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[Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD] [Author: Aston, Martin] [July, 2014]
The first official account of the iconic record label.This Mortal Coil, Birthday Party, Bauhaus, Cocteau Twins, Pixies, Throwing Muses, Breeders, Dead Can Dance, Lisa Germano, Kristin Hersh, Belly, Red House Painters.Just a handful of the bands and artists who started out recording for 4AD, a record label founded by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent in 1979, a label which went on to be one of the most influential of the modern era.Combining the unique tastes of Russell and the striking design aesthetic of Vaughan Oliver, 4AD records were recognisable by their look as their sound. In this comprehensive account of the label’s first two decades (up to the point that Russell left), music journalist Martin Aston explores the fascinating story with unique access to all the key players and pretty much every artist who released a record on 4AD during that time, and to its notoriously reclusive founder.With a cover designed by Vaughan Oliver this is an essential book for all 4AD fans and anyone who loved the music of that time.
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First published September 1, 2013
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March 31, 2015
For me, 4AD is to music as Dalkey is to books—an independent label serving up divine music in beautiful packaging—and this thorough account of the label’s pivotal first two decades is a perfect reason to dip back into the back catalogue. 4AD’s architect was retiring depressive Ivo Watts-Russell, whose taste in artful melancholia led to three This Mortal Coil albums and helped shape their roster. Martin Aston’s love for 4AD shines in this respectful account drawn in large part from interviews with the leading players and artists, most of whom have contributed (Kristin Hersh, Frank Black, Kim Deal, Robin Guthrie, Lisa Germano et al), to share their (respectful and adoring) opinions on their time at 4AD. Fascinating is the portrayal of Ivo as the reluctant Svengali, whose skill at transferring his personal demons and sadness into breathtaking and wrenching music seems unparalleled among record labels, and Vaughan Oliver’s record sleeve art is discussed with due deference also, as an integral part of the 4AD aesthetic. Short histories of each artist’s evolution within the label are also provided, along with accounts of the business’s fortunes and misfortunes, making this tome the last word on this magnificent label, still thriving under new ownership and championing challenging new music.
Top ten 4AD favourites (in no order, from the 80s-90s era):
1. Cocteau Twins—Treasure
2. Throwing Muses—Throwing Muses [1986]
3. This Mortal Coil—Blood
4. Lisa Germano—Slide
5. Kristin Hersh—Sunny Border Blue
6. Lush—Split
7. The Birthday Party—Prayers on Fire
8. Pixies—Trompe Le Monde
9. Tarnation—Gentle Creatures
10. Dead Can Dance—Spleen and Ideal
It’s me 4AD3DCD
Top ten 4AD favourites (in no order, from the 80s-90s era):
1. Cocteau Twins—Treasure
2. Throwing Muses—Throwing Muses [1986]
3. This Mortal Coil—Blood
4. Lisa Germano—Slide
5. Kristin Hersh—Sunny Border Blue
6. Lush—Split
7. The Birthday Party—Prayers on Fire
8. Pixies—Trompe Le Monde
9. Tarnation—Gentle Creatures
10. Dead Can Dance—Spleen and Ideal
It’s me 4AD3DCD
March 17, 2014
Having this book exist is sort of like discovering the rosetta stone. It's hard to remember before the internet, when 4AD was this mysterious thing, along with the bands and 23 envelope. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, in central Alaska, and I can remember the first time I ever saw a 4AD record - This Mortal Coil's "16 days" single and the Cocteau Twins' Victorialand, at a local Comic Book Store of all places. 1986? 1987? It was like finding an artifact from another world. Through the years, I collected as much as I could find. They got bigger, of course - Pixies and Throwing Muses and Belly and even the Cocteau Twins got big. I knew of a man named Ivo behind it all, but you knew very little about him. I witnessed him once, at a 4AD showcase in New York in 1992, and I thought I had seen the most important man on the planet.
You couldn't help but notice the label changed through the years - it got kinda boring, and then it got good again, but in a different way. Somewhere in the late 90's I lost track of 4AD, but then in the 2010's I kept noticing that their name was on records I was buying again - Blonde Redhead, Bon Iver, The National, Deerhunter. What was going on? I never really knew. I suppose at that point, I could have looked it up on the internet - since it existed now. But it never occured to me. 4AD was always mysterious, it was hard to imagine that would ever stop. Even later in life, when I was friends with some members of some of the bands on 4AD, Ivo still seemed mythical.
Then along comes "Facing the Other Way,' with the full story not just of 4AD, and of Ivo, but of his partners and coworkers, of Vaughan Oliver, Nigel Grierson, Chris Bigg, 23 Envelope - names you saw on sleeves but never really knew the full story of (though I HAD seen Vaughan Oliver give a lecture somewhere in the mid 90's). And the BANDS. The ones you loved, the ones you never knew anything about. Everything. And in the end, it turns out that Ivo is living in the New Mexican desert? My mind is blown. My childhood is being re-written.
There's SO MUCH in here. Some people give it fewer stars for its thorough completedness. There are bands one doesn't particularly care for personally, and then perhaps you don't want to read about them. And the competedness does cause a bit of wear on the narrative. But I don't care. This label was one of the most important things in my life in my teenage years, and now, 25 years later, I ate every page of it up. Things I thought were impossible to know as a child.
The woman on the cover of the TMC albums is real. That Ivo was a partner in Too Pure and signing PJ Harvey. David Lynch's obsession with "Song to the Siren." Kelly Deal worked at Hughes Aircraft. SO MUCH RANDOMNESS. 4AD not signing Low!
Robin Guthrie comes out the worst, and it's sad Liz Frasier's voice isn't heard in this book, but otherwise, it's a true gem.
You couldn't help but notice the label changed through the years - it got kinda boring, and then it got good again, but in a different way. Somewhere in the late 90's I lost track of 4AD, but then in the 2010's I kept noticing that their name was on records I was buying again - Blonde Redhead, Bon Iver, The National, Deerhunter. What was going on? I never really knew. I suppose at that point, I could have looked it up on the internet - since it existed now. But it never occured to me. 4AD was always mysterious, it was hard to imagine that would ever stop. Even later in life, when I was friends with some members of some of the bands on 4AD, Ivo still seemed mythical.
Then along comes "Facing the Other Way,' with the full story not just of 4AD, and of Ivo, but of his partners and coworkers, of Vaughan Oliver, Nigel Grierson, Chris Bigg, 23 Envelope - names you saw on sleeves but never really knew the full story of (though I HAD seen Vaughan Oliver give a lecture somewhere in the mid 90's). And the BANDS. The ones you loved, the ones you never knew anything about. Everything. And in the end, it turns out that Ivo is living in the New Mexican desert? My mind is blown. My childhood is being re-written.
There's SO MUCH in here. Some people give it fewer stars for its thorough completedness. There are bands one doesn't particularly care for personally, and then perhaps you don't want to read about them. And the competedness does cause a bit of wear on the narrative. But I don't care. This label was one of the most important things in my life in my teenage years, and now, 25 years later, I ate every page of it up. Things I thought were impossible to know as a child.
The woman on the cover of the TMC albums is real. That Ivo was a partner in Too Pure and signing PJ Harvey. David Lynch's obsession with "Song to the Siren." Kelly Deal worked at Hughes Aircraft. SO MUCH RANDOMNESS. 4AD not signing Low!
Robin Guthrie comes out the worst, and it's sad Liz Frasier's voice isn't heard in this book, but otherwise, it's a true gem.
August 22, 2025
In mid-1994 I was 14 turning 15. Select Magazine had a cassette with its May 1994 edition called "Secret Tracks". It had songs by Lush, Lisa Germano and, most importantly for my future musical life, Kristin Hersh. Something immediately clicked for me and I ended up investigating the Label they were on - 4AD. Living in a small town meant it was impossible to find their stuff, so I used to take trips into London when I could to go to Tower Records on Piccadilly Circus.
Anyway, pretty soon: Cocteau Twins; Throwing Muses; Kristin Hersh; Belly; Lisa Germano; Pixies; The Breeders; and Red House Painters. The funny thing is, as a teen, I used to imagine these bands as Gods, living some enviable, music-filled life spent on the right side of art. Reading this book now, as a cynical and grumpy Dad in his mid-40s, I realise how messy, grubby, breaking and already-broken it all was. That you can make extraordinary music, be signed to an incredible label and have your album released as a beautiful, extraordinary object, and it all still just crumble. Egos and money and drugs and "business" and compromises and failure. But somehow buried in all that, this wonder.
