Vox Populi Records

Vox Populi Records is a record label from Berlin, founded in 2014 by Fred Scharf. »The voice of the people« is the French man’s chosen name, and hints towards his own interests. »After I studied Anthropology in Lyon, I developed a passion for Ethnomusicology. Connecting with electronic music is my main aim«, Scharf explains. Even though he founded Vox Populi in Berlin, he doesn’t see the label, however, as a German one, or even as a Berlin business. »The base is in Berlin, our artists however come from New York, Montreal, Paris, Sao Paulo, etc, where we also work, and organise events.« That’s how Scharf realises his dream, going all over the world in search for field recordings, or to record music. The global approach of Vox Populi is also expressed stylistically. Even though between the releases, on which Valentin Stip, Solpara, Mrs Jones, and Elohim amongst others have participated, a couple of clear overlaps can be heard – dubby, experimental music with unconventional rhythms -, still Scharf would like neither restriction nor be reducible to a keyword. »I don’t really care about structure, or pigeon holes«, Scharf explains in reply to the question what exactly a Vox Populi release amounts to. »I think of a release as an autonomous system, whose parts – design, text, music – blend in with one another. I am also on the look out for interesting background stories, so I can arrange them into a common context.« Vox Populi manages to do this with two different compilation series. Whilst one of the compilations gathers tracks, that were not intended for an EP release, the Field Works series follows a particular theme. All over the world, recordings from »musicians, instrumentalists, religious rituals, festivals, verbal expressions, street noises, natural sounds, and general audio fragments« were collected and sent to the four producers, so that music could be made from the samples. An ethnomusicological approach, which wants to convey the voice of the people in other contexts – like the declared aim of Vox Populis.