Arthur Barr‘s label has enjoyed extraordinary success, a suprising feat given it’s barely 4 years old and has delivered only a handful of releases. Each one has been carefully selected and has fared well amongst the scene’s biggest hitters, receiving excellent reviews from the likes of Mixmag and Ibiza Spotlight.

With records finding their way into the bags of Craig Richards and Dixon, and an owner who isn’t governed by current trends, it looks like there is a great deal more to come from the Leeds-based Label.

How did the Fullbarr idea come about, who else is involved?

Around 4 or 5 years ago I was 21, sitting in what was one of the darkest, grubbiest backstreet boozers in Prague. I was accompanying Bad Life‘s Pete Carvell on an extremely fun mini tour of the Czech Republic.

Needless to say we were drunk and chatting about his own Gash imprint he was running at the time. I knew a few quality guys producing and I’ve always been interested in the ideas of promotion and the steady development of brands so thought it would be interesting  to see what could come of it.

So, the label is primarily just me but of course there are other attributes involved. The aesthetics for example; the logo and the superb artwork on the “remixed compilation” which is done by Emma at fullstop. The production and distribution of both the physical and digital products are also done by others.

Recently my good friend Joe White came on board, to tidy up things when I have a hangover and help with ideas, as he does not only have a wide background knowledge of school discos but is very clever with computers and internet (and general stuff).

How does Fullbarr differentiate itself from other labels?

There is no label goal, or statement of intent to release a certain type of style. Personally I’m inspired by so many things besides music; situations, feelings and friends so you will find a different, yet solid, style. One could be a deep number from Immer, Henry Gilles or a Berlin-esque electronic piece from Hans Berg, even a downright techno slab with Samaan, I like that idea. People can dip in and out. They might like one release but then the next might not be for them but it keeps people guessing, checking up to see what the next trick could be.

I’ve also tried to run it as organically as possible, keeping things as simple as possible and letting people discover the music for themselves rather than forcing it on every social networking site I could possibly get on.. I’ve really tried to keep things more old school in that respect.

Money has always been incredibly tight so things have had to be sacrificed..Firstly vinyl sleeve artwork, which was really a big deal for me not to have but at the start it we simply couldn’t afford it. However, times are changing.

“Young guys coming through now see the bigger DJs playing vinyl-only which prompts them to buy… and also it’s fucking cool.”

What is the process of discovering new releases, is it a just case of trawling through soundcloud or actively seeking out particular artists?

To be honest, it’s been a very natural process with the artists and releases. Over the years I’ve built friendships and they have just come together and borne ideas and releases and ultimatly helped the label grow. I must say the old soundcloud has been a hot bed for these friendships, it was a great place to share thoughts. There have also been hook-ups from friends, I got introduced to Samaan through a mutual friend Cookie which has turned out rather well.

It’s very important not to rush things when signing artists if they are young, you like a track, and like their ideas but they can still learn. Keep an eye on them, listen to their tracks, give feedback and bounce ideas. In the long run it’s good for an unsigned artist not to rush but develop.

We’ve heard something about you starting a new radio show, tell us more…

Yes indeed! Coming via Berlin from the really cool Sweat Lodge Radio, on the last Saturday of every month at 18:00. I’m doing it with my housemate and promoter Mike Stockell too, and will be coming from various locations including Berlin and Leeds. Joe will also be involved, doing shows from his base in Morzine in France.

There are a few labels who pride themselves on having strictly vinyl-only releases, is that something that matters to you?

Fullbarr prides itself on every release whether it be on 12” or Digital. Of course there is something special when you own a physical record, but I do think it’s good to embrace all formats.

Digital is actually something I’m currently working to market a lot more. Lots more digital EPs, VA Albums etc.

Have you noticed an increase in vinyl sales over the last few years, what do you think has caused this?

Well. the label has only been releasing vinyl since 2011. So, for me, I’ve had nothing to compare it with. I do know overall vinyl is alive and kicking albeit with small or no profit for the label. I don’t think it really went away, guys who play vinyl have always played vinyl. Young guys coming through now see the bigger DJs playing vinyl only which prompts them to buy… and also it’s fucking cool.

What are your own aspirations as a DJ, do you have plans to produce?

Well, I’ve been DJing for quite some time, holding residencies along the way at the infamous Public Life in London and Azuli and continuing to play various places around Europe as well as DJing at weddings and in strip-clubs in Ibiza.

I’m also pleased to become the new resident at Leeds-based night Nocturnal, as well as host the awesome Waxwerks for some of the Hush House gatherings at The Garage where I can invite guests from Fullbarr over to play . The last party was rather out of hand with Mr J and Immer from Eindhoven. Look out for some exciting label nights this summer too.

What labels are you inspired by and how does it affect the way you run Fullbarr?

There are some really good labels out there that differentiate in so many ways. Smallville is pretty hot right now; those boys know their deep shit. UK labels like Never Learnt, Hypercolour & Boe Recordings are also doing their thing. Ethereal sound and Border Community are also good for some electronic deepness, there are so many I dig.