I guess the only real way to do it is a modern type of Patronage, as Kirstin Hersh has kind of achieved in an odd way with us Strange Angels. I am very happy to pay something every quarter so that she can just get on with making music however the hell she wants. But I don't know how that approach could work for anyone else, particularly someone at the start of their career.
As for this book - well - yes it is huge, yes at times parts of it are boring (but just skim those), yes we all might wish more time was spent on our personal favorites (I wish there was a whole book just on House Tornado), but there is just so much to cover. The label deserves a proper telling like this, as do all the people mentioned within.
Anyway, pretty soon: Cocteau Twins; Throwing Muses; Kristin Hersh; Belly; Lisa Germano; Pixies; The Breeders; and Red House Painters. The funny thing is, as a teen, I used to imagine these bands as Gods, living some enviable, music-filled life spent on the right side of art. Reading this book now, as a cynical and grumpy Dad in his mid-40s, I realise how messy, grubby, breaking and already-broken it all was. That you can make extraordinary music, be signed to an incredible label and have your album released as a beautiful, extraordinary object, and it all still just crumble. Egos and money and drugs and "business" and compromises and failure. But somehow buried in all that, this wonder.
I guess the only real way to do it is a modern type of Patronage, as Kirstin Hersh has kind of achieved in an odd way with us Strange Angels. I am very happy to pay something every quarter so that she can just get on with making music however the hell she wants. But I don't know how that approach could work for anyone else, particularly someone at the start of their career.
As for this book - well - yes it is huge, yes at times parts of it are boring (but just skim those), yes we all might wish more time was spent on our personal favorites (I wish there was a whole book just on House Tornado), but there is just so much to cover. The label deserves a proper telling like this, as do all the people mentioned within.
February 10, 2014
"If you could describe music, you wouldn't need music" - Sinead O'Connor. I can't stress how important 4AD was to my musically formative years. In fact, it remains the only record label I followed like it was a band or artist or film director, and there is no doubt in my mind that it is the greatest independent record label that has ever existed. From philosophy and ethos to artist selection to packaging, 4AD under the aegis of founder Ivo Watts-Russell was the pinnacle of independent music in the 80s. It lost its way from around the mid 90s, but regained kudos and momentum in the last few years again.
My introduction to 4AD came during my first year at university when my film tutor made me a mix tape containing four or five tracks from each of the following completely unknown to me at the time artists: the Pixies, the Breeders, the 3Ds, and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. The entire tape was magnificent but it was the eerily compelling Pixies and woozy, swoony Breeders that dug their nails into my flesh. I immediately went out and bought 'Doolittle' by the Pixies only to discover that the album had come out in 1989. The year I discovered them was 1999 and I presumed that the music had only just been released, that was how unlike anything else it sounded. This was released in the same decade as Boy George, Tears for Fears and U2? My little brain was sufficiently blown. 'Last Splash' by the Breeders was my next spend, and while a little more of its time than the music of the Pixies (you couldn't imagine 'Last Splash' belonging in any other decade than the 90s), it was still leagues ahead of anything else I'd heard during the previous 10 years. After that I quickly nabbed 'Surfer Rosa' and 'Pod', discovered a promo card inside listing all 4AD artists, and proceeded to discover as much as I could on that weird and wonderful label.
My hometown is a reasonably small town of about 125,000 people at the time, with a reasonably excellent public library that had a disproportionately wonderful collection of CDs. I wouldn't live in a house that had the internet available for another five years, so my process of discovery was to borrow two CDs a week from the library, thrash them every day for that week, and if I liked (loved) them, then I'd go out and buy my own copy. And so I discovered the timeless brilliance of the Amps, Cocteau Twins, His Name is Alive, Red House Painters, This Mortal Coil, and most importantly, Throwing Muses whose 'In a Doghouse' compilation remains my very favourite 4AD release.
Not everything was to my liking. I never got onboard with Lush, Pale Saints or Bauhaus. I was by no means a completist, but everything on 4AD deserved a listen and I always appreciated a uniqueness of vision, a passion and a craft at work not only in the music but behind the people who made the music physically available to the public. The artwork too was always mesmerising. It was like a gift-wrapped Christmas present that you couldn't wait to unwrap and discover what was inside.
The last essential 4AD release in the 90s for me was 'Pacer' by Kim Deal's the Amps, which is as brilliant as anything the Breeders released. After that I kind of lost my compulsion to listen to anything just because it came with the 4AD stamp. However in recent years, 4AD has definitely lifted the bar again in releasing some of the most compelling music around from the likes of Deerhunter, Grimes, Iron and Wine, Serena-Maneesh, TV on the Radio.
'Facing the Other Way' is not a book for everyone. I would only recommend it to fans of the label and of the artists on it. It's far less rock and roll than the stories of other music companies and labels but it's clearly a labour of love and I think if you are a fan of the music, you'd find much to savour in this account of the music. Reading this, the nostalgia it brought to me was palpable. But I also felt an ineffable sadness. In a world of MP3s, Youtube and downloads, are there teenagers still making each other mix tapes? In buying (or stealing) music online, there goes the thrill of holding the product in your hand, admiring the photography and the artwork. Modern music consumers probably aren't even aware of the labels that are bringing them this music. 4AD was about music, art, ethics, philosophy, love and bringing a complete and completely new experience to the audience. And for those of us lucky to receive this gift, it was truly life changing.
My introduction to 4AD came during my first year at university when my film tutor made me a mix tape containing four or five tracks from each of the following completely unknown to me at the time artists: the Pixies, the Breeders, the 3Ds, and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. The entire tape was magnificent but it was the eerily compelling Pixies and woozy, swoony Breeders that dug their nails into my flesh. I immediately went out and bought 'Doolittle' by the Pixies only to discover that the album had come out in 1989. The year I discovered them was 1999 and I presumed that the music had only just been released, that was how unlike anything else it sounded. This was released in the same decade as Boy George, Tears for Fears and U2? My little brain was sufficiently blown. 'Last Splash' by the Breeders was my next spend, and while a little more of its time than the music of the Pixies (you couldn't imagine 'Last Splash' belonging in any other decade than the 90s), it was still leagues ahead of anything else I'd heard during the previous 10 years. After that I quickly nabbed 'Surfer Rosa' and 'Pod', discovered a promo card inside listing all 4AD artists, and proceeded to discover as much as I could on that weird and wonderful label.
My hometown is a reasonably small town of about 125,000 people at the time, with a reasonably excellent public library that had a disproportionately wonderful collection of CDs. I wouldn't live in a house that had the internet available for another five years, so my process of discovery was to borrow two CDs a week from the library, thrash them every day for that week, and if I liked (loved) them, then I'd go out and buy my own copy. And so I discovered the timeless brilliance of the Amps, Cocteau Twins, His Name is Alive, Red House Painters, This Mortal Coil, and most importantly, Throwing Muses whose 'In a Doghouse' compilation remains my very favourite 4AD release.
Not everything was to my liking. I never got onboard with Lush, Pale Saints or Bauhaus. I was by no means a completist, but everything on 4AD deserved a listen and I always appreciated a uniqueness of vision, a passion and a craft at work not only in the music but behind the people who made the music physically available to the public. The artwork too was always mesmerising. It was like a gift-wrapped Christmas present that you couldn't wait to unwrap and discover what was inside.
The last essential 4AD release in the 90s for me was 'Pacer' by Kim Deal's the Amps, which is as brilliant as anything the Breeders released. After that I kind of lost my compulsion to listen to anything just because it came with the 4AD stamp. However in recent years, 4AD has definitely lifted the bar again in releasing some of the most compelling music around from the likes of Deerhunter, Grimes, Iron and Wine, Serena-Maneesh, TV on the Radio.
