All I’d really like to do is give a big hug and say thank you. I can still recite, in order, the titles and catalogue numbers, from the first 10 years of 4AD, as fast as I can think. I do get blurry around Doolittle! After that, Chris Staley took over manufacturing from me. It’s got me thinking about the importance of being involved 100%, across the board. I’m not promoting the sometimes accurate cliché that if you want a job done properly you should do it yourself, but I am making the connection between being informed from post to wire.

I really think there’s an unmatchable experience, that stretches from the auditioning/signing of an artist all the way through recording, mastering, promotion, licensing etc. to the actual manufacturing, that cannot be fully absorbed by individuals only doing one of those jobs. I also think it was when the job was most enjoyable for me personally… and of course it didn’t hurt when multi-tasking mavericks such as Nigel Grierson and Vaughan Oliver, Deborah Edgley and Colin Wallace, Rob Deacon and Chris Bigg slowly came on board… perhaps 4AD was, briefly, more a “refuge” than a “factory”.

Anyway... my point here is to explain that I couldn’t quote accurately one catalogue number beyond 1989 and, whenever I’ve needed to do so, I’ve always turned to 4AD: The First Twenty Years, for accuracy. It, frankly, was the only reliable reference for [Facing The Other Way author] Martin Aston whilst working on his 4AD book. As most realise... “all memory is fiction and we are each the hero of our own story”.

Ivo Watts-Russell
July 2017