Erased Tapes Records is home to Ólafur Arnalds, A Winged Victory For The Sullen, Rival Consoles, The B.E.F., Nils Frahm and Peter Broderick, amongst others.
Erased Tapes has become a meeting point and melting pot for innovative and imaginative musicians who knew there had to be somewhere they could call home. As artist Nils Frahm says, the label is ‘a wonderful place for creating music and I couldn't be happier in this family. And it is a family. There’s a great sense of freedom on this label.’ Positioned deliberately outside the fleeting trends that typify contemporary indie music, Erased Tapes has fostered collaboration between its artists, often fusing disparate musical forms and styles, rendering so-called genres like modern classical, post rock and electronica redundant. Finding fans amongst a diverse crowd that includes Clint Mansell, Ellen Barkin and Thom Yorke, it has also received significant critical acclaim from the world’s media. As Clash magazine put it, ‘the label help to blur the lines between modern classical and electronic music, with each release seeming to arrive with some weighty aesthetics behind it.’
Robert Raths, founder of Erased Tapes, explains: 'I've always been most interested in a dialogue between two opposite poles, between traditional and contemporary, between digital and analogue. That cliff between electronic and acoustic, the pop and the classical world. In bringing these worlds together or at least start a conversation in how to utilise the best of both sides and make it into something exciting, something current and something that is of our time. In the beginning people might have found it hard to connect these dots between each of our artists, but throughout the years I think it has become more and more evident where the label is heading.'
So what will the future bring for Erased Tapes? Post-classical epics recorded in both cathedrals and bedrooms? Vast cinematic evocations of mid-west folk memory? Unclassifiable Japanese computer-rock from the future? Nordic string quartet vignettes? Breathtakingly intimate, muted piano improvisations of childlike joy? Certainly. But more besides. 'Lots of good things have happened that I never dared to dream of. That’s what keeps it so exciting for me. And with what lies ahead, I daren’t even think where it might lead…’