In conversation with Scrimshire from Albert’s Favourite

Scrimshire sits down with Undercurrent to talk music, career, and the urge to support emerging artists.

Adam Scrimshire started making music on an Amiga 500 with a Yamaha Tone Generator and an 8-Bit Sampler at the age of 14. Surrounded by his family’s shared love for vinyl and dancing he was perhaps surprisingly the only one to decide he wanted to make the stuff.

Signed by Wah Wah 45s in 2006, Scrimshire’s sound is steeped in jazz, soul and funk, but with a nod to contemporary sounds, and with strong popular song writing sensibilities.

Let’s begin this conversation by talking about your journey as an artist. When and how did you start playing/writing music?

I actually started quite late, about 14. There was a lot of music in the home but no one played and I just had an epiphany one night that I wanted to play. So I asked for a keyboard for my next birthday. My dad was always into computers so rather than getting me the flashy keyboard with loads of buttons, which is what I really wanted, he got me a midi synth, which forced me into programming. And because I was programming I was kind of learning how instruments work so I started playing guitar and drums too. That's the thing with writing and production, it's just an absolute endless curiosity, and a desire to solve puzzles

I then started my first band when I was about 16, thanks to a teacher showing an interest.

What kind of music did your first band produce?

I was always into jazz, funk and soul music. Beats, bass and soulful vocals. I was influenced by people like Galiano I wanted to be like the new Galiano at the time. I was also studying dance and ballet and contemporary music at the time, so it was a big mixture of music and contemporary dance.

Then I moved to London to study audio engineering, and played with some other indie, funk and soul bands. It took me quite a while to really get into what I'm doing now. It was probably 2007 when I first started.

Yeah, tell us a little bit about your later career into music…

I joined Wah Wah 45s to try and start releasing music that I was getting into more, and Dom Servini helped me, he became a mentor to me these last 15+ years. He introduced me to various people, important players in the scene and I just became really ensconced in that label in a much bigger way than just as an artist. I was working in marketing at the time as well, right in the birth of things like Bandcamp and Spotify and post-piracy era streaming.

I thought, maybe I can bring something of my direct marketing knowledge to the record label, so I started working with the label. And then that coincided with a horrible event, the original head of the label passed away, Simon Goss. And at that point, Dom and Simon’s brother Chris Goss, who was also involved, asked if I’d like to join the team. I was with Wah Wah 45s up until just two years ago.

Tell us about the genesis of your own record label, Albert's Favourites and its vision. And where does the name come from?

The name is a story I love telling. We had a static caravan in South Wales where we'd go for all our holidays when we were kids - Easter, half terms, pretty much all of the summer.

Albert is my grandad and there was a tradition, in fact from when my mum and her sister were kids, where he would find out my mum’s, my nan’s and sister’s favourite songs, get them on vinyl and he'd record them on cassette tapes and call it “Albert's Favourites”. And when me and my brother came along he'd do the same, get all of our favourite songs and put them on a cassette tape, and that's what would go in the car to go to Wales, it was like a 5-6 hour journey, so Albert's Favourites is a cassette tape which was a really huge part of our family. He was also a very giving person, he was a very encouraging person, he really loved the idea of encouraging me. In his personal life as well, giving time to advise people and help people with their projects, he had a real business brain.

So, the idea of Albert’s Favourites, the label, is creating a community that is really artist-centric, that thinks in the artist's way in terms of what they need. But also from a financial perspective, what the artist needs. And tries to provide that in a supportive community that is considering the emotional and mental aspects of what it is to go out and start to produce records and beyond. I try to create a sustainable position of power that the artist can lean on, rather than just “let’s get a record out”.

Genre-wise, it's based in soul and jazz music but we're still evolving. It was very instrumental initially, but it's definitely at that place where soul and jazz music crossover and intertwine.

Tell us about your current roster…

We have The Expansions, Jonny Drop, Hector Plimmer, Huw Marc Bennet, Qwalia, we have the wonderful Miryam Solomon, we have Andrea - And Is Phi, we also have a band called Rōnin Arkestra and they're entirely based out in Japan. We have Rupert Cox who is a solo pianist, Inês Loubet, Mörk…

We have the wonderful Irini Arabatzi who has just signed with us. Her first EP comes out this Spring. We have me, Scrimshire, and two wonderful records by an artist who's no longer with us, Pie Eye Collective It's a wonderful growing family and we've got at least two new artists just announced this year.

You're helping underground artists shape their careers, how do you choose the artists you're working with?

