Allon Kaye
E-mail interview
Entracte, Universal Exports
1. Where and when were you born and raised ?
I was born in London. I lived there until I was three-years old when my parents moved to Israel. We returned a while later.
2. What music did you grow up with ?
A wonderful mix of things: My dad’s records (Beatles, Stones, blues), Italo and so-called Euro Disco, local music in both Arabic and Hebrew, and snippets of the first house and acid records that I heard on the radio and in the first clubs I started going to.
3. What kind of music was alive there at the time ?
Mostly the Euro-Italo stuff.
4. What kind of music can we expect in your mix for Outsiders at Kiosk Radio ?
None that I’ve mentioned so far.
5. As a music connoisseur, enthusiast and collector you started the label Entr'acte records in 1999, is that right ? Can you tell us a bit more about the origins, set-up and roots of Entracte?
I could but I would be repeating myself.
If anyone’s interested:
https://www.commontime.club/p/common-time-076-22-years-of-running.html
and
https://dfe4a33b-7b68-471a-a44d-8ab2ad26bd3d.usrfiles.com/ugd/dfe4a3_7dfc6765ac4947c08ba008eafa4c04d6.pdf
6. The list of releases you have pushed forward with Entracte is huge. How did you come up with such a wonderful list of artists? I can imagine that throughout the more than 20 years of Entr'acte you have spent a lot of time networking and researching different music scenes around the world. Can you tell us a bit more about the way you raised Entracte? Have people been involved in the day-to-day running of the label?
It was just me, and I only released from demos. So I didn’t actually do very much.
7. The variety of artists such as Andrew Pekler, Legowelt, Yves De Mey, Lander Geyselink, Roman Hiele, Lee Gamble, ... (just to name a few) that you have released is enormous. Probably a difficult question.. but were there certain releases that were a highlight for you in the label's existence?
Oh, certainly: far too many to list but from the top of my head and the bottom of my heart:
Big City Orchestra (E27)
Scott Taylor/srmeixner (E34)
Esther Venrooy (E30/E50)
Theo Burt/Automatics Group (E80/E130)
Helena Gough (E91)
John Wall/Alex Rodgers (E114)
Dale Cornish (E156)
Keith Moliné (E162)
Joseph Clayton Mills (E167)
Guy Birkin & Sun Hammer (E187)
Brendan Dougherty (E197)
NYZ (E219/E220)
Coppice (224)
Tom Mudd (E226)
The Happy Jug (E227)
Ohad Fishof (E239)
8. The label has a very recognizable and specific identity. I suspect that as an independent typographer and graphic designer you are behind the creation of the graphic design of Entr'acte.? Was there a specific intention behind the creation of Entracte's visual identity? It came about spontaneously, but I always wanted something generic for it rather than a different sleeve for each release.
9. What's on the agenda for Entracte in the future? You started the Universal Exports label a while ago with Yves De Mey & Roman Hiele. Is there a connection between UA and Entra'cte or are these 2 labels completely unrelated? I stopped Entr’acte and quit Universal Exports in July this year.
10. Yves De Mey once told us that you have one of the largest and broadest music collections in his circle of friends. Where and when did you start building your collection and which genres are mainly represented in it? Are you still actively collecting and discovering music?
I was never a serious collector except when I was predominantly into stuff like Coil/Current 93/Nurse with Wound; I owned or tried to get hold of everything they had released to that point. I rarely buy vinyl or CDs these days (and never cassettes). In fact, I sold most of my records a while back. I check out new music regularly but I don’t feel that I need to own most of what I come across. I’m easily bored so music really needs to turn me on.