Altered Zones

MP3: Eric Copeland: "Krankendudel"

Nis Bysted, Nis Sigurdsson, Anders Jørgen Mogensen, and Andreas Hauer-Jensen have been quietly releasing albums and promoting shows in their hometown of Copenhagen since 2005. Escho, the label they founded together, takes its name from a made-up word that Bysted spraypainted on Sigurdsson's wall six years ago, essentially slang for "ultra," "extra," or "super" (examples: "I was escho mad." Or, "it was escho not cool when you puked all over my limited edition 88 Boadrum poncho.") The imprint began putting out records by Scandinavian bands that were popular exclusively in their native lands (my favorite unpronounceables include Gæoudji Sygnok and Düreforsög), but has since found international acclaim with releases from Iceage and Black Dice's Eric Copeland (both of which were Zoned In), and even earned a nod in Artforum's "Best of 2010" feature last year. During a brief stint in Denmark's capital back in June, while covering Iceage's DANISH PUNK FUCK YOU showcase at the Distortion Fest, I sat down with Anders Jørgen Mogensen for a chat. The label had just hosted a DIY pop-up show in an alleyway for "Sleepy" Doug Shaw of Gang Gang Dance's solo project, Highlife, and we spoke about throwing shows, the Copenhagen scene, and Escho's beginnings.

AZ: Tell me about how Escho began.

Anders: We were all musicians and in a strange phase creatively. There were so many of our friends who had recorded records that they couldn't put out. We were big fans of Gang Gang Dance, and we couldn't get any venues to put them on, so we just started a venue ourselves. After booking shows, one of our friends-- T.S. Høeg, who was a jazz musician, in his fifties-- said, "I got some money from the state to do a record. You can just have the record, use the funding I got, and put money into the company." He was actually part of the first punk generation of the late '70s.

We didn't have any distribution or anything. We rode around on our bikes, asking record shops if they wanted to sell our things. And they said "Yes," because even though it was only six years ago, things were different for record labels. That was the first time for us; it was very different then. [Then] a lot of small record companies started surfacing and people started putting out a lot of music, but people weren’t buying records anymore. With the Iceage seven-inches, we went around to stores and just gave them away.