Most journalists hope to get a few decent quotes from an interview. Steve Goodman ended up getting a record label.
It was 2003 when the Glasgow-born DJ, producer and sometime music writer interviewed fellow bass enthusiast Kevin Martin for XLR8R magazine. The latter was promoting his latest album as The Bug, a blend of speaker-shredding dancehall and futuristic dub, but their conversation turned to a new strain of music that was starting to emerge from the clubs of South London. Goodman was already thoroughly immersed in the nascent dubstep scene at that point, and he spotted a kindred spirit in Martin. The latter returned the compliment: after hearing one of his interviewer's productions, "Sine of the Dub", he put him in touch with a distributor so he could release it. The catch: he'd have to start his own label first.
A decade on, Goodman's Hyperdub imprint is in robust creative health. Once synonymous with dubstep, it has since broadened to encompass a far wider spectrum of music, while remaining staunchly devoted to the London bass underground. Today, its roster runs from Scratcha DVA's kaleidoscopic grime and U.K. funky to Laurel Halo's experimental electronica, DJ Rashad's frenetic footwork and the dub detonations of King Midas Sound, which features one Kevin Martin on production duties. And then there's Burial, the Mercury Music Prize-nominated producer whose aversion to publicity — he only revealed his real name after U.K. tabloid The Sun launched a campaign to unmask him — has merely served to heighten the mystique surrounding his intensely atmospheric tracks.