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Ok, so first off I must iterate the fact that this particular run down is in no particular order, nor is it a definitive list of the best British record labels of all time (as if such a breakdown could ever be truly quantified). It is simply a list of some personal favourites within the British...MORE>>

Since the untimely demise of Alt-Underlings, The Servant, Dan Black seems to have found himself upon something of single track stream of consciousness. What with moving to Paris, becoming an online superstar & singlehandedly recording the entirety of his debut solo album, Monsieur Black has been in the slipstream of a frenzied online media, peaking with being tweeted by no less than Justin Timberlake

during the week prior. What with the meteoric online success & subsequent controversy that surrounded his lawsuit-laden hit HYPNTZ, Black’s draw has become such that he was able to coerce a very respectable crowd out of the August sunshine, into The Big Chill’s Coop Stage & treated them to a sensory, Technicolor extravagance.

I was lucky enough to catch up with Mr. Black post set to talk about Python, pronunciation, the Parisian Art scene & Gunheads. The latter will become clear during the course of the interview.

The Servant started out just me and a lap top, and then turned into the sorta typical ‘Indie Band’, so while the influences now are a bit more sample, Hip-Hop driven, the set-up is quite similar to the original Servants recordings, only with more technical ability.

One would wonder whether the continental influence, particularly musically, would take precedence over a young Londoner’s sound.

Well the Paris scene is a lot smaller, a lot more compact, with far fewer venues and acts. But I’m looking forward to the album coming out over there.

Despite Black recording his debut opus in creative isolation, he seems extremely comfortable yielding a degree of control to his fellow band members.

Live, it’s all about surrender. The last thing I wanted was just a bunch of guys standing in the shadows playing chops, I wanted the guys’ personalities to come through, and the energy live. It’s a lot easier to surrender yourself when that happens, it’s a lot more fun & people seem a lot more receptive.

Those who have stumbled upon Mr. Black’s Myspace will be familiar with the Gunhead emblem adorned across the background the meaning behind it gives some insight into the intensity associated with the recording process.

The Gunhead was designed by a friend of mine. I wanted something that sorta showed the single-mindedness that came about when I was recording the album. I mean I was in the studio for three months, living and sleeping there, right on the floor, with two or three days off over the period. It was an intense time, I was very much single minded and thinking of nothing much else, just one direction, one aim.

Such intensity for an elongated period of time is bound to leave psychological withdrawal; this begs the question as to how Mr. Black re-established his connections with the outside world.

There’s nothing like just vegging out. I’ve recently been watching the original Python series. It’s amazing how subversive it is. Some of it isn’t that funny but it’s all really inventive, really self razing.

This appreciation for older, distinctly British imagery is something that has been nodded to in his recent, Gabriel-esque, video for Alive.

The video wasn’t an overt thing, it wasn’t meant to be a direct homagé to that particular artist, but it’d be churlish of me to deny that particular influence. It was more a doffed cap to that whole time, that whole aesthetic.

Mr. Black’s album, the deliciously ambiguously titled ((un)), has proved a point of contention with differing degrees of pronunciation.

The pronunciation of the album would differ depending on who it’d be I was talking to. It could be un for a British person, ùn for a French person & I’m sure it’d be une for an Italian person.

Dan Black. The Consummate culturalist. With his far reaching fingertips finding themselves burrowed deeper in a multitude of pies, one can only wonder how long it’ll be before he finds himself across the pond, cavorting with Mr. Timberlake and other such American A-listers.