'Facing the Other Way' is not a book for everyone. I would only recommend it to fans of the label and of the artists on it. It's far less rock and roll than the stories of other music companies and labels but it's clearly a labour of love and I think if you are a fan of the music, you'd find much to savour in this account of the music. Reading this, the nostalgia it brought to me was palpable. But I also felt an ineffable sadness. In a world of MP3s, Youtube and downloads, are there teenagers still making each other mix tapes? In buying (or stealing) music online, there goes the thrill of holding the product in your hand, admiring the photography and the artwork. Modern music consumers probably aren't even aware of the labels that are bringing them this music. 4AD was about music, art, ethics, philosophy, love and bringing a complete and completely new experience to the audience. And for those of us lucky to receive this gift, it was truly life changing.
November 26, 2013
Calling time....At 600pp or more Martin Aston's history of seminal indie label 4AD isn't for the faint hearted. It's actually a bit tricky to work out who it's for. The fanboys? Whilst hugely important and influential, wildly beyond its mainly meagre sales (ignore the aberration that was M/A/R/R/S), at times 4AD barely kept its head above water given founder and kingpin Ivo Watts-Russell's allergic reaction to doing anything mainstream or - gasp - commercial. Even at the time, the winklepicker, Crombie overcoat and spiky hair brigade were a bit thin on the ground, so maybe not now, not 20+ years after the fact.
The music historian? Doubt it - for despite the company's importance, there's just too much here: it's an overlong, and at times self-indulgent amble through what's basically corporate history. Arty corporate history for sure but still....there's an awful lot of he said, she said, they didn't talk for 11 years after that etc. Throw in the usual torrid tales of massive uncontrollable drug use, people behaving like arseholes and grim twats from places like Warner Brothers and Geffen, and it doesn't paint an enervating or even particularly novel picture. It also provides only limited analysis, concentrating on the long, long tale at hand. At least it's better than that tedious Facebook hand job I read a while back - so maybe the Financial Times can make Facing The Other Way its book of the year. But of course they wouldn't be interested - none of the people in the story have a pot to piss in.
Perhaps its target audience is Ivo's family? They seem to be numerous and rich, even if he's lost so much money trying to make the world love This Mortal Coil, so he has severe difficulty keeping the wolf from the fold. Who knows? Aston's style doesn't make it easier to guess, although my feeling is he mostly wrote it for himself. It has an unedited vibe about it.
To be fair, he manages to keep reasonable control of the worst excesses of rock journalism stylings, a field sadly plagued by sixth form pretension, grandstanding and vapidity. Imagine reading 600 pages of NME reviews - the childish point-scoring, vain attempts to appear in the know and endless fucking crap metaphors. Unbearable. Griel Marcus and Charles Shaar Murray, the fraudulent old plops, are among its worst proponents. Though a number of annoying tics pop up they don't derail the hefty narrative, though why in the early chapters does everyone - everyone - "hail" from somewhere. Sadly no one hailed from Halesowen or Halewood, which would have made me smile, but surely one or two of the characters could have just bloody well COME?? Oh and he clearly doesn't know what cohort means, as there appears to be some confusion with "companion" or even "accomplice". Harper Collins, I love your faith in this grandiose project but could you not run to an editor?
Grumbles aside, when it hits its stride Facing The Other Way is warm, loving and nostalgic - let's face it no one is going to write this or indeed anything about 4AD unless they're a massive fan - there is no celebrity tittle tattle, no massive stars even of a Morrissey or Johnny Rotten level of fame - but for people who like me grew up painfully out of kilter in the 80s it will be a joy reliving some of the less famous names and moments. Bands I'd once had a snatch from on a long ago discarded C90 home tape, singers who'd just registered on my consciousness in 30 seconds on Peel or The Tube, album covers I remember from the Virgin Megastore racks but had more urgent priorities to buy but nevertheless loved the look. It's all here.
Yes of course by indie standards, the Cocteau Twins, Nick Cave and the Pixies became huge; but for every Elizabeth Fraser becoming an icon there was a Lorita Graham (Colourbox) sinking without trace. The Wolfgang Press, Dead Can Dance, Modern English, His Name is Alive - those names send a little shiver through me as my 17 year old ghost in a Broadstairs bedroom turns up the volume on his Binatone Lotus bedside clock radio to catch Radio 1 late in the evening. And that doesn't bring us to the eternal triumvirate - Belly, Breeder, Throwing Muses. Mad women (in some cases literally) making brilliant, bonkers, unsustainably noncommercial music for the hell of it.
4AD wasn't at the forefront of indie - it didn't have a moment of sheer fashionability like Postcard or Cherry Red, nor was it neo-commercial like Creation which gave the world Oasis. Contrast Manchester's Factory (brash, publicity-mad, bloody-minded) and its figurehead Tony Wilson (egotistical, medium-is-the-message working class boy made good) with the effete southerners led by an agoraphobic impoverished toff, a company which would often put no information on a record sleeve, preferring to preserve the design ethic. (Having said that, they did sire Bauhaus, a crime against humanity and Max Factor that will live long in the annals.) Yet 4AD survives, albeit under the wing of a bigger indie, whilst Factory self-immolated in hubris. It's an interesting argument that Aston makes that this is not two diametric opposites but a ying and yang.
Overlong, overblown and now for me over, Facing The Other Way certainly fills a niche of some sort. But I'm still not sure what it is. Make a bloody good doorstop mind you.
The music historian? Doubt it - for despite the company's importance, there's just too much here: it's an overlong, and at times self-indulgent amble through what's basically corporate history. Arty corporate history for sure but still....there's an awful lot of he said, she said, they didn't talk for 11 years after that etc. Throw in the usual torrid tales of massive uncontrollable drug use, people behaving like arseholes and grim twats from places like Warner Brothers and Geffen, and it doesn't paint an enervating or even particularly novel picture. It also provides only limited analysis, concentrating on the long, long tale at hand. At least it's better than that tedious Facebook hand job I read a while back - so maybe the Financial Times can make Facing The Other Way its book of the year. But of course they wouldn't be interested - none of the people in the story have a pot to piss in.
Perhaps its target audience is Ivo's family? They seem to be numerous and rich, even if he's lost so much money trying to make the world love This Mortal Coil, so he has severe difficulty keeping the wolf from the fold. Who knows? Aston's style doesn't make it easier to guess, although my feeling is he mostly wrote it for himself. It has an unedited vibe about it.
To be fair, he manages to keep reasonable control of the worst excesses of rock journalism stylings, a field sadly plagued by sixth form pretension, grandstanding and vapidity. Imagine reading 600 pages of NME reviews - the childish point-scoring, vain attempts to appear in the know and endless fucking crap metaphors. Unbearable. Griel Marcus and Charles Shaar Murray, the fraudulent old plops, are among its worst proponents. Though a number of annoying tics pop up they don't derail the hefty narrative, though why in the early chapters does everyone - everyone - "hail" from somewhere. Sadly no one hailed from Halesowen or Halewood, which would have made me smile, but surely one or two of the characters could have just bloody well COME?? Oh and he clearly doesn't know what cohort means, as there appears to be some confusion with "companion" or even "accomplice". Harper Collins, I love your faith in this grandiose project but could you not run to an editor?
Grumbles aside, when it hits its stride Facing The Other Way is warm, loving and nostalgic - let's face it no one is going to write this or indeed anything about 4AD unless they're a massive fan - there is no celebrity tittle tattle, no massive stars even of a Morrissey or Johnny Rotten level of fame - but for people who like me grew up painfully out of kilter in the 80s it will be a joy reliving some of the less famous names and moments. Bands I'd once had a snatch from on a long ago discarded C90 home tape, singers who'd just registered on my consciousness in 30 seconds on Peel or The Tube, album covers I remember from the Virgin Megastore racks but had more urgent priorities to buy but nevertheless loved the look. It's all here.
Yes of course by indie standards, the Cocteau Twins, Nick Cave and the Pixies became huge; but for every Elizabeth Fraser becoming an icon there was a Lorita Graham (Colourbox) sinking without trace. The Wolfgang Press, Dead Can Dance, Modern English, His Name is Alive - those names send a little shiver through me as my 17 year old ghost in a Broadstairs bedroom turns up the volume on his Binatone Lotus bedside clock radio to catch Radio 1 late in the evening. And that doesn't bring us to the eternal triumvirate - Belly, Breeder, Throwing Muses. Mad women (in some cases literally) making brilliant, bonkers, unsustainably noncommercial music for the hell of it.
