
Records Revisited: Midori Takada – Through the Looking Glass (1983)
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We Release Whatever the Fuck We Want Records is a record label from Genf founded by Oliver Ducret and Stéphane Armleder. Both Oliver Ducret and Stéphane Armleder had already published music in 2013 and gathered experience in the business: Ducret is a DJ, but also a founder, operator, and the A&R of Mental Groove Records. Armleder works as a radio moderator, raps as Genevan Heathen, and is the co-founder of Record Company Records, and Villa Magica Records. The two knew one another as mates with a similar taste for obscure soundtracks, however, they had not yet thought about a collaboration until they saw the Mondo-film La France Interdite at a B-film festival in Genf. »We both love a scene in this film, in which Brigitte Lahaie rides on a horse to the title song. We were immediately obsessed with this track« Armleder recollects.
After they had dug up the unpublished soundtrack of the film, the two cinema lovers found more reissue material in half-forgotten B-movies. What attracted them especially were the electronic experiments of B-soundtracks and library composers like Piero Umiliani, or John Carpenter – their next project is the unpublished soundtrack to the obscure Sci-Fi short film »La brulure de mille soleils«, from electronic-pioneer Bernard Parmegiani. Because they want to live up to their name, they refuse the genre continuity usually expected of a label, and from time to time publish a compilation featuring American Sex-Rap, or a disco soundtrack to a current film at the cinema. »Our label’s philosophy is that we haven’t got one. We simply try to publish records, which we love – they are all crushes. It is a great pleasure to browse through these releases, and press things for the first time, or to re-publish forgotten gems.« This method certainly requires a due portion of detective work: A record to license »is sometimes a long and exhausting cat and mouse game« Armleder says. This is, however, a part of the appeal and the meeting with the people responsible mainly compensates for all the inconveniences. Flexing your research muscles and meeting other people, whom one admires, is a very stimulating experience.
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