Label Focus: Almost Halloween Time

It is purely serendipitous that I feature Almost Halloween Time a week or so from Halloween but I kinda like that. Anyway, to business. Almost Halloween Time is a label I came to fairly recently. It was the Distels album from last year (a co-release with Feeding Tube Records) that put AHT firmly on my radar. Not only was the music dazzling but it was the cover that caught my eye - beautifully handpainted and each of the 49 run was different. As I do, I delved further into the label and found an absolute goldmine! The releases are all distinctly 'lo-fi' which ticks a box for me musically and every release is accompanied by a bespoke, handpainted cover. The picture at the top of this article is one such cover, it is for the Ed Nolbed 'Breaking Up Is Never Easy, I Know'...I ordered the record 'cos the lo-fi songs about love and breaking up are wonderful with a kind of Guided by Voices vibe. I then had a message from Luigi (Falagario, the artist and label owner) about the cover and lo and behold a superb homage to the GBV 'Mag Earwhig' cover art duly arrived. Also, let's face it, any label that releases a Kitchen Cynics album has got to be a good'un right?

When we get right down to it, I think the thing I love so much about Almost Halloween Time is the love; the music is knowlingly and lovingly curated and the time, effort and craft put into the covers demonstrate a want to make each release an event. AHT records aren't those you put on, listen and put away, you listen and appreciate the music and marvel at the art, not knowing whether to put the record pack in the rack or hang on the wall. I was going to give a potted history of the label but Luigi was kind enough to answer some questions and he does that much better than I ever could. (Luigi asked me to point out that Italian is his first language but he need not worry as his English is superb and waaaay better than my Italian...to my shame):

S&V: Thanks for taking the time to do this Luigi. So, How did the label start?

LF: The label was born in 2001 but it was only in 2011 that I started drawing. The inspiration comes from labels that I have always loved and of which I have tried to collect all the releases. Shrimper, Union Pole, Studio Muscle, Traumatone, Bacchanalian Revel, Theme Park, Sing Eunuchs, Catsup Plate, Cactus Gum, Toytown, Doormat, TX, Unread, Stress Records and the artists who have recorded for these labels have been my points of reference.
The charm of the photocopied covers, colored with pastels, the music recorded at home so different from the one played on the radio, the idea that music could be published with few means.
At the end of the 90s I was subscribed to a mailing list where it was easy to run into many of the artists belonging to this scene. I met Joel Huschle and Wio like this. I would work with them later.
In 2011, after a gray period in which the label experienced a stalemate, I decided to give it a second chance. At that time I was obsessed with Kitchen Cynics. I had started ordering one of their records after another and I fell in love with their music, to the point of making me want to release music again.
So Alan Davidson gave me the chance to make “Wooden Bird”. I put it out on vinyl despite my finances being in the red. I was looking for a job, a job that would allow me to live independently. Instead, I found my dream job.
To save costs, inspired by "Come, Come To The Sunset Tree" by The Mountain Goats from a few years earlier, I naively thought I could design the covers, all of them, one after the other. I wanted them to be unique, one of a kind, always different. Not because I was in the habit of drawing every day or because I was sure I knew how to do it.
I was reckless, foolish. From 2011 to today I have never stopped drawing and thinking about the next cover I will draw.

S&V: Your releases really are objects of beauty; the hand painted covers are truly lovely. They must be very labour intensive? How long does each painting take on average?

LF: Thanks. When I decided to complicate my life, I stocked up on cardstock, scissors, acrylic paints and glue. I started drawing in an organized way, which I had never done before. The first cover was ready on 11 May 2011, I don't remember exactly how long it took me to finish it. To promote the release of "Wooden Bird" I added the album to Discogs that same night, then went to play soccer with friends ignoring the consequences. The next morning when I checked my emails I had received the first three orders, at the end of the week there were ten orders and in a month these had become more than I could draw in a month. My hands were "rusty" ... and I was absolutely not prepared to face such a situation. Today, having been trained for years in drawing, I make one a day. Each takes an average of two hours of work. Considering that I also write the titles of the songs by hand, two and a half hours. Certain covers require a lot more but I don't want to think about it.
There is also the study phase, in which I think about what to draw the next morning. It can take a minute, it can be a flash or it can take away hours in which, inspired by the lyrics of the songs or by the music, I fantasize.

S&V: How do you decide what to paint for each release. I know some of them are bespoke (the Guided By Voices ‘Mag Earwhig’ variation you did for me is amazing!).

LF: There is no fixed rule. I usually discuss the subject of the covers with the artists.
They can be free interpretations of the lyrics as in the case of "The Breakthrough Album" by Wio, themes as in the case of "Hidden Mountain" by Bugskull or even a single song as for "It’s Time To Leave This World Behind" by de portables.
When I start working on a record, I don't have the whole series of covers I'm going to do in mind. In fact, it hardly happens that I work for a whole week on the same series of covers. Today I can counterfeit the masterpiece of a famous painter for "No Need To Beg" by Phil Yates & The Affiliates, tomorrow I can find myself drawing a sea creature that makes itself of Prozac for "Bad Ocean" by S. M. Wolf.
The cover inspired by Mag Earwhig of Guided By Voices is part of the series of covers that I am doing for "Breaking Up Is Never Easy I Know" by Ed Nolbed.
An album of songs about breaking up and finding new love almost at the same time. It’s also an album about rediscovering an old love. It might also be an album about universal love. It’s definitely an album about letting go, picking up, finding hope, losing hope, hurt, healing, anger, reflection, inspiration, desperation. We compiled a list of albums that deal with the same issues and we ask those who buy a copy, to choose another artist's record, a record that talks about a finished love or a record that they have clung to while a story of love ended. And so in the gallery of covers that I have made to date for this series, there are among others "Sea Change" by Beck, "I See A Darkness" by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" by Billie Eilish, three records by The Cure and three by Guided By Voices.