4AD wasn't at the forefront of indie - it didn't have a moment of sheer fashionability like Postcard or Cherry Red, nor was it neo-commercial like Creation which gave the world Oasis. Contrast Manchester's Factory (brash, publicity-mad, bloody-minded) and its figurehead Tony Wilson (egotistical, medium-is-the-message working class boy made good) with the effete southerners led by an agoraphobic impoverished toff, a company which would often put no information on a record sleeve, preferring to preserve the design ethic. (Having said that, they did sire Bauhaus, a crime against humanity and Max Factor that will live long in the annals.) Yet 4AD survives, albeit under the wing of a bigger indie, whilst Factory self-immolated in hubris. It's an interesting argument that Aston makes that this is not two diametric opposites but a ying and yang.
Overlong, overblown and now for me over, Facing The Other Way certainly fills a niche of some sort. But I'm still not sure what it is. Make a bloody good doorstop mind you.
June 18, 2022
I absolutely loved this. It goes to show that getting signed to a label with a great history isn't everything and the importance of having sympathetic and supportive people behind a band. After the glory days of 4AD so many good and promising bands fallen apart and we get shown why in detail. Reading about Heidi Berry being dropped despite Ivo's enthusiasm for her albums was heartbreaking, and how unfortunate that practical reasons prevented a collaboration between Berry, Nooten and Brook!
I'd once been really bummed that Robin Guthrie hated This Mortal Coil and didn't value my favorite Cocteau Twins albums as I did, but at least now this book has helped me understand the latter.
There's Pixies and Frank Black songs I think Aston and Ivo really undervalue here but that's a small quibble when Nooten and Brook's Sleeps With Fishes gets its due recognition and I'm pointed to several other hidden gems in the 4AD catalogue, and promising bands from when the label's fortunes were waning. And I was also filled with enthusiasm to fill in the gaps of my favorite bands and begin with others that have some smaller part in the story, whether they were on the label or not.
Towards the end we get profiles of notable bands since Ivo properly departed the label and it seems it has been revitalized (I know some of this era very well, but others are just as obscure as any time of the label), I'm not sure how deep I want to dig and it's almost been a decade since this book, I'm kind of curious how it's been going since then. I suspect Ivo had something to do with the Gene Clark reissue a few years ago?
I'd once been really bummed that Robin Guthrie hated This Mortal Coil and didn't value my favorite Cocteau Twins albums as I did, but at least now this book has helped me understand the latter.
There's Pixies and Frank Black songs I think Aston and Ivo really undervalue here but that's a small quibble when Nooten and Brook's Sleeps With Fishes gets its due recognition and I'm pointed to several other hidden gems in the 4AD catalogue, and promising bands from when the label's fortunes were waning. And I was also filled with enthusiasm to fill in the gaps of my favorite bands and begin with others that have some smaller part in the story, whether they were on the label or not.
Towards the end we get profiles of notable bands since Ivo properly departed the label and it seems it has been revitalized (I know some of this era very well, but others are just as obscure as any time of the label), I'm not sure how deep I want to dig and it's almost been a decade since this book, I'm kind of curious how it's been going since then. I suspect Ivo had something to do with the Gene Clark reissue a few years ago?
October 6, 2016
This is a simply wonderful history of one of my favorite record labels. 4AD. Music is just as important to me as books are and 4AD had so many great bands: The Birthday Party, The Breeders, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Throwing Muses, The Pixies, Dead Can Dance, Belly, Red House Painters...I have music by all of these bands and never has an independent label had so many great bands on their roster.
So if you like any of these bands or are interested in learning all about how a record label is run, I can't recommend this book highly enough.
So if you like any of these bands or are interested in learning all about how a record label is run, I can't recommend this book highly enough.
February 1, 2015
This is the kind of book that would be boring for people who aren't extreme fans, but for someone like me, who found 4AD to be a revelation, this book is amazing. Getting to see inside the history of this influential record label was a joy, and seeing how circumstance around various signings and releases were so precarious was almost frightening. To think that some of my all-time favorite albums might not have happened, but for some specific events is simultaneously distressing and thrilling. The 4AD aesthetic becomes more clear, or perhaps inevitable, understanding the fragile and volatile personalities of so many of the artists. Ivo himself, with his tendency towards depression, is a mysterious and capricious figure, who really seemed to keep the idea of art over commerce, with the normal human foibles and inconsistencies. It did make me sad to learn how much of a cocaine-addicted, abusive asshole Robin Guthrie was, but then it's balanced out by learning how cool and down-to-earth Miki Berenyi was. So many intriguing characters involved in this label. Reading this book has sparked my interest again, and I'm starting to fill in a few of the older gaps, and also some of the newer bands that I've never payed any attention to.
I should also mention the gorgeous dust jacket on this hardcover edition, by V23, that stands alongside the best of their artwork from the classic 4AD years. I suspect I'll be reading this book again, or at least keeping it as a reference close to hand.
I should also mention the gorgeous dust jacket on this hardcover edition, by V23, that stands alongside the best of their artwork from the classic 4AD years. I suspect I'll be reading this book again, or at least keeping it as a reference close to hand.
December 31, 2018
Few labels have inspired such devotion from its followers as 4AD and, given that few of the artists ever made it big enough to warrant their own biographies, then this is the only place to grab any insight into its enigmatic roster and the spellbinding music they produced. As one would expect, it is an exhaustive read (600 plus pages) and one that is expertly woven, but given how the stellar ensemble weave their way in and out of the narrative, it never gets tiresome. Naturally the story of 4AD is the story of Ivo Watts Russell and how he carved a label based on his own discerning tastes without ever compromising artistic integrity for the sake of a dollar. It is hard to imagine that such a label could form in the current climate and still be able to maintain such dedication to it's art. For that alone, Facing the Other Way, despite it's at times sombre soundtrack, is oddly uplifting in its purity of vision. If you have ever fallen under the spell of 4ad, as I have, then this book is essential.
June 30, 2021
I give this 4 stars because I'm very familiar with the subject. At 600 pages, this book tells you everything about 4AD Records you could possibly want to know. I think every artist and maybe every release on the label is covered. That’s a good thing. The business side of the 4AD story is much like most other indie labels that intersected with U.S. major labels in the 1990’s. It is fraught with pitfalls. The 4AD aesthetic is what attracted fans to the label roster. Through alleged inadvertent branding, the label secured a distribution deal with a U.S. major, which is more complex that licensing releases one album at a time. The book took me back to that time period, but I worked for a major label at the time. Some past business acquaintances appear, so it’s a bit nostalgic. There’s a lot of inside detail in this book. Half way through it I felt like I was trapped in a marketing meeting that would not end. A key takeaway from this book is how captures the disparity of the time in contrasting the indie label aesthetic of releasing innovative music against the major label machine that was all about radio airplay. The author is clearly a big fan of the label’s music and philosophy. But every key release seems to be measured by its chart success and the personality mismatches of band members. That takes a little of the fun out of what this is supposed to be about. Long live 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell!
March 17, 2017
Wow, this book took forever for me to finish! I'm a fan of the label, but not an obsessive and it was a good natural insomnia cure for awhile. I enjoy reading about music, though this was tough since it was more behind the business. The graphic design parts were interesting even if it wasn't the main focus, it's largely what sets 4AD apart from most labels. I'm a slow reader in general, but didn't read this consistently. I do feel better informed about the label though!
April 19, 2020
There are two types of people to whom I’d recommend this book. The first is obvious: those with an affection for the elegant, black-laced era of post-punk and Goth. The second would be those who have an interest in marketing and the workings of the art industry. For both camps, the book will be an illuminating and disheartening look at the cynicism of the marketplace.
The beginnings of the label in the anything-goes days that followed the implosion of punk are a euphoric rush. I loved time-traveling back to this period when the only rule seemed to be to not sound like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. It seemed that nothing was ever too outré to be successful in that chilly, rainy London climate--at least for a few years.
Everything hits a peak in 1984 as the label solidifies its image with Cocteau Twins’s Treasure and This Mortal Coil’s It’ll End in Tears. BUT the same year saw the individual artists' tangible musical contributions superseded by label founder Ivo Watts-Russel's intangible identity. How did the artists respond? They hated it, feeling devalued as cogs in the 4AD machine. But the lesson here is that once an artist creates a recognizable, distinctive brand, the market deems them predictable and they end up being pigeonholed. People want more of the same, and once more of the same is delivered, they don’t want it anymore.
