In the mp3 era, there's still somebody who cares about the records as objects. Three passionate people  (Piano Magic's Glen Johnson, David Sheppard and Martin Holm) started the adventurous Second Language, a distinctive subscription-label meant to make great music but also unique things, in the form of boxes, magazines, books, etc.

After the first year of releases, let's make the label's round-up through the words of Glen Johnson and David Sheppard.

How did you get the idea of creating a label on your own? And why did you choose to build something so peculiar?

David Sheppard: It grew out of two things: an elaborately-packaged Textile Ranch album which Glen was making as a bespoke limited edition for his core fans (and which eventually became SL01, "Tombola") and the "Music & Migration" project which was an avian awareness campaign Martin had started as a MySpace ‘compilation' and for which he had ‘curated' a number of lovely, exclusive tracks. All three of us submitted recordings for this project. For aesthetic as much as charitable reasons we all thought this compilation would work well as a ‘proper' record, so we sort of put the ideas of a bespoke audience and lavish packaging ideas in bed with this pool of great music - Second Language was the progeny. We never planned to have ‘a family', as such, but suddenly we found ourselves the ‘parents' of a bouncing baby record label!

It might seem an anti-commercial choice, expecially for an artist like Glen, who has a wide and passionate audience: did you think about this when you dediced to start the label?

DS: Glen would have to answer that from his perspective, but personally, I've never regarded Second Language as an ‘anti-commercial' venture. Glen and I have worked in or with record labels for many years and we know most of the pitfalls from salutary first-hand experience. It doesn't take a genius to work out that the time-honoured economic and dissemination models for recorded music are moribund in the digital era and that new, innovative methodologies are now a necessity. People still want music, and many are still prepared to buy it rather than download it for free, if they are getting something for their money that is more than just a derisory mp3 file. That's where our elaborate packaging ideas come in. Glen, Martin and I are all passionate record buyers who grew up in era when buying music meant albums that were audio-visual packages - art objects of veneration and influence rather than the transitory, disposable, leisure-time ear-candy of today. We wanted to make Second Language the complete antithesis of download culture: records that were cherishable physical objects again.

Glen Johnson: As David says, we wouldn't regard Second Language as anti-commercial. Anti-conventional perhaps? I worked for an independent record label for nine years and although it released some great music, I was constantly frustrated that it modelled itself on major labels - secretary, big office, boring packaging, sucking up to the journalists and the record stores, selling off great music for next-to-nothing, etc. - throwing money away and not remotely respecting art as an artform.

At that time, very few independents were saying, "Look, there's another way of doing things." The internet has definitely blown open the doors on all that now though. Labels have to find a model that suits them. The conventional music industry model was doomed the second the internet came into play.

Is it better to have few "customers" that you're sure will buy your records through the subscription, than being on a wider but indistinct "market"?

DS: ‘Better' is quite a subjective term in this sense, as is ‘few'. Having a core of subscribers guarantees a certain amount of liquidity - it means we have the funding in place to create future projects in other words - we have momentum. We're not motivated by ‘profit at all costs' (which may come as a shock to the venal world of market capitalism!) but we're hardly hippy ideologues, either. Of course, we'd like to have thousands of subscribers and that's what we're growing inexorably towards (although when we have them we'll have to open a kind of craft factory to actually make the ‘products'. It's ‘a problem' we'd all relish, however...).

Between the 150 copies of "Music For Smalls Lighthouse" and the 1,000 of "Serenades & Serinettes", how do you decide the amount copies for each release?

DS: To be honest, it's mostly dictated by the demands and labour intensiveness of the packaging, although, of course, we have a huge marketing department who spend weeks interrogating focus groups and doing elaborate computer modelling about consumer trend patterns.

Not. ;-)

The lovely hand-made packagings are one of Second Language distinctive features: who did ideate the hysical and graphic part of your 2010 releases?

DS: As I said, we are steeped in the ethos and aesthetic of ‘70s and ‘80s labels like Factory and Les Disques du Crepescule, as well as more contemporary imprints like Constellation, Preservation, Moteer, etc, who regard visual presentation as an ineluctable element of the record as audio-visual artwork. We're constantly investigating packaging and graphic concepts. Glen in particular has an unquenchable passion for these things and is always hunting out new and exotic materials, but we all chip in. Sometimes it's about finding the right designer or artist to help make something conceptual into a real object, so we try and keep up a dialogue with a network of visually-oriented practitioners, too.

How do you choose the materials? And how many people physically build the packages?

DS: We look for unique packing templates from existing manufactures or we create new templates ourselves, but we always make sure the actual material of our packages - whether paper, card, cloth, fibreglass, or whatever, is of a certain quality, with an inherent visual and tactile appeal. Making up the packages can be dauntingly Herculean. We rope in bandmates, girlfriends and so on for the really big jobs (maybe six or seven people at most), although the medals have to go to Glen and Angèle who do more than their fair share of the production-line stuff. We've all become quite good with glue guns, folding bones, guillotines, etc...Running Second Language has been a crash course in craft skills!

I'm very curious about the small things enclosed in the records packagings, just like the subway ticket in "Ghost Stations", the glass in "Tombola", the embroider in "Music And Migration", etc.: where do you find all this small things?

DS: Again, this is Glen's provenance, mainly. He spends a lot of time trawling markets, thrift stores, the internet, etc, sourcing materials that are just inherently ‘desirable'. We have an ever-increasing stockpile of this stuff. For Music & Migration, a very nice friend of the label in Spain volunteered to embroider the birds and the illustrations were donated by a famous Danish ornithological illustrator. We're not evangelical about making everything strictly ‘in house' - we're very happy to commission people to make things for us.

