ve had music that we’ve sadly had to turn down. Now that we’re broadening ourselves, it opens the door to a lot of exciting things.
Spectra T: I think it’s important to say as well that the majority of the artists that we work with and we push on In The Lab don’t specifically just produce drum and bass. A lot of them experiment in other genres, so now that we’re finding our core roster, it’s nice to be able to showcase them and what they can do, whether that is in or outside of drum and bass.
How do you curate your releases?
Spectra T: We’re very lucky that we have our regular artists who are consistently sending us ideas and music. Alongside that, we’re consistently getting demos. Regardless of whether we sign them a lot or not, I would say that the overall quality of the demos we get is very high, which we’re very thankful for. Then it’s just a case of me and Kendot listening through the tracks, and nine times out of ten, it’s a pretty straightforward yes or no, because we understand each other’s taste. In general, we can agree on whether we want to sign something pretty quickly. Or if something needs changes, then Kendot is very good at identifying what needs changing in a track.
Kendot: While it’s really hard to put into words and describe what we’re looking for exactly, In The Lab tracks tend to have a particular flavour. Even though we release liquid, harder stuff, all these different styles of drum and bass, there is a common thread that runs throughout our music, and that’s mainly what we’re looking for. Then it’s as simple as, do they stick the landing in the execution of that idea? If the vibe is right, and it’s produced to a high enough quality, then it’s a yes.
Spectra T: We’ve had demos coming from absolutely amazing producers, some of which we’ve been wanting to sign music from for a long time, and we’ve had to turn it down because the idea is just simply not good enough. We will stand by that regardless of who you are. If the track is good enough, it will get signed. If the track’s not good enough, then it won’t.
Kendot: It can be quite painful, especially knowing how much effort someone’s put into this piece of work. You know that they’ve spent hours and hours and hours writing this piece of music for us to say ‘that doesn’t work’. But we have to have our integrity because otherwise it kind of all falls apart, doesn’t it?
Spectra T: Just because we don’t necessarily think that it holds up to what we want to release on In The Lab, doesn’t mean it’s not good enough to release in general. We get a lot of music that maybe just isn’t quite there for us, but it’s still more than good enough to play out, to listen to, and just to vibe with. Sometimes also, there’s just too much music. We’ve got people who have sent us five or six tracks, and we’ve had to tell them we can only take one. Sometimes that’s really hard. On those occasions, we like to put them forward to other labels that are releasing similar styles and might have room for the release. As I say, it might not fit with us, but it might still be good enough for a release.
Kendot: I’d like to think that people that send us demos regularly (because there will be people reading this that send us demos regularly) that we converse with, that when we turn stuff down, it’s not a negative comment on your piece of music. It’s the fact that it doesn’t work for our label. Rather than us saying ‘No, we don’t like that, we don’t think that should be released’, it’s more a case of, ‘Yeah, that’s good music, but that doesn’t suit our vision’.
Let’s go back to the early days of the label. What was the moment when you thought, “Wow, In The Lab is really doing something!”?
Spectra T: It would have to be when we got the first Best Newcomer Label nomination on the Drumand BassArena Awards because that was completely and utterly unexpected. We did not think in our wildest dreams that we’d be getting nominated for that. There were people around us that were saying, oh no, I think you’ve got a good chance, and we just did not believe it. To actually see that support materialise in the way of a nomination felt like we were hitting a wide audience and it was being appreciated, the music we were releasing, and people were digging it.
Kendot: Seeing our name there was a record scratch moment. It was like, what?? Oh my god, where did that come from? How did that happen? It was really cool. Really, really cool. I think another wow moment, maybe a less serious one, was when I realised that every single event we’re playing now has four decks rather than two – me and Spectra T have played on a lot of lower quality equipment. Bad decks, messy booths, no booth monitors, booth monitors that are broken, decks that are broken, you name it. One day I was like, hang on a minute, we haven’t played on less than three decks in a very long time and all the decks work. I don’t step into a club anymore worried that things are broken. That’s really nice.
It sounds like you really found a way of working together and building this brand that is In The Lab.
Spectra T: It’s absolutely great and absolutely terrible at the same time. Because it shouldn’t work, but it does. It’s what it comes down to. We both have our struggles and neither of us are particularly good at communicating with each other, but we both understand each other very well and understand what we’re good at and what we’re not.
Kendot: We fell into our respective roles essentially on day one. With no conversation or communication. It’s just that we each have different strengths and where each of us have strengths, the other one has weaknesses and vice versa. There was never any structural conversation of, I’ll do this, you do that. That’s why it works for us in our situation because we just fill the gaps in each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
How is the future of In The Lab looking for you?
Kendot: It’s looking pretty bright. We’ve got lots of music coming, as always. I’m feeling really good about the artists that we’re working with in the near future. Most of them, as always with ITL, are fairly small or unknown names, and it’s really exciting to give people like that a platform. In terms of the gigging side, we’re looking forward to club season now starting up. We’ve just had our first full festival season, as Spectra T mentioned earlier, and we’re looking forward to every opportunity that comes.
Spectra T: Without going into too much detail, we’re dipping our toes into trying to create some different styles of projects and social media content. I’m sure everyone will see it over the rest of the year and going into next year. It’s some very exciting stuff, which I will leave to your imagination for now.
Thank you! Is there anything else you would like to share?
Spectra T: I would like to give some spotlight to some other labels and people. We definitely got to give a shout out to Stellar Audio, SINFUL MAZE, Yamatai, Phase Records, Abyssal Music. All these similar-sized labels to us have been absolutely killing it. The quality of releases has been getting better and better, and they’re all run by such lovely people that have been supportive to us and really welcoming to us. I feel like we’ve all come through at a similar time. We’re all on a similar journey.
I want to give a shout out to some of our core roster as well, on their individual successes. [BORDERS] and Vici have been absolutely killing it. They’ve been releasing on bigger and better labels. The quality of releases has just been becoming insane. And finally, a big thank you to everyone who has been supporting us