1987’s “Pump Up the Volume” turned out to be the most important 4AD track, for all the wrong reasons. The track was so ubiquitous that even I (a rural Pentecostal 12-year-old acquainted with nothing but Country Gospel music) heard it in a low-budget ad for a Tulsa jewelry store. The incredible cashflow the single earned had the unwelcome effect of attracting both major-label attention and lawsuits from dozens of uncleared samples. Artist squabbling over credits and lawsuits over copycats and bootlegs ended up causing the track to lose money in the long run, as well as sullying the label's previously untarnished punk rock image. This was the point at which the book's narrative turned from YAY to OH NO. Not even the success of The Breeders and Belly in 1993 was enough.
Ivo and company tried as hard as they could to branch out, seeing a licensing deal with Warner Bros as an escape route, in which they could focus on finding new artists and the Warners would market them. The opposite happened: Warners wanted something commercial, and 4AD were left to promote artists themselves. Bands were mistreated, feelings got hurt, and several incredible musicians abandoned the industry altogether.
Then the dark post-grunge days of 1995-6 happened, when (as one 4AD employee puts it) "... even Third Eye Blind [was marketed as] a cool band." This was about the time I started hating all guitar-based music, and became increasingly focused on electronic music, hip hop, and jazz. I've never quite returned all the way. The twin regressive events of grunge and Britpop just ruined the music I loved so much. I still hear so much of contemporary indie rock through the lens of one horrible flyer I was given at a Hastings record store around this time, in which every artist was promoted like the Designer Imposter perfume counter at the 7-11 (“If you like Nirvana, you’ll love Silverchair!”).
I recommend this book so highly; it is such an excellent, thorough, well-researched labor of love. What you’ll come away with is about a thousand lessons in what NOT to do as an artist or arts industry executive. Ivo created a 4AD catalog that is immortal, and will remain so, but the label's missteps are often impressive (for instance spending almost $20,000 on a sixteen-foot tall neon sign for the cover of a three-track Spirea X single that sold in the low four-figures). My head hit my desk repeatedly as the label poured out truckloads of cash trying to advance the careers of their less-promising signings, while neglecting some of their true talents to the point of insult.
Ultimately, the impression that emerges after reading this is a portrait of the death of the major record label. The book ends in 2000, just as Napster was aiming its arrow at the dragon's missing scale. Ivo's disillusionment with the music industry that chewed up indie labels and spat out Nirvana clones was shared by music fans, who rightly took revenge and killed it.
4AD, of course, survives as a boutique imprint of the major Beggars Group, of which they were once the downstairs kid brother in the early record store days, but I feel very little connection with any of their current signings. Their once singular identity is now a fairly predictable brand, and the book's message seems to be, sadly, that brand predictability is the inevitable endgame of commercial success. However, this book reveals some hidden gems in their releases, even at their low . Magnétophone, The Late Cord, and Richenel, for instance, are acts you really had to be paying attention to catch. I WAS paying attention and still missed them.
Also, I'm a Fayetteville (AR) native, so it was nice to see Paula Frazer of Tarnation getting quite a few paragraphs in here. Her 4AD releases were both perfection.
The beginnings of the label in the anything-goes days that followed the implosion of punk are a euphoric rush. I loved time-traveling back to this period when the only rule seemed to be to not sound like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. It seemed that nothing was ever too outré to be successful in that chilly, rainy London climate--at least for a few years.
Everything hits a peak in 1984 as the label solidifies its image with Cocteau Twins’s Treasure and This Mortal Coil’s It’ll End in Tears. BUT the same year saw the individual artists' tangible musical contributions superseded by label founder Ivo Watts-Russel's intangible identity. How did the artists respond? They hated it, feeling devalued as cogs in the 4AD machine. But the lesson here is that once an artist creates a recognizable, distinctive brand, the market deems them predictable and they end up being pigeonholed. People want more of the same, and once more of the same is delivered, they don’t want it anymore.
1987’s “Pump Up the Volume” turned out to be the most important 4AD track, for all the wrong reasons. The track was so ubiquitous that even I (a rural Pentecostal 12-year-old acquainted with nothing but Country Gospel music) heard it in a low-budget ad for a Tulsa jewelry store. The incredible cashflow the single earned had the unwelcome effect of attracting both major-label attention and lawsuits from dozens of uncleared samples. Artist squabbling over credits and lawsuits over copycats and bootlegs ended up causing the track to lose money in the long run, as well as sullying the label's previously untarnished punk rock image. This was the point at which the book's narrative turned from YAY to OH NO. Not even the success of The Breeders and Belly in 1993 was enough.
Ivo and company tried as hard as they could to branch out, seeing a licensing deal with Warner Bros as an escape route, in which they could focus on finding new artists and the Warners would market them. The opposite happened: Warners wanted something commercial, and 4AD were left to promote artists themselves. Bands were mistreated, feelings got hurt, and several incredible musicians abandoned the industry altogether.
Then the dark post-grunge days of 1995-6 happened, when (as one 4AD employee puts it) "... even Third Eye Blind [was marketed as] a cool band." This was about the time I started hating all guitar-based music, and became increasingly focused on electronic music, hip hop, and jazz. I've never quite returned all the way. The twin regressive events of grunge and Britpop just ruined the music I loved so much. I still hear so much of contemporary indie rock through the lens of one horrible flyer I was given at a Hastings record store around this time, in which every artist was promoted like the Designer Imposter perfume counter at the 7-11 (“If you like Nirvana, you’ll love Silverchair!”).
I recommend this book so highly; it is such an excellent, thorough, well-researched labor of love. What you’ll come away with is about a thousand lessons in what NOT to do as an artist or arts industry executive. Ivo created a 4AD catalog that is immortal, and will remain so, but the label's missteps are often impressive (for instance spending almost $20,000 on a sixteen-foot tall neon sign for the cover of a three-track Spirea X single that sold in the low four-figures). My head hit my desk repeatedly as the label poured out truckloads of cash trying to advance the careers of their less-promising signings, while neglecting some of their true talents to the point of insult.
Ultimately, the impression that emerges after reading this is a portrait of the death of the major record label. The book ends in 2000, just as Napster was aiming its arrow at the dragon's missing scale. Ivo's disillusionment with the music industry that chewed up indie labels and spat out Nirvana clones was shared by music fans, who rightly took revenge and killed it.
4AD, of course, survives as a boutique imprint of the major Beggars Group, of which they were once the downstairs kid brother in the early record store days, but I feel very little connection with any of their current signings. Their once singular identity is now a fairly predictable brand, and the book's message seems to be, sadly, that brand predictability is the inevitable endgame of commercial success. However, this book reveals some hidden gems in their releases, even at their low . Magnétophone, The Late Cord, and Richenel, for instance, are acts you really had to be paying attention to catch. I WAS paying attention and still missed them.
Also, I'm a Fayetteville (AR) native, so it was nice to see Paula Frazer of Tarnation getting quite a few paragraphs in here. Her 4AD releases were both perfection.
January 22, 2024
Well no one can deny that this is the definitive book on 4AD!
December 10, 2023
I’m a huge fan of 4AD and even I was wondering why the heck this thing was 600 pages. Absolutely suffers because of its length. The writing is pretty good and the interviews are insightful, but it becomes terribly formulaic by the end.
May 28, 2023
Facing the other way, towards tedium.
April 30, 2024
Absolutely loved it. As an 4AD fan, this book was everything I'd hoped for. It delves deep into the label's history, offering details about both the label and all those amazing bands it nurtured. The writing is engaging, and kept me hooked with the rich detail.
July 28, 2025
Martin aston le presta muchísima atención al detalle para contar todos los lanzamientos, idas y desvenidas de 4ad, siendo muy crítico a los inicios pero sucumbiando a la belleza de la era dorada de 4ad, con una exhausta documentación y una muy importante atención al contenido artístico del que muchos libros sobre música o sellos obvian
June 27, 2014
A very thorough treatment of 4AD's "Ivo years". I liked the book — but at the same time it was a struggle to get through in the sense of being (for this dedicated but simple alternative music fan!) overly academic, overloaded with facts and lightweight in terms of human insight. When I read pop music books I generally look for a spark, a bit of fun, some gossip, scandal, a bit of pop psychology, sociology, social history, an insight into character. For example, the book told me very little about Red House Painter, Mark Kozelek's background or that of Tanya Donnelly — and I'm a junkie for that kind of stuff! In general Facing The Other Way had too little of the personal and too much of the abstract.
