Moment Cinetique Getting deep

With their carefully curated roster and attention-to-detail on every release, Moment Cinetique are a familiar friend to deep house aficionados worldwide but are perhaps less well known in their hometown of Sheffield. We spoke to resident and founder Dave Platts to find out more about the label and their latest record, and why the lockdown offers the perfect opportunity to explore the back catalogue.

What's the philosophy behind Moment Cinetique?

I'd like to think that the way we do things is fair to the artists on the label. We don't put out that many releases a year, maybe six or seven max, meaning that we can really concentrate on promoting a release, both in the run up to it coming out and then pushing it once it's out there.

We also work with quite a lot of other labels, promoters, social media channels that work in a similar way to ourselves. With the scene being so saturated we find it best to try and help each other out with things such as reposting or promoting other labels' releases, providing mixes, showcasing artists' new music and just generally helping where we can. A lot of producers that are on our label release on a small circuit of labels such as Flat White, Blaq Numbers, GetTogether and a few others so we all help each other out. This probably plays in to our main philosophy which is: 'be polite and try not to be a dick'.

Tell us a bit about the new EP.

The new EP is by an up-and-coming producer called Last Nubian. I met Tre a couple of years ago when I was DJing down in London for Bon Appetit, who are another one of the labels we work with. He's had several tracks and EPs out with the labels I mentioned before but this is his first vinyl solo EP. We've been supporting Tre's music for a long time and this EP really outlines his intricate production style of dusty hip-hop influenced sampling and groove-led energy. For the remixes I got in two of my favourite producers - Harry Wolfman's a favourite on some of the biggest labels in our scene and Carlo has been at the forefront for a few years now so it's great to have them onboard with us.

Due to the Covid-19 situation the release has been slightly delayed, meaning it's been out on promo for a while kicking around on radio shows, online mixes, DJ sets etc, but that's resulted in it getting some great support from DJs such as Laurence Guy, Horse Meat Disco, Tensnake, S3A, Art of Tones and loads more. It's out on vinyl on 3 April, then will be on all digitals three weeks later.

What have been your favourite releases on the label over the past two years?

The tracks we sign are more or less just things I personally like - I figure if I like them surely someone else must do. 'Mandolinio' by Icelandic producer Intr0beatz is up there. I love the track myself and it also did really well selling out its first vinyl run, plus it got played out by lots of DJs we look up to like Detroit Swindle, Fouk and Kraak & Smaak. We only recently found out Kerri Chandler has been playing it for months too. It's still getting a lot of plays and is knocking around a year after it was released which is quite a novelty in our scene.

'Jambon-Beurre' by Sweet Fruity Brunch and Selva is the track I like to play out most - it gets a big reaction. It didn't really get that much exposure when we released it in 2018 so in a couple of months it's getting a re-release with new remixes from Kevin Over and Vagabundo Club Social, so hopefully it'll get out there more this time around.

You're quite selective in what you put out - what do you look for in new releases or artists new to the label?

I'll sign anything I really like, it doesn't have to be from an established producer or anyone with a big following or anything. We released an EP from a new producer from South Africa called King Mutapa who'd never put anything out before, he didn't have any social media accounts or anything but he kindly sent the tracks saying he really liked our label and we really liked the music so signed him up. We tend to work with artists that don't spread themselves too thin with 50 releases a year - we don't want to spend months promoting a release for that artist to have another four coming out in the same month.

People have got a lot of time at the moment. What are you listening to to get through it?

I know it's incredibly tough for people out there but one tiny bit of light is that there will probably be a lot of new music knocking around over the next few months as people are sat bunkered up in their studios. My personal taste in music includes house, disco, indie, ear-splitting drum'n'bass and all sorts so I can't really think of anything in particular. What I do recommend though is spending a lot of time digging through Bandcamp for music. There's a lot on there people are possibly missing through the usual channels plus a lot of the artists sell music direct and could do with the support at the moment.

I normally find people that have bought some of the same releases I have and then have a dig around their collections for things I might have missed. I often end up down an Inception-style rabbit hole of all kinds of styles and oddities, it's a bit like crate digging in a record shop for the isolation generation.