I love getting pulled in by a label’s sound, aesthetics and ethos. I like labels that stand out, tell a story, not just the normal boring samey samey sound and structure. Each label inspires me in different ways so I can evolve my own baby in my own way.

‘A World of Glass ‘ is Nathalie Djurberg’s new exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre, which consist of brilliant and beautifully displayed glass-like objects and four synchronised animated (claymation) films that are both wonderful and disturbing, complete with great soundtrack by Hans Berg.

‘The crude materiality of the animations seems playful but the scenarios enacted are often disturbing, uncovering taboos or difficult aspects of the human condition such as vulnerability, desire and suffering.’ – Camden Arts Centre

- Image via camdenartscentre.org

Nathalie Djurberg works chiefly with stop-motion animation, creating short films which address very complex adult themes that their childish appearance belies. The apparent simplicity of the work is completely at odds with its subject matter and the arduous process involved creating this kind of work Some of her earlier films epict – for example – a female eskimo slaughtering a walrus, disembowelling it, and then climbing inside the carcass and swimming off; or a woman whose children climb back inside her vagina, after which their limbs start protruding through her skin, turning her into a multi-limbed and awkward beast… Wallace and Gromit it ain’t.

A World Of Glass is composed of four short films, music, and a series of ‘glass’ sculptures. The sculptures are not, in fact glass, but a kind of plastic. This is because they are actually casts of many different objects, moulded together with clay, which creates wonderfully strange fragile-looking sculptures like otherworldly towers of glassware; tables set for a strange feast, perhaps. Some even resemble stalagmites in the way they seem to rise shakily and unevenly from the tables. Indeed, the lighting and the tinkling, echoing music does create a cavernous atmosphere. It all brings to mind Alice’s topsy turvy through-the-looking-glass world, and every nursey rhyme or fairy tale you’ve ever heard. This exhibition taps into something essentially very dark, but childlike too – Brothers Grimm eat your heart out.

Hans Berg – who creates the music for all her films – has added an unusual twist to this exhibition, making just one soundtrack for all four films. This creates a spectacularly immersive effect which builds through the exhibition as the audience becomes more aware of the links being made between the audio and the visual, as the musical arcs correlate to the story progression. It’s atmospheric, challenging, gripping, often surprising and not without humour. Expect animals, animalism, nudity, violence, gore, sadness, desperation and fear… with a sprinkling of humanity, beauty and wonder. Great stuff.

Hans Berg at work

Thursday night was packed with prominent openings. This was also the night of widely recognized artists. Our first destination was definitely a must see, the famous combination of Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg. Nathalie Djurberg is frequently accompanied by alternative, electronic music from composer Hans Berg and in this exhibition the audience had the opportunity to see the composer live were his music merged with Djurberg’s unique, humouristic videos.

One of Djurbergs´s videos

Photographs by Konsthopp

The exhibition was the opening of Miliken Gallery music festival with several upcoming events. The festival´s aim is to look at the influence of music in contemporary art, focusing on the vital Swedish art-scene were music and art frequently blend. The exhibitions present work by Christine Ödlund, Gul Amiral, Matti Kallioinen, Peter Geschwind, Andreas Nilsson, Hans Appelqvist and Fredrik Söderberg.

The exhibition is sponsored by Absolut Vodka and the crowded bar was met by delightful bartenders mixing delicious cocktails as professionals. Visitors were in good spirit, enjoying the night and Konsthopp is already excited about the next happening. The upcoming events are on the 7th, 20th and 27th of May 2011, from 18.00 to 20.00.

More photographs from Thursday night can be seen on facebook

Date: 5th of May – 18th of June 2011

Artists: Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg

Curator: Theo Ringborg

Place: Milliken Gallery, Luntmakargatan 78, Stockholm

An example of what Nathalie Djurberg does:

And some Hans Berg:

The Museum Boijmans van Beuningen is hosting a large installation of her work this spring including Snake knows it’s yoga, her latest creation consisting of 2 films and 42 sculptures. There are also 7 earlier films, all set to hypnotic, even menacing music by her collaborator, Hans Berg. There are a number of photographs on the museum website that are far more successful than the few snapshots I took. (Here in the Netherlands, it seems that most museums outside Amsterdam have no rules on cameras. You are quite free to snap away to your heart’s content. No flash, of course.)

The artist  was born in 1978 on the west coast of Sweden, drew no particular attention to herself in art school, but then she found her technique. Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg have exhibited at prestigious museums around the world and were awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2009. The pair describe their collaboration in Pagan Poetry, a video posted on Arttube.

Expect to see more of her and pray she doesn’t lose her sense of humour.

Nathalie Djurberg animation prop

Nathalie Djurberg animation prop

Nathalie Djurberg animation prop

Nathalie Djurberg animation prop

Nathalie Djurberg animation prop

Nathalie Djurberg animation prop

Photography by www.lindadruijff.com

The moving image on youtube  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH4t-FQRRUo (2,5 mins)

WARNING: Djurberg is strange. Weird. Uncomfortable. Sadistic. Brutal. Her use of the nude in her artwork is meant to capitalize on all the vulnerabilities and grotesqueness of it. She puts it all out there, and then she splays it open. It’s painful and brilliant.