Of course it's very thorough on how/when/where bands were signed, who the personnel were, who produced this, mixed that, engineered the other thing, how a single was distributed, what Ivo thought of various releases, what number they got to in the charts, but the style is always slightly lumpen and humourless. Plodding even. I think this book is really for the army of 4AD nerds that inhabit cyberspace (rather than plain old Cocteau Twins, Belly or Mojave 3 fans like myself) and I get the feeling it was written with the intention of not leaving any tiny detail out or getting any little factoid wrong in order to avoid the author being inundated with indignant mails from bedroom-bound, long-raincoat-wearing Dif Jus and Xmal Deutschland obsessives.
Were I the book's editor, I would have recommended the cutting of maybe 10% of the content and tried to make it more snappy. Nonetheless, there is a great story in there: the music business eats artists and aesthetes like Ivo and Vaughan Oliver for breakfast and that 99.99% of the people who start a band, all bright-eyed and idealistic, end up broke, bitter and washed up. Ivo (4AD's founder and, until the mid '90s, its heart and soul) is the star of the book. His pursuit of beauty in music and his unearthing of shining talents like the Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance and Red House Painters is, along with the growth of 4AD and Vaughan Oliver's groundbreaking artwork, the book's narrative thread. When, as 4AD grows, running a record business rather than a record label becomes the reality, Ivo's slow breakdown is documented, with him eventually moving to the States, distancing himself from the label's day-to-day running and, finally, selling his shares. The bitching, fallings-out, band break-ups and sackings are fascinating. For me, though, there was serious detail lacking on what exactly went on between the Cocteau Twins and 4AD (and inside the Cocteaus!). There's a whole book to be written just on that, maybe. Similarly the Pixies story is too rushed through for my liking.
Final verdict: well worth the read, but brace yourself for an avalanche of facts and figures. It feels like the author tried to fit too much in, and, therefore it's a slow and sometimes laborious read.
Of course it's very thorough on how/when/where bands were signed, who the personnel were, who produced this, mixed that, engineered the other thing, how a single was distributed, what Ivo thought of various releases, what number they got to in the charts, but the style is always slightly lumpen and humourless. Plodding even. I think this book is really for the army of 4AD nerds that inhabit cyberspace (rather than plain old Cocteau Twins, Belly or Mojave 3 fans like myself) and I get the feeling it was written with the intention of not leaving any tiny detail out or getting any little factoid wrong in order to avoid the author being inundated with indignant mails from bedroom-bound, long-raincoat-wearing Dif Jus and Xmal Deutschland obsessives.
Were I the book's editor, I would have recommended the cutting of maybe 10% of the content and tried to make it more snappy. Nonetheless, there is a great story in there: the music business eats artists and aesthetes like Ivo and Vaughan Oliver for breakfast and that 99.99% of the people who start a band, all bright-eyed and idealistic, end up broke, bitter and washed up. Ivo (4AD's founder and, until the mid '90s, its heart and soul) is the star of the book. His pursuit of beauty in music and his unearthing of shining talents like the Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance and Red House Painters is, along with the growth of 4AD and Vaughan Oliver's groundbreaking artwork, the book's narrative thread. When, as 4AD grows, running a record business rather than a record label becomes the reality, Ivo's slow breakdown is documented, with him eventually moving to the States, distancing himself from the label's day-to-day running and, finally, selling his shares. The bitching, fallings-out, band break-ups and sackings are fascinating. For me, though, there was serious detail lacking on what exactly went on between the Cocteau Twins and 4AD (and inside the Cocteaus!). There's a whole book to be written just on that, maybe. Similarly the Pixies story is too rushed through for my liking.
Final verdict: well worth the read, but brace yourself for an avalanche of facts and figures. It feels like the author tried to fit too much in, and, therefore it's a slow and sometimes laborious read.
February 24, 2020
This has to be one of my more disappointing reading experiences I've ever had. I've been a major fan of 4AD since the very beginning. I bought the first thing they produced and basically anything after that for years. If "4AD" was on the label, I could trust it to be good enough for me, and I can't even figure out how many 4AD albums have been crucial, influential, genre-creating, amazing, etc.
So I've always been looking for some 4AD history but have never run across one until recently -- this one. So after getting it, I "opened" it excitedly and started reading. And then wondering WTH. Some old dude in New Mexico??? I'll forever associate 4AD with the country in which it produced amazing albums from. If former owners of the country are old, screwed up, bitter, depressed, etc., and decided to move to another continent to live in another climate and they don't have much of anything to say at all, well, I really can't think of much more boring as hell than that, as well as just plain disappointing. I read on, hoping upon hope that SOMETHING would fucking happen (!!!) [and I've read 800 pages into a book before giving up before, so I'm willing to go a long ways before giving in and up...] but NOTHING ever happened and nothing interesting was ever described or written and eventually I was so bored, I was almost sad I had ever heard of 4AD, let alone bought hundreds of their albums, and I was most certainly sad I ever came across this book or author, because while the subject may be boring pap, depressed and depressing, how can one know the author is even remotely competent? The author chose to take a different tack in formating this book than I and many others would. In some cases, that might work out. In this case, it was a massive FAIL. Lose the reader's interest, lose the reader. Lose the reader, they tell 10 of their friends to avoid the book. And so on. Crap, millions of people -- many of them talentless hacks -- are publishing books these days due to digital self publishing, and while many to most are total shit, many are extremely good despite the total lack of proofing and editing, and these I would read, all, in their entirety before attempting this one again. So very not recommended and I'll keep looking for another book on the topic.
So I've always been looking for some 4AD history but have never run across one until recently -- this one. So after getting it, I "opened" it excitedly and started reading. And then wondering WTH. Some old dude in New Mexico??? I'll forever associate 4AD with the country in which it produced amazing albums from. If former owners of the country are old, screwed up, bitter, depressed, etc., and decided to move to another continent to live in another climate and they don't have much of anything to say at all, well, I really can't think of much more boring as hell than that, as well as just plain disappointing. I read on, hoping upon hope that SOMETHING would fucking happen (!!!) [and I've read 800 pages into a book before giving up before, so I'm willing to go a long ways before giving in and up...] but NOTHING ever happened and nothing interesting was ever described or written and eventually I was so bored, I was almost sad I had ever heard of 4AD, let alone bought hundreds of their albums, and I was most certainly sad I ever came across this book or author, because while the subject may be boring pap, depressed and depressing, how can one know the author is even remotely competent? The author chose to take a different tack in formating this book than I and many others would. In some cases, that might work out. In this case, it was a massive FAIL. Lose the reader's interest, lose the reader. Lose the reader, they tell 10 of their friends to avoid the book. And so on. Crap, millions of people -- many of them talentless hacks -- are publishing books these days due to digital self publishing, and while many to most are total shit, many are extremely good despite the total lack of proofing and editing, and these I would read, all, in their entirety before attempting this one again. So very not recommended and I'll keep looking for another book on the topic.
December 3, 2013
If, like me, you are a fan of some or all 4AD (record label) artists, you'll find this a uniquely informative and dispiriting book.
Essentially, it tells the same story about fifty times. Ivo Watts-Russell (record label founder) gets a demo from a couple (almost always a couple-couple) of talented fragile people, loves it, signs them, and five years later everyone feels conned, debased, strung out and no-one is speaking any more. In between, the music business has done its usual job of messing with sensitive people's minds (particularly where dollars are concerned). If we're lucky, during that five years we got Cocteau Twins. If we're not, we got Thievery Corporation or Wolfgang Press.
Ivo comes across as charmingly inept at management. One of the book's heros is an accountant. Its other hero, because she found a way to reconcile dollars and sense, is Kristen Hersh of Throwing Muses. That the book sent me back to their astonishing first couple of records is one big thing to thank it for.
But if you want to keep your sense of 4AD as having anything to do with the adjectives that usually get attached to it (ethereal, transcendent...), I would avoid this book entirely.
