[Label Profile] The Neim imprint has been responsible for many of the hot releases in 2011, putting out records from the likes of the WiLDKATS & Tboy, The Midnight Perverts (Label Manager), Pinto (A&R and Graphic Design), Miguel Puente, Alexis Raphael, Jay Haze, Balcazar (A&R and Mastering) and more. As you can see, the Neim label is a tight knit family as many of their artists do more for the label than just make music. Intrigued by their releases and of course, by the strong musical movement coming from Mexico right now, we decided to ask the guys at Neim to take us on a tour of their label in this exclusive interview. Keep your eyes on this label, they are certainly one to watch in 2012.

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Interview with Neim

Who are we speaking with here?

Eduardo Pinto & Romeo Ugalde

Who is involved with the label?

Neim is basically formed by:
Romeo Ugalde (Label Manager, The Midnight Perverts)
Eduardo Pinto (A&R, Graphic Designer)
Marco Balcazar  (A&R, Mastering)
Omar Oliveros (A&R)
Mexin (Webmaster, Producer)

 
When did you decide to start Neim Records? What was the inspiration/inciting moment where you realized that you wanted to start the label?

Well, Omar & Romeo where living in Miami a few years back, we always had the curiosity of running a label. Romeo used to produce with Balcazar & Pinto as Sjunkes back home in Guadalajara, so, when Romeo moved back to Guadalajara we started to develop along with Ramon Gonzales from Bar Americas what at first was a collective. We think everyone started the same way, we got tired of sending tracks to labels with no or very late response & decided to start our own to show our music. After that, we decided to run Neim as a label.

Is this your first label or have you had a go at this before?

Yeah, it’s our first label, we are in the thoughts of having a new one in the future for non dancefloor music, also we have Neim Extra which is more like a netlabel with some edits or unreleased tracks that are available to everybody as a free downloads via soundcloud.

Neim Extra – Free downloads by Nëim Records

Where is the label based? Do you think this has an effect on the overall sound coming from the label?

We are based in Guadalajara, Mexico. We don’t think being from Guadalajara has an effect over the sound we are trying to push, since we have artists from all around the world with very unique style.

What is your sound? How would you describe the sound you are pushing?

Basically we focus on house, some say its deep house we just call it house; we are not really strict to certain kind of style, most of the artists we have are in a way very different. We think Neim is more like a mix of the sound of different cultures.

How do you go about choosing artists to sign? What do you take into consideration when making your decisions?

One of the things we consider is the position on the music scene, but most important, the quality of the music. We have received some tracks from big names but we decided to not released them because it was either not that good or just weren’t housey enough to fit our label, minimal techno is just not for us.  Lucky, lately we have received music from new talents that are creating amazing sounds like: Cardona, Newbie Nerdz, Will Crawshaw & Tboy, all of them will have an EP released in 2012.

What has been the hardest thing about running the label?

One of the hardest thing is to get new & good artists, luckily we have found some talented fellas just by browsing on sites like soundcloud or beatport, it took many hours though.

Would you say that the label is where you thought it would be today or has your vision for the label changed over time?

Well, we haven’t really tought about this. At first we didn’t take the label that serious as we do at the moment, back then we thought “yeah, lets run a label to release our music”. Now we are really spending a lot of time trying to push the music to the world, meeting new people, you know, its all about public relations. Our main objective haven’t changed that much, more than change over time we think is has evolved.

How important is producing vinyl presses of your releases? Is vinyl still important for your business and the music buying community or is it just novelty/for DJs only? Do you ever put out vinyl only releases?

Considering how vinyl sales are at the moment, right now we don’t want to release vinyl but we are thinking to do it in the future. At the moment 12” are more like a luxury than a real business, we talked to a lot of labels  & almost everybody has the same opinion; yeah, they take you more serious as a label but at the moment, we rather focus on other things. Maybe in the near future we will do limited edition vinyl with our favorite tracks that we think deserve to be pressed.

Are there any releases that are particularly special to you guys?

Our first release, it was our most important. It really had a push forward for us to take this business more seriously; also Neim008 that had a remix done by Jay Haze. He is an artist the we really have respected for a long long time.

What’s next for the label? Any exciting news to announce?

We have some EPs & remixes by Alexis Raphael, Wildkats, Tboy, The Midnight Pervets, Will Crawshaw, Newbie Nerdz, Louie Fresco, Balcazar & Sordo coming out soon.

Balcazar & Sordo are producing really good stuff at the moment & it seems that The Midnight Peverts will visit Europe for the first time in 2012, we told him he has to go before the world ends.

Best moment(s) as a label.

Our first anniversary & when Marco Balcazar opened his heart to us at an afterparty saying what he really felt as not being taken as a part of the label (inside joke, he will lol if he read this haha).

Three words to describe the label.

Friends, Music, Mexican

-Slow