Deadbeat announces BLKRTZ

Scott Monteith, aka Deadbeat, recently announced that he will be launching his own record label, BLKRTZ at the end of June, with the first release being Drawn and Quartered, his seventh studio album following 2008's Roots and Wire. For those who've managed not to notice Deadbeat in the 12 years that he's been producing, the Canadian's earliest works were released on Stefa Betke (Pole) and Barbara Preisenger's ~scape label, and focussed on a grainy, spacious type of dub heavily reminiscent of Pole's own solo excursions. Never staying still, Monteith has released more heavily techno influenced records on labels such as Cynosure and Wagon Repair, as well as exploring deeper avenues of roots dub and dancehall on Journeyman's Annua, and releasing Vampire / Vampire dub, one of my most-played of last year, on Echochord.

Monteith gave the following statement recently about his intentions with BLKRTZ
“When I received the news a few months ago that ~scape was officially closing its doors, I was incredibly sad to hear it (...) Though I hadn’t worked with them in a few years, I always saw ~scape as the natural home for a very important part of my work. Not necessarily the more listening side of things per se, but certainly the most unconcerned with genre or function, from a creative stand point the most free I guess. Barbara and Stefan worked very hard to promote a great deal of quite marginalized material over the years and did a lot to help me and many other artists out personally who otherwise would have had a much harder time of it. Though I’ll be concentrating on my own work for the first few releases, it’s my hope that BLKRTZ can serve a similarly honorable purpose in the years to come.”

I was a massive fan of ~scape's output over the past decade, and their willingness to support often very niche artists (I think I'm probably one of the few people who picked up on how great Cappablack were), so the thought of Monteith following a similar philosophy with BLKRTZ is very exciting. We'll bring more info on the label as we get it, for now, here's an unreleased Deadbeat number via his soundcloud.

Claudette by deadbeat