Martin Aston has done a dutiful job of tracking down every available 4AD employee, but most of them have the same thing to say. "The music industry is the wild woods, Little Red - go in there, you'll get chewed up by multiple big bad wolves."
Towards the book's end, Aston's writing becomes pithy - as he falls out of love with the music released by the label, he starts to produce epigrams: 'Being ahead of your time is only rewarding in posterity.' And, of recent years, as compared to the right-on period when 4AD starts, he observes 'this was a more callous age'.
4AD, to begin with, felt like an antidote to callousness (Thatcherite, laddish, nationalist, rockist); it was a form of musical dissidence. But this book makes the human cost of opting out painfully clear.
Essentially, it tells the same story about fifty times. Ivo Watts-Russell (record label founder) gets a demo from a couple (almost always a couple-couple) of talented fragile people, loves it, signs them, and five years later everyone feels conned, debased, strung out and no-one is speaking any more. In between, the music business has done its usual job of messing with sensitive people's minds (particularly where dollars are concerned). If we're lucky, during that five years we got Cocteau Twins. If we're not, we got Thievery Corporation or Wolfgang Press.
Ivo comes across as charmingly inept at management. One of the book's heros is an accountant. Its other hero, because she found a way to reconcile dollars and sense, is Kristen Hersh of Throwing Muses. That the book sent me back to their astonishing first couple of records is one big thing to thank it for.
But if you want to keep your sense of 4AD as having anything to do with the adjectives that usually get attached to it (ethereal, transcendent...), I would avoid this book entirely.
Martin Aston has done a dutiful job of tracking down every available 4AD employee, but most of them have the same thing to say. "The music industry is the wild woods, Little Red - go in there, you'll get chewed up by multiple big bad wolves."
Towards the book's end, Aston's writing becomes pithy - as he falls out of love with the music released by the label, he starts to produce epigrams: 'Being ahead of your time is only rewarding in posterity.' And, of recent years, as compared to the right-on period when 4AD starts, he observes 'this was a more callous age'.
4AD, to begin with, felt like an antidote to callousness (Thatcherite, laddish, nationalist, rockist); it was a form of musical dissidence. But this book makes the human cost of opting out painfully clear.
March 31, 2014
If you have the kind of relationship with 4AD records that many fans do, this book is going to be a must-read for you regardless of what anyone says. Also, if an insider look at the music industry is especially appealing to you, it might beer of some interest. However, it does sometimes read like a litany of days and names and events that never really gels into a compelling narrative. Not really helping is that it turns out that while there is certainly genius in many off the artists represented, few of them come across as relatable or even likeable (which can be disillusioning if you've been a huge fan). Capping things off is the sense that the book plays during favourites, following a tiny number of individuals with intensity and glossing over the rest at best. That it's ultimately a book about Ivo more than about 4AD is perhaps both fitting and to be expected, but that plus all of the aforementioned makes the last few chapters, following the label after his departure, a bit of an info-dumpy slog, with the constant cameos or check-ins with people no longer relevant or central to the label making it feel increasingly biased and/or pointless. Nonetheless, the are interesting stories here about one of the greatest music and art institutions of its time and a truly unique business, so while I could have hoped for more, it was worth the time I gave it.
September 28, 2016
A pretty thorough look through the evolution of 4AD records. Still seems sad that 4AD has become just another record label compared to what it once was. Lots of interesting tidbits about the design of the covers. Sadly, there aren't enough pictures to go along with these tales, and what is there are quite small(I sort of wish this would have been more a coffee table type book). It seems they didn't do enough research on Cindytalk and omitted the fact that Gordon Sharp is trans. They just mention he goes by Cindy today not going into why. Robin Guthrie comes off as a bit of a jerk(especially as his drug use increased) as does Frank Black. By the last couple of chapters I was just waiting for the book to be finished. Wish they would have talked a bit more about Scott Walker instead of some of the bands they were still hoping to have a hit with(post-Ivo) and spent too much time talking about. Despite these problems, the book was a great read - especially for anyone that was there during the label's heyday.
March 27, 2014
I don't think you can find a more definitive history of 4AD than this book. Culled from interviews conducted over a few decades, Aston leaves no detail out. As someone who likes Pixies, Red House Painters, and Mojave 3, I enjoyed getting to know more about their stories. I also was inspired to check out more of Lush's material as well as Tanya Donelly's work with Belly and as a solo artist. All this said, I would say it's best to be a huge fan of the label's output to really enjoy this book. Yes, it's long, and for a hardcore fan, it wouldn't be long enough. Since I'm not a hardcore fan, I found the pacing to be off-putting. It took me almost two months to finish, and I make commitments everyday to read.
September 19, 2018
Phew! This is a rollercoaster ride through the origins, halcyon days, demise, and rebirth of the world's coolest record label. It's a labour of love even to get through, I can't imagine the dedication the author had to muster to put it together. And it's a triumph! The personalities, bands, records, art, all of it, is here, not just in exhaustive detail but also from many of the major players' angles - Mr Aston tracked them all down and extracted everything they could remember. Why did certain bands sign to 4AD when they obviously didn't fit? Why did others not, when they fit so magically? Why were some bands allowed to slip away? Where was Ivo when 4AD needed him most? If you've enjoyed even some of this label's output, then you owe it to yourself to learn the full story.
December 3, 2017
Like slogging through a bog
This is the most boring book ever about an exciting time e in the music industry. So dry, it's almost a day by day dairy with all the excitement taken out. How can a book that includes some of the great musical artists be so dull? Incredibly disappointed. I literally thought this book would never end. It needs an editor to cut it in half.
This is the most boring book ever about an exciting time e in the music industry. So dry, it's almost a day by day dairy with all the excitement taken out. How can a book that includes some of the great musical artists be so dull? Incredibly disappointed. I literally thought this book would never end. It needs an editor to cut it in half.
November 3, 2022
Très bel ouvrage qui retrace l'histoire du label mythique 4AD, qui a inondé les années 80 et 90 avec des artistes majeurs.
Sur plus de 800 pages agrémentées d'une riche iconographie, on profite du superbe travail de journalisme de l'auteur, qui a rencontré tous les acteurs de cette saga.
Pour moi l'occasion de me replonger avec délice dans ces albums qui ont accompagné mon passage à l'âge adulte.
Sur plus de 800 pages agrémentées d'une riche iconographie, on profite du superbe travail de journalisme de l'auteur, qui a rencontré tous les acteurs de cette saga.
Pour moi l'occasion de me replonger avec délice dans ces albums qui ont accompagné mon passage à l'âge adulte.
January 25, 2017
very detailed not for everyone - but good for me
October 12, 2017
There are pretty much 2 types of 4AD fans...the ones who pretty much just like all the classic stuff from the 80s, and those who are more completist and like a lot of the melancholy releases that carried on through the 90s and, to some degree, today. I fall into the 1st category. At the time I was discovering the 4AD catalog, they were putting out some of their last great records as far as many people were concerned. This is one label that actually inspires some interesting questions about what matters most in developing and maintaining a successful record label. For one, the majority of old 4AD fans associate it with ethereal, melancholy music but I never thought it was odd that Pixies or M/A/R/R/S were on the same label, let alone 4AD. I suppose part of that is just being young and not set in your ways. The particular group of fans I fall into tend to also be the ones most set in their ways, yet I look at 4AD now and say, "Well, they're doing what successful labels do...they're not putting all their eggs in one basket or being defined by the past." What built the label, however, was a specific sensibility...combined with a few uncharacteristic successes. So I guess my point is that, in order to develop a label (or brand), you have to have a certain identity but there comes a point where you have to not be constrained by that identity and the way you've done things in the past. Reading this book, I look at 4AD and what they represented during the 80s with a mixture of fondness bordering on wishing I could go back and actually be born a little earlier, so as to really bask in all of that alternative-ness that I came in on the tail end of and yet, at the same time, it all seems a bit overly precious and up its own arse to me. That is actually part of the reason that part of me wishes I could go back to that time - all of that seems like such a luxury now. The truth is a label like 4AD could not exist now. The industry has changed so much and, as we so often hear, not for the better. Labels like 4AD, Factory, Creation and a small handful of others that defined a lot of the sounds of the 80s and 90s existed in that very small window of time where indies became viable, then a force to be reckoned with, and now have become almost a thing of the past in terms of competing with major labels. The time where an artist on an indie label could make almost as much as someone signed to a major, all on a handshake deal and having pretty much complete creative control are absolutely gone...for the foreseeable future, anyway. Having said all of that, the book is well-written and provides a pretty exhaustive history of the label. To be honest, there were times where it was a bit too much even for me (mostly in the later chapters where I was more interested in the travails of Ivo and the label than the music that was actually being released at the time.) I found myself going back to check some releases I didn't know about or had known about but never bothered to track down. I also found out quite a bit of backstory on some artists I knew from later projects (Gary Asquith of Renegade Soundwave comes to mind.) All in all, a good read for anyone interested in record labels, what used to be known as the music industry, 80s music, design and/or passive-aggressive shenanigans.