S&V: Did you train as an artist?

LF: I have a degree in foreign languages and literature, a diploma in accounting and still today I don't know what I want to do when I grow up, or rather I would also know it, but with only two hands, one of which can hold a brush, I would soon finish in the street to draw on a sidewalk. No, I have never studied fine art, I have never taken painting lessons.
As a child I liked to draw, I was the pride of my parents, my aunt and my grandfather who kept all my drawings and kept repeating that I was good. I liked painting these clouds in which skeletons fought, bones flying everywhere, robots and my great passion: cars. They must have convinced me.
I learn every day from experience and my own mistakes. If I look at the first covers I did, I have to cover my eyes. I always find flaws even in the covers I made the day before. It is for this reason that I try to ship orders as quickly as possible, to avoid dwelling too long on a detail. At home I don't even have a painting of mine hanging on the walls. I'm trying to create a small collection for my daughter, but it's not on display.

S&V: What are your artistic influences?

LF: The list would be too long. On a wall: Frida Kahlo, Hopper, Rothko, Magritte, Warhol, Escher, Kandinsky, Beckmann, Heinrich and Schiele, nothing that smells of incense as I don't like sacred art in general.
On a stage or in my headphones the artists I work with and a lot more.
On the pages of a book, words by David Foster Wallace, Don Delillo, Evgenij Zamjatin, Jonathan Swift.
On the screen Kim Ki Duk, Sergei Paradžanov, Michelangelo Antonioni or Alejandro González Iñárritu.

S&V: Musically the label is very varied, covering a multitude of genres and styles but they all seem to ‘fit’ the homemade aesthetic. Is that a consideration when choosing what to release?

LF: Homemade is a word that I like. Not only in music. The homemade spirits made by my mother, homebrewing and homemade pasta. I like the idea of intimacy it is imbued with. In music, it is like the artist invites you to his home and plays for you in the living room. Without barriers, time limits, formalities. I don't like super produced things.

S&V: With regard to releases, do you reach out to bands/artists or do they come to you?

LF: Usually I contact the artists myself but it is not rare that I receive submissions from strangers, artists who record for friendly labels, or people who want to work with me because they have seen my works. Or, it goes like this: Michael Dixon at People In A Position To Know sends me a record, I listen to it, I fall in love with the project and we work together. To date we have coreleased five Floating Action albums and an album each by Graves, American Monoxide, S.M. Wolf, Veronica Bianqui and Michael Nau.

S&V: What are the challenges of running a label?

LF: If we talk about Almost Halloween Time Records the main challenge is to wake up every morning, to fill a blank sheet with colors, to draw something that will please me, the artist I represent and whoever buys the record. I wake up at six every morning to draw for an hour and a half. Then I go to work. But I'm crazy, I'm a desperate case and that doesn't count.
The challenge is won when I sell a record by an artist I love, when I receive an email from someone who bought a record and they liked the music and the cover I designed especially for him / her, when someone buys a copy because intrigued by one of my drawings, when someone comes back and buys a record without knowing the author of the music, when I hear a song from a record that I produced pass on the radio.
Producing music on a physical medium is a challenge, trying to make something that can remain is an even more difficult challenge. There are artists or groups who have made amazing records and then disappeared into thin air. They stopped composing music, writing it or publishing it, because they dedicated themselves to something else, taken from life or just tired. One of my favorite challenges is trying to bring these musicians back in front of a microphone, in a studio or in their home. Make them record an album, some new songs. Because maybe I'm not the only one who needs their music, because the records they've released and I've worn out are not enough for me, because they still have a lot to give.

S&V: Any bands/artists you would love to release ?

LF: Lou Barlow, Mogwai, Arab Strap.

S&V: Tricky question - If you could only listen to one album for eternity, what would it be?

LF: Before receiving the sentence, a last listen to "I Can See Where I Am Now" by Wio, "Etudes For Voice And Snack Master" by Franklin Bruno, "Peng" by Stereolab, "The Doctor Came At Dawn" by Smog, "The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World" by Peter Jefferies , "Take A Look Inside…" by The Folk Implosion, "Bee Thousand" by Guided By Voices, "Five Leaves Left" by Nick Drake, "I So Liked Spring" by Linda Smith, "The Hound Chronicle" or "Hot Garden Stomp" by The Mountain Goats and of course all the records I have produced.
Then I'm ready to listen to "X" by Home for eternity.

Many thanks to Luigi for such indepth and inspirational answers!

Links:

Almost Halloween Time Bandcamp

Underwaternow Website

Almost Halloween Time Facebook