Renaat Vandepapeliere also known as just Renaat, is the brain behind the legendary R&S Records. The label was founded in 1984 and the name represents the initials of Renaat and Sabine Maes, the couple that created the label. In the midst of all the madness happening in Brussels lately, Renaat took the time to send us a mix he recorded some time ago.
R&S Records is considered by many as one of the most important record labels in electronic music history. With releases from artist like Aphex Twin, Joey Beltram, Kan Ishii, Model 500 and Biosphere plus many more, we could say with ease that R&S is a label that has contributed heavily in cultivating the culture and subcultures associated with electronic music today.
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Renaat went from DJing to developing the label in response to his personal irritation with the Belgian music scene in the late 1980s: “I worked in a record shop, but as a DJ I was getting very frustrated with the Belgian scene. The clubs were so commercial and American music just wasn’t accepted. The guys that were importing records here, they went straight into the studio and created a bad cover of it. I didn’t like that. I said ‘Respect the artist. License it in, and let’s have the original track’. That’s where the idea to start the label started”.
In 2000, Vandepapeliere shut down R&S Records to pursue something completely different. The shut down turned out be a six year long hiatus. When asked in an interview why the label went on hiatus, Vandepapeliere explained, “I’ve been away because I was totally bored with the business side of music. At that moment, I thought the whole dance music scene was repeating. I was listening to the same records with the same sounds, so I said ‘I’ve had enough. Bye, bye’. I could have been a very clever businessman and exploited it. I could have made much more money, but if I don’t feel something in my life – I stop.” [As mentioned in a interview he did with Clash Magazine in 2009]. This leads us to think that to think that Renaat is a label manager that is not willing to compromise the artform and quality in music management for commercial value.
In this mix you would hear an eclectic compilation of different styles of electronic music and of course techno. We would like to thank Renaat for helping us out by sharing his mix with us.