GJ: A large proportion of my time is spent imagining, "How can we make this release stand out?" There's nothing more boring than a booklet in a jewel case or a digipak. Artists and labels should be running as far away as possible from those fucking plastic things. Something has to give - the record stores need to throw away their generic racking systems that only accommodate dull formats and the record labels need to stop pandering to those racking systems. You can package a record in almost anything so why, in 2010, so many boring, Eco-destructive, plastic cases?

At the same time, too many releases are just portfolio pieces for identikit graphic designers. All they're saying is "Look how great I am on Photoshop and InDesign."

All your care about the cd as an object goes in the direction of a rediscovery of a physical support for the music, and of course it helps the pleasure of holding in one's hands something tangible and unique. Do you believe that today there is still some space for the cd-object?

DS: I think I answered this above.

GJ: Will people ever get bored of something tangible and unique? A lot of them already have, obviously. As the majority of people prefer to eat identikit food from McDonalds, etc, the majority of people can't seem to be bothered with record packaging these days. But there's a choice - McDonalds or Michelin star restaurant.  

In both of the compilations you released this year there are some good discoveries of names totally new to me (Enderby's Room, 30Km Inland, etc.) and also important artists coming back after some time (just for instance, the wonderful track by Pete Astor): how did you get in contact with all these artist? And, for the newest one, how did you discover them?

DS: A number of these artists are our friends, acquaintances or have some tenuous (or not so tenuous) connection with one or other of our various musical projects over the years. Others are musicians whose work we like, so we ask them to record for us, like any record label might do. We're in the happy position that people always (so far) say ‘yes'. In fact, they come to us with great, unheard recordings all the time. We have the next six or seven 2L releases already under construction, and there are more enticing things in the pipeline, long-term. We feel quite blessed in this regard.

Talking of the compilations, "Vertical Integration" has been conceived both as a record and as a magazine, including an interesting interview to each artist involved. Do you think that talking and writing about music can still help the way one listens to music?

DS: As a music writer of nearly two decades standing, I suppose I am obliged to answer ‘yes'! Contextual and critical writing has long been part of the infrastructure of the arts and I don't see any reason for that to change, fundamentally, just because, as some people believe, the musical blogosphere is filled with ill-conceived proselytising and clichéd conjecture. Miles Davis once said that "talking about music is like dancing about architecture" - which has always sounded like a very fine idea to me.

GJ : I don't read any UK music magazines these days because, with the exception of a small column in Mojo (which David edits!), none of them are talking about the kind of music I like. Things are much better on the Continent. It's amazing, isn't it? The UK should be full of specialised music magazines. Vertical Integration was probably our attempt at putting a decent one in the frame, if only for a brief amount of time.

One of the questions in those interviews was about the meaning of the compilation title: well, now I want you to answer to the same question...

DS: "Vertical Integration" is an economic term I learned when I was studying film at college. It alludes to a process whereby several steps in the production and distribution of a product or service are controlled by a single company or entity, in order to increase that company's or entity's power in the marketplace. It was meant ironically. I think...

How did you choose the music to be released on Second Language? The records that you released this year could have been released also elsewhere, or were they made specifically for your label?

DS: The music on Second Language records is generally made specifically (and always exclusively) for the label. The Plinth album was one exception. That was originally recorded for someone else, but the deal fell through - luckily for us. We were overjoyed to be able to release it.

Many of the artists involved in the releases are somehow related to Glen or David: do you think that this way SL can build a precise and coherent artistic profile and maybe grow as some kind of "collective" of artists that share a common style and philosophy?

DS: There is a sort of collective ethos, yes, but, crucially, it's a consensus of approach rather than strictly one of musical style. That communality manifested most palpably at our debut Second Language Night live event (held in London, last November) - it was very touching to see everyone supporting one another and leaving their egos, if they had any, at the door. I hope we don't come across as nepotistic: we just happen to be surrounded by very talented people - and not just in London or the UK - our network is quite far-flung. We consider Second Language to be a new internationalist label.

Are you satisfied of what you did this year? Can you make a balance (both artistic and economic) of Second Language first year?

DS: To a degree, yes. We had a good and productive first year, with lots of fantastic reviews and a subscriber base that's increasing all the time. We've also made enough money to carry on and expand our creative palette in 2011, so that must qualify as some kind of modest success. We're learning all the time, but my feeling is if we keep looking after the artistic side, the economics will duly follow.

GJ: Personally, I'm more than satisfied with what we've achieved in this small amount of time but I'm really hoping that in 2011, we'll be able to put more artists in the studio and create even more elaborate packaging solutions. And basically, we'll be able to do this if we can attract even more subscribers. Subscribers make this all possible.

Is there any anecdote you'd like to tell about some records release or, generally, about all the background work of the label?

DS: Working on Second Language sleeves has been a brilliant way to investigate the full range of British tea-accompanying biscuits, and also a sure-fire way of acquiring blisters, even on well-seasoned guitarist fingers.

GJ: It's really all about tea and biscuits first. The kettle must be boiling at least once an hour, otherwise this whole thing is futile - another thing the major labels don't understand.

I'd like to hear something from you about the musical side of the releases. Try to imagine yourselves as mere listeners of the SL catalogue...

DS: ‘Mere' listeners? They are more than that to us... Well, naturally, I love everything on the label - it's really the kind of music I'm into. As a punter, I would like to see what those crazy Second Language releasing some African or Asian music, or maybe a record that doesn't contain music at all - perhaps a talking book, a film, or instructions for making Molotov cocktails...

GJ : I'd like to hear more electronic music on 2L, as David and Martin are well aware. More experimental music too. But that will come with time.

Lastly, let's take a look to the future: what news and surprises a subscriber can expect in 2011?

DS: If we told you now, they wouldn't be a surprise, right?