April 25, 2018
Descubrí a la discográfica 4AD por ahí de mediados/finales de los 80's. Al principio todo fue por una banda/artista, después más bandas se fueron acumulando en mi gusto y en mi colección de discos y esas bandas tenían un común denominador, bueno dos... todas tenían el sello 4AD y en todas aparecía un nombre en común IVO WATTS RUSSELL. Por lo que, en lo personal, no sólo me hice fan de las bandas, sino de la compañía. Sabiendo que si tenía el sello 4AD en el reverso (además de la dirección de arte en cada portada) el disco sería una garantía. Muy pocas compañías logran eso... admiración por la compañia, no sólo las bandas. En lo personal 4AD junto con Projekt Records son 2 compañias que simbolizan garantía en la música.
Facing the Other Way, es mucho más que sólo la historia de 4AD. Es la puerta que nos lleva a los fans de la compañia hasta las entrañas mismas de su nacimiento. Para los que somos fans, es interesante descubrir como se fue concibiendo la compañía, una compañia rodeada de mística, magia y talento. La narrativa de Martin nos conduce año por año desde los inicios de Ivo como un empleado en una tienda de discos, la época pre4AD con Beggars Banquet, la concepción de la compañia, su ideología, la creación de, sino todas, si de las joyas más emblemáticas de 4AD (bandas y discos), la relación de Ivo con sus bandas y su personal, la creación de 23 envelope con Vaughan Oliver que aportó muchísimo en la dirección de arte y que se convirtiera en algo emblemático de 4AD -al ver una portada de un disco sabías de entrada que era 4AD- se toca la depresión de Ivo que lo llevara a su salida de 4AD y un breve paso por la época actual.
Una historia bien documentada, como debe serlo, con entrevistas de la época y entrevistas actuales a la gente emblemática que pasó por la 4AD - como artista o como empleado -. Es interesante ver como una misma situación es contada desde distintos puntos de vista, ya sea de Ivo, de algún artista o de algún empleado o persona cercana. Todo esto, para todos aquellos que crecimos escuchando Cocteau Twins, Dead can Dance, Pixies, This Mortal Coil, Red House Painters, etc., nos acerca mucho más a la visión de Ivo y a la "mística" puesta detrás de cada artista y cada disco.
Si bien 4AD sigue existiendo, la magia detrás de la compañía ya no. Dicha magia se extinguió con la salida de Ivo y las bandas que lo acompañaron en esas épocas. Con algunas excepciones, The National por ejemplo, actualmente no hay ninguna banda que genere lo que bandas como Cocteau Twins, Dead can Dance, Throwing Muses, Lush, Red House Painters, Pixies, entre otras, lograron crear. Gran parte por su talento, pero también en parte por la filosofía y visión de Ivo Watts Russell.
4AD más que una compañía de discos era una cultura... un estilo de vida. Y es increíble ser parte de esa historia - aunque sea como fan -.
Facing the Other Way, es mucho más que sólo la historia de 4AD. Es la puerta que nos lleva a los fans de la compañia hasta las entrañas mismas de su nacimiento. Para los que somos fans, es interesante descubrir como se fue concibiendo la compañía, una compañia rodeada de mística, magia y talento. La narrativa de Martin nos conduce año por año desde los inicios de Ivo como un empleado en una tienda de discos, la época pre4AD con Beggars Banquet, la concepción de la compañia, su ideología, la creación de, sino todas, si de las joyas más emblemáticas de 4AD (bandas y discos), la relación de Ivo con sus bandas y su personal, la creación de 23 envelope con Vaughan Oliver que aportó muchísimo en la dirección de arte y que se convirtiera en algo emblemático de 4AD -al ver una portada de un disco sabías de entrada que era 4AD- se toca la depresión de Ivo que lo llevara a su salida de 4AD y un breve paso por la época actual.
Una historia bien documentada, como debe serlo, con entrevistas de la época y entrevistas actuales a la gente emblemática que pasó por la 4AD - como artista o como empleado -. Es interesante ver como una misma situación es contada desde distintos puntos de vista, ya sea de Ivo, de algún artista o de algún empleado o persona cercana. Todo esto, para todos aquellos que crecimos escuchando Cocteau Twins, Dead can Dance, Pixies, This Mortal Coil, Red House Painters, etc., nos acerca mucho más a la visión de Ivo y a la "mística" puesta detrás de cada artista y cada disco.
Si bien 4AD sigue existiendo, la magia detrás de la compañía ya no. Dicha magia se extinguió con la salida de Ivo y las bandas que lo acompañaron en esas épocas. Con algunas excepciones, The National por ejemplo, actualmente no hay ninguna banda que genere lo que bandas como Cocteau Twins, Dead can Dance, Throwing Muses, Lush, Red House Painters, Pixies, entre otras, lograron crear. Gran parte por su talento, pero también en parte por la filosofía y visión de Ivo Watts Russell.
4AD más que una compañía de discos era una cultura... un estilo de vida. Y es increíble ser parte de esa historia - aunque sea como fan -.
July 7, 2021
The story of 4AD has been accompanying me on subway cars and planes and living comfortably in backpacks and on various shelves for the past 3 months. I found this comprehensive account equally inspiring and devastating on a personal level but also endlessly insightful for music-making, design, conceptual thinking, pop culture and creative practice generally speaking.
Some central themes for me include: how can pure vision offer itself freely into an increasingly capitalist-dominant framework manned by profit-driven record companies (at times, 4AD included) and media outlets? How can romantic partners foster and nurture creative projects without a predetermined, unavoidable self-destruct point? How can personal ideals and hypersensitivity be the ultimate assets to productivity? How can art practice be in touch with history while dreaming of better futures? Is putting the finger on some hidden pulse beside the point?
Regardless of any answers to those questions, the task of collecting and assembling so many perspectives while maintaining an objective, fair and non-biased stance must have been like scaling Olympus and Martin Aston succeeds from start to finish. It's a massive book (for me at least) but it was also addictive reading. There are so many perspectives juggled here from the obvious in Ivo Watts Russell and his various assistants and capos to the late, great Vaughan Oliver and a sizable portion of all those involved with making of the albums/eps/singles from the inception of the label in 1980 all the way thru the publishing around 2012. Aston has done a stunning job managing it all!
I came to the book already a fan of some essential acts on the roster like Cocteau Twins and Pixies but left with a heightened awareness for Throwing Muses, Colin Newmann, GusGus and especially His Name is Alive (Warren Defever). I also hadn't realized how much 4AD has continued to serve as a beacon for all things cool post Ivo (after 1999), signing acts as diverse as Mountain Goats, TV on the Radio, St. Vincent, tUnE-yArDs and many more. Summing up, "Facing the Other Way" is essential reading for all creative people. A cautionary tale but also a blueprint for dreaming new ways forward in an otherwise dull, mediocre world. Care about what you do!
Some central themes for me include: how can pure vision offer itself freely into an increasingly capitalist-dominant framework manned by profit-driven record companies (at times, 4AD included) and media outlets? How can romantic partners foster and nurture creative projects without a predetermined, unavoidable self-destruct point? How can personal ideals and hypersensitivity be the ultimate assets to productivity? How can art practice be in touch with history while dreaming of better futures? Is putting the finger on some hidden pulse beside the point?
Regardless of any answers to those questions, the task of collecting and assembling so many perspectives while maintaining an objective, fair and non-biased stance must have been like scaling Olympus and Martin Aston succeeds from start to finish. It's a massive