I have a process, not just with the artist but with everybody, and it just starts with conversation and it just has to end with a genuine sense of friendship, if possible. Because the intention is that the relationship will be a lasting one. I'm not really interested in taking on a project and just trying to rinse it for the money. My attitude is that we're building a family and that in that process we can build the support network that we all need. And then through that process, we can hopefully build the economies that we need to make sense of it.

So it really comes down to, “are you a good person in my opinion and can I get on with you in a genuine, lasting way?” or, “if our business relationship ended today our personal relationship would continue.” And so far, there's definitely some business relationships that come to a natural close and they are people I still go to dinner with and hang out with their families and their parents and stuff like that. In every part of the business chain are people that I go and spend time with on a personal level. I need that, and my view is that big financial successes aren't as often as you'd like them to be. So, the process has to be enjoyable. I'm part of a community of people that I feel so immensely proud of and love in a really profound way and that's the value. Would I like to get paid more? Haha, I wouldn’t say no. But we're doing beautiful, beautiful things and I think the music tends to be an indicator of what people are doing as well. The music tends to tell you who you're working with to some degree.

What kind of services do you offer when you're working with an artist and what do you feel they need the most support with in general?

It's unique to each artist. So that's where the relationship thing comes in again, because you have to learn each other. You learn what they’re about, what their values are in terms of what they're capable or want to do to further their career. And then you have to try and find a way through that. So one of the things that I've felt, especially in the last three years, is that one of the biggest services that we can provide is to try and reduce the sense of friction in that process. And to really understand the emotional journey from start to finish. Because there’s definitely certain patterns that emerge about how artists feel as they go. I’ve noticed recently it gets particularly challenging in the last few weeks before release, as the reality and the hopes and dreams start to become very real to everybody, and sometimes they aren’t where they expected them to be, and sometimes they are.

Is it overwhelming?

Yeah, it’s overwhelming, so making sure that we approach those weeks with the right expectations and the right framework to navigate through to the other side - and keep working, because it’s not over. I think transparency is key and I try to be honest to a fault really, I generally play down stuff a lot and try and keep things more grounded. I think we’re grounded in a sustainable growth, that’s always the thing we talk about. Let’s aim for sustainable growth, but dream of bigger things. So when we come out of the end of this, we know that we’ve achieved some realistic, great things that will lead onto some good things in the future. I think also having a great team that I can trust is really vital. And an openness to be able to discuss how they feel and know that they can come to me with issues and ideas. Other than that, paying on time and ensuring that the invoicing and the important processes that we commit to and are absolutely adhered to is the least thing that every artist deserves, basically. And the knowledge that we are absolutely working our arses off for them.

We provide huge amounts of social media support now. We’re almost like a manager in a lot of cases, especially with new artists that are just starting out. It’s also about career guidance, it’s not just about getting a record out and it shouldn’t be and it frustrates me when I hear people get advice about getting a record out on certain agendas and it’s just to meet the festival requirements or the release requirements. Instead, it should be: what are you looking to achieve in the next two to five years? And how does this project plug into that? How does that then plug into what you want to do with your social media strategy for example? What’s painful to you and what isn’t painful to you, how do we construct the tools and the strategy that will make that make sense? So it’s just everything - it’s a 360 approach to keep things moving forward.

If you were to give one piece of advice to an emerging artist or young music professional, what would it be? 

The only thing that I always come back to is applicable to every element of your life: you just have to start and keep doing it. It goes into everything because it goes into social media, it goes into all these different things. It’s difficult to suddenly conjure up the stuff that you need when you suddenly need it. But if you start now and you start thinking about consistency, on a timetable to manage, whether that’s practicing your instrument or doing a post on social media to try and get some people to pay attention to you, or just writing or producing or whatever the thing is, start doing it now and keep doing it. And you will find that if you do care about doing this stuff, you’re going to be looking back in 10-15 years. So you want to be looking back on the fact that you've got 10 -15 years of experience in that time.

That’s a great one! Is there anyone that you’ve got your eyes on for the label?

I don’t think I can disclose it just yet! We’re just on the verge of signing someone who’s created an absolutely sensational album. I honestly didn’t think they’d sign because I think it’s got massive potential and I always think I’m this small guy, you know… I’m always surprised and humbled by the fact that people trust us with their music because I think it’s such a precious thing, and it makes me feel very responsible, very humble when that happens.

One thing I would definitely say about Albert’s Favourites is that you can see there is somebody in the background who is absolutely vouching for the music. You’re literally just taking the music that’s wonderful and putting it on your label. It doesn’t seem to be about trying to sign only what would sell well, so it’s a tastemaker's delight.

