Nicholas Chamberlain Hunt.
A musician, sound engineer and producer since the 1980s, started the Horizontal Records label in 1999.
The uniquely identifiable sound of the label’s music is a mix of the musicians, recording techniques, and final production.
Every track on the label consists of improvised performances, which have been recorded, mixed, produced, and mastered at the Horizontal studios at the hands of Nicholas Chamberlain Hunt. The reasons why Horizontal Records has a unique and recognisable sound.
Ever since 2003, Christine Ann Leach collaborated at Horizontal. Every track over the last 22 years has passed the scrutiny of her ears too. Horizontal Records is a team, the whole musical collective is the team which has lasted for over two decades now.
The collective is an ever growing group of musicians, currently around 30. (list of musicians).
Improvisation is the labels Fundamental ethos.
The label embraces the 1990s genre of Trip, mainly through past connections and the Trip Hop
band Baby Fox, but also through the inclusive sponge like nature of the genre.
The name Horizontal. It's a great way to appreciate our music.
As a 30 year old experimental genre it’s tentacles have now stretched across a vast swathe of the world’s musical landscape but remaining at it’s heart pumps recognisable elements of hip hop, female vocals, down beat tempos, scratching, ambience.
The term TRIP first appeared in the UK press in June 1994, Andy Pemberton writing at the time for the magazine “Mixmag” .
Definition: "It is a fusion of styles, it can be highly experimental, dubby, jazzy, spoken word, bizarre noises,
slow beats, often featuring melancholic vocals, more often female than male with old school scratching, slow heavy drum sounds,
swathes of ambient sounds and manipulated samples that give the listener the impression they are on a musical Trip".
Most notable Trip Hop (or post trip hop) bands include
Massive Attack,
Portishead,
Baby Fox,
Morcheeba,
Lamb,
Sneaker Pimps
to name a few.
The main band on the label is undoubtedly the Acoustic Lounge Freaks, with the largest proportion of the collective playing on these albums and EPs, but there are many other combinations of the collective that have their own band name and releases, such as Providence Gibson, Ni Kidogo, Dr Ono Ishido, Fumihito Watanabe, Hikkaduwa, Belle Onni, The Horizontal Quartet, Half Life, Insensibility, Ze Zook, Kasm, The Chamberlain Quartet, Narwargarl, Juniper Pool, Prince Doobi, The Zybrations, Joseph Mwama and more.
On a deeper personal note:
Chamberlain Hunt adds
“I have been making music for 40 years, the journey happily continues. I feel that wisdom, even enlightenment are maybe in music somewhere, the rhythms of life and music still have undiscovered connections whose secrets may benefit future generations in undiscovered ways. Who knows where it could go, the possibilities? We know that listening to music stimulates more areas of the brain than anything else! The human being is a very complex creature, with music a seducer of the mind. Music maybe a play thing for the mind too, but the mind has to open, open as wide as possible. Not easy in our hectic world of distraction and alternatives. Time and space is required, so get horizontal, and shut your eyes".
There are so many incredible artists and producers out there today, century after century. Genius's (Mozart), legends (Stevie Wonder), Idols (Bowie) demi gods (Marley). The bar is high, we compete with our improvisational approach in the composition and mixing.
Nicholas worked in his early career with cult electronic band Neu Electrikk on the Some Bizarre label with fellow artists Soft Cell, The The and Depeche Mode.
At this time he became the sound engineer at ARK Recording studios in Kingston, and then at live venues, culminating in being a resident sound engineer at the Mean Fiddler in Harlesden, and at the fabulous 101 Club, where he met co workers, producer Glenn Skinner from Go Fundamental,and Rory Lyons, founder of the brilliant rockabilly punk band King Kurt.
During this period he formed post punk band Red Army Choir with Christine Ann Leach, and Andrew Maltman, gigging around London and releasing a single on Red Rhino Records, titled Schizophrenic which received rotational plays on The John Peel Show.
In 1998, he toured America and Europe as the dubman and front of house engineer for Trip Hop band Baby Fox.
In 1999 Nicholas started his own label" Horizontal Records".
He has been working on the London underground music scene ever since creating the Horizontal Label sound and catalogue.
Singer Christine started her recording career as vocalist for jazz nubiles Spring at the age of 15 with Neill MacColl,son of folk legends Ewan Macoll and Peggy Seeger.
After Spring she worked on many projects including, as mentioned above, Red Army Choir, and later with numerous underground club records, such as tracks on renowned producer William Orbit’s label, [Guerrilla Records].
This led to further collaboration and songs on William Orbits’ “Strange Cargo” series of ambient albums.
Nicholas Chamberlain Hunt - guitars, bass, keys, percussion, trumpet, vocals, producer, engineer
At the same time her own band Baby Fox began making a name for themselves with two singles of the week in the NME and a couple highly rated albums in a genre that became labelled as trip hop.
Christine also co-wrote “Ray of Light” and performed the song with William Orbit at the Astoria and Phoenix Festival before Madonna used it and on her “Ray of Light” album.
The Horizontal Collective
with links to each individual member>
Christine Ann Leach - vocals, guitar, percussion
Gavin Hans Jack - drums, congas, percussion, keys
Arthur Presser - guitar, bass, keys, djembe
Tommy Owen - scratching, percussion
Lawrence Henderson - bass
Steve Wellington - guitars
Alan McGuire - saxophones
Rob Mason - harmonica
Dwight Clarke - spoken word
Yannick Aellen - vocals
Angus MacCrae R.I.P (Rear Admiral MacRae, missed by the whole Collective) - production
Damien Dimitricopolous Keys
David (Orel) Mayer - keys, guitar, vocals
Tom Burton - guitar, vocals, keys
Nina Perry - keys, vocals
Dan Spanner - saxophones, flute
Una Murphy - flute
Ze Zook - spoken word
Gavin Alexander - spoken word
Gokce Sahbaz - flute
Andrew Stock - rapper, vocals
Jon Staples - vocals, guitar
Ingrid Malone - keys
Rich Wright - keys
Kristina Bieganski - vocals, percussion
Alex Forster - vocals, violin
Fred Azamar - guitar
Sophie McNicholas - perc
Dion Palumbo- guitar
Dan Jade - bass
Rob - guitar
Harry - sitar