Empathy Recordings

The empathy begins: Wellington, New Zealand 2003.

Two guys (Shannon McKenna and Mark Rickerby) have some mates who make tunes, they reckon the stuff their mates are making in their bedrooms is better than half the stuff they are hearing on the radio. So a simple prototype release of drumnbass music entitled ‘empathy’ is released - it includes tracks from Double_Negative (John Henderson and Nick Gardiner) as well as a new friend Cform (Shane Bradbury). Another school mate who has been mixing beats as ‘Codec Seven’(Peter Howman) has a couple to offer as well. The cd’s are sold on a ’sale or return’ basis in central Wellington. The packaging is subtle and discreet. The concept simple: this music needs to reach the ears of those who will love it.

Encouraged by the response and a love of the process, the guys decide to push it one more time. More tunes come in. The whole process takes on a life of its own; those that want to help join in and offer their expertise. ‘empathy recordings’ is born.

The next release is a compilation called ‘plug_in drummer’. James Robinson (www.jamesrobinson.co.nz) agrees to let us use his art work for the cover. We put out the word for more tunes and more producers crawl out of their bedrooms with shady demos. Some are gems. We meet the likes of ‘Kovski’ and the enigmatic ‘others/lorax’. We come up with this notion that these tunes would sit nicely with some of the country’s more established artists, and approach The Upbeats and Agent Alvin, who agree. Our first distributor is Adrian from Solidwax. He gets rid of the lot.

In 2005, we cant believe the tunes coming out of this country.If we could bridge the gap between the three scenes of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, that would be cool. We like to get people together. Remixes start happening with people we have never met. Demos range from obscure to sublime.

Our third compilation and most ambitious project yet arrives back from the factory. Is this code. Its all breakbeat music to us. We approach a specialised distributor, Rhythmethod Ltd and they take us onboard.
This time local visual art genius Welfe Bowyer gets in on the artwork thing, we love the pink.
Our friends at bassdrop.co.nz help us put on a wicked series of gigs promoting the empathy thing and our new cd. Things start to demand a hell of a lot more attention.

Our first e.p’s are in the mix, out some time soon - we can finally push artists on their own. We are about to go online selling our stuff, hopefully we get some good exposure that way. We continue developing the identity and brand side of things, a split second message that says what we are about. The empathy story.

Shannon Mckenna
John Henderson
Shane Bradbury
2007