Yeah, I have to love it, it has to be personal. And when that happens, I think it deserves the most passionate advocate that it can have, and that's my job, is to be the person that says: this is the most essential thing that you have, so now let’s take care of it. Sometimes, artists are so quick to move forward that they’re not always taking care of getting their music from where they’ve recorded it to out into the world. So, I also stand in the middle of songs and say “well, you know, if you just pop it out in a hurry, then we’re not taking care of this beautiful thing we’ve created”.

We’ve got some beautiful new things for this year. I don’t know whether I can sign anymore people because we’ve taken on so many! In 2024, we’re realising that we have to lean into our community even more than we have over the last five or six years. We’ve been increasingly fed these kind of automated processes of how we get things to market and this classic thing, but I think that this idea of the curator is really resurging hugely in light of the fact that the platforms like magazines and publications are really falling away. We’re in this weird transition period and there’s lots of conversations about how the independent industry thrives in this next stage which is really vastly, quickly changing. And the conversations we’ve been having are more about how we all intertwine in different ways and sometimes in different roles, not just one role. How we can start to share resources and work more cohesively in order to build our own commune I suppose, that’s independent.

Because we’re looking at the Spotify changes where all the platforms really are looking at a more profound split starting to form between independent and major labels. What does that economy and that ecology look like in 10 years, how do we support each other. For some people that’s not purely going to come from just releasing records, do how do we all work with each other in multiple ways?

What’s your dream collaboration? 

Ooh, I’ve got a bunch. I guess there’s one I’m working on and I don’t know if it’s going to happen so I won’t say because, it’s massive! But I guess I’ve always wanted to collaborate with Chaka Khan.

Tell us a bit about your artists performing at Brick Lane Jazz Festival!

Miryam Solomon is just this incredible artist, and person. We drifted into each other’s lives and really enjoyed working together. We came together during the pandemic so we didn’t really spend a lot of time together and I’d actually never seen her perform until last year.

Did you sign her before you saw her perform?

Yeah, I heard her sing and I heard her compositional approaches and it’s just so me, so completely me that when she said she was working on a new record, I was like 100% yes, 100% there for you. I like the label to grow through relationships that we already have, and we spoke on the phone a lot, we just got on, and we were like, “let’s do this”. Then I saw her at London Jazz Festival for the showcase that we put on at the Fox & Firkin and I was just like oh wow, okay that’s incredible. The trio came on stage and in a busy pub it went absolutely silent from the first moment. Right to the very back of the room, so worthy of it, it was jaw-dropping. Total goosebumps. I cannot wait to see her at the festival. 

Andrea (And Is Phi) has worked with me for years and released her first LP with the label and recorded on two of my albums as well. She’s been working with Steamdown and now she’s finally emerged with this incredible solo album. She is just the sort of person that is committed to connecting with people. It’s really there in the way that she performs, her music is very generous, very giving, it’s not afraid to be challenging. It’s definitely about communication and her live show is just growing and growing in power. It’s all about living in the space, she’s got this very spiritual connection with her band and her audience. 

I’m really looking forward to seeing her show. I heard her album and I was like what is this? It’s otherworldly and quite different anything I’ve heard recently. 

Yeah, when they step out on stage they take all of that energy and all of the quieter moments and perform the album start to finish, even the ambient tracks and the energy is just incredible, because of the journey that she takes you on with her songs. They also have absolutely the power to just hit it and deliver these big, funky, heavy songs too. 

Ines (Loubert) is playing with State is Flow on Sunday. That’s another family that’s really blossoming at the moment, love them deeply. Ines has an incredibly experienced band that are doing these crossovers between samba and samba rock, so all of these beautiful Portugese and Brazilian rhythms. She has an exceptional skill for song-writing, she’s a wonderful guitarist and she has that classic sound down. Her band is very uplifting and she’s just a wonderful human being.

Are you working on any new projects yourself that you’d like to share?

Yeah, I have loads of unreleased music that just keeps not fitting into albums so I’m going to try and release those as EPs this year. Later this year, I did this EP called Music for Autumn Lovers, and I’m going to expand it and release it as an album in the autumn this year. Other than that, this year with the label is so full on that it’s a struggle for me to do anything solo. We’ve got a new Qwalia album coming in the summer, Ines's album is coming… we’re also working with this new Hungarian band Mörk, they’re a psych-soul, jazz kind of outfit who’re looking to do much more in the UK this year. Actually, they probably will have a single out by the time this interview comes out!