And it’s claymation.

Djurberg is a Swedish artist, and the videos she makes starring “young women engaged in various kinds of vileness” may seem joyful as a screen shot. Then you push play and the innocence that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer put on Stop Motion films quickly gets displaced by the carnal and perverse sheen of Djurberg.

Here’s more from Absolute Arts:

Djurberg’s videos are short animations made using Stop Motion techniques where small plasticine figures create surreal atmospheres and, often, grotesque stories. The staging of these stories is rudimentary but ingenious, infusing an ambiguous sense of anxiety and unease through their sexual reflections, with references to violence, the macabre, gruesome, and subtle pleasure of cruelty and perversion.

Still frame from "Johnnny," 2008.

Djurberg’s works are characterised by an obsessive rhythm, permeated by a taste for the ironic and the humorous, conveying a sense of anxiety and nostalgia, along with unease and sometimes even profound anguish.

Djurberg’s companion, Hans Berg, creates soundtracks that add a layer of levity to her films. “It’s not background noise,” he says. “It’s almost like dialogue.”

Here’s more from T Magazine:

Portrait of Nathalie Djurberg. Photo by Hans Berg.

“I hate talking about what’s difficult,” Djurberg added. “That is why you do art. It’s for the stuff you don’t dare talk about.”

That stuff encompasses desire, envy, bestiality, slavery, rape and other violations of bodies emaciated, voluptuous and obese, which Djurberg imbues with a radiance at odds with their vile circumstances. Hers are not moral stories; good and evil coexist in each character, and all cry long putty tears, be they victims or perpetrators. Animated by stop-motion photography, a primitive technique Djurberg taught herself at Sweden’s Malmo Art Academy, the films exude a childlike innocence that can make the most debased human behavior seem almost charming.

Still frame from "The Experiment (Cave)," 2009.

That is partly because the more outlandish and gross her films are, the funnier they get, and because they are acted by crudely modeled puppets on dollhouse stages. “The comic side makes them possible to bear,” Djurberg said…

No subject seems out of bounds. In “The Natural Selection,” traditionally dressed or naked Africans “audition” for an unseen master, who directs them to stand, turn, hold hands, move together, smile or jump before judging them “approved” or “denied.”

“I was very nervous about showing it,” Djurberg said of the film. “But when I did, I realized that 99 percent of the people seeing it are white, and it was obvious how segregated the art world really is. It’s scary, but you have to ask questions. If no one ever asked a question, the problem would prevail.”

The metaphoric potential of the nude makes it the perfect vessel for bringing up questions about identity, sexuality, society, intimacy, morality, mortality, our animal instincts. Sometimes it’s beautiful, sometimes it’s tragic, but there’s nothing more honest than the nude.

Experience it before anyone else at LAL’s QX.net Nude opening preview party on Jan. 14 at 6pm. Tickets are $30 for members, $40 for non-members and can be purchased here or by calling 254-7024.

Wermlands Invest och Hans Berg fortsätter nu skövla innerstadsträd i centrala Karlstad. I den gångna veckan har man sågat ner Grevgatans två enda riktigt stora gatuträd och hela gaturummet står nu kargt och avskalat. Hans Berg äger en rad fastigheter i det kulturhistoriskt mycket intressanta kvarteret Gäddan i centrala Karlstad, beläget sida vid sida med kvarteret Almen. Flera av husen är uppenbart misskötta och det är uppenbart att Berg och Wermlands Invest har andra planer för husen än att underhålla och bevara dem.

Operation Karlstad uppmärksammade detta redan i november 2007 då Hans Berg skövlade en av Karlstads vackraste och sista riktigt genuina innergårdsmiljöer på Drottninggatan 42. Karlstad särklass största och därmed också sannolikt äldsta alm sågades brutalt ned tillsammans med en lång syrenhäck och ett gatuträd mot Drottningatan. Idag är den romantiskt lummiga innergårdsmiljön förvandlad till en karg parkeringsplats.

Operation Karlstad skrev då till Wermlands Invest för att få svar på hur man tänkte. Men dock utan att få ett svar. Istället blev vi avsnästa av företagets fastighetsskötare Anders. Vi uppmärksammade också Karlstad Kommuns stadsplanedirektör Gunnar Persson samt biträdande stadsarkitekt Pär Höjman och ansvariga inom parkförvaltningen på det inträffade. Och flera av dem var på plats för att undersöka saken.

Nu fortsätter Wermlands Invest och ägaren Hans Berg alltså sin skövling av Karlstads grönmiljöer. Hans Berg struntar helt uppenbart i att värna Karlstads grönmiljöer och stadsbild utan förefaller mest bry sig om sin egen plånbok. Knappast något som stärker Wermlands Invests varumärke.

Men varför agerar inte Karlstads Kommun när stadens grönmiljöer skövlas? Gunnar Persson. Pär Höjman. Lena Melesjö Windahl. Håkan Holm. Man pratar gärna om den goda gröna staden och satsar utan att blinka flera miljoner på att göra Karlstad till världens blomstertätaste stad.

Men varför reagerar ingen av dem över skövlingen av stadens träd?