With the launch of their first official compilation Work Not Hype, South African underground electronic label Wet Dreams Recordings is coming out of the bedroom and announcing itself as a real label. Featuring artists such as Rose Bonica, Jumping Back Slash, Dion Monti, Lorenzo, DJ 909 Clap, Yezzah and vGrrr. Altered Natives will be the final artist to feature. Label founder and producer Big Space is proud of the release. “This is the first one that’s actually going to be mastered. I paid lots of time carefully selecting the tunes. It’s very well curated.”
Wet Dreams Recordings started off as a high school fantasy for Johannesburg based Big Space. “I guess I always wanted a place where myself and my friends or like-minded people could release stuff because it was different and there was never anything like that in South Africa except for say African Dope.”
While the music on Wet Dreams Recordings spans a variety of electronic genres, the common thread running throughout is that they all take a different form of expression. “Aesthetic wise in South Africa it’s very hard to find people that think about music outside of cash or just pushing the levels of ideas. So I just look for that.”
Wet Dreams Recordings’ first release, Night Sweats Vol. 1, featured a handful of artists that shared this mindset. “Apart from Jumping Back Slash, who’s a friend, the other guys are just guys that I met on the internet. Either I contacted them or they came up to me and just said they like my stuff and vice versa.”
Work Not Hype will be available online as well as on CD. “We’re going to do a limited run of some CDs with some very nice art to accompany it so you don’t just feel like you’re buying a piece of plastic that you’ll never use. It’s gonna have a nice story, just talking shit about everyone, because people like that. There’s something for everyone I guess. If you don’t like music there’s some great gossip. Me shitting on people. Pictures of dicks. Pictures of dicks shitting on people. You know, art.”
When it comes to how his approach towards the label has changed Big Space is frank. “Shit, it’s a bit fucking scary because now I have other people’s careers in my hand not just mine. It’s just basically following strategy, something I never did before. I guess playing the game of the game, but on my own terms. The way I plan to infiltrate the game is literally by just putting out consistently good quality stuff, because it’s not just gqom and Goldfish and Freshlyground. There’s tons of other stuff that’s coming from here.”
With their aim to be a platform for different yet high quality music, Wet Dreams Recordings is carving out a niche locally at a time when the focus on South African music is greater than ever and the need for such a platform even more so. “I’m tired of trying to impress South Africa because they don’t even care about anything different unless it’s a copy of international stuff. So I want it to be heard by the right people that want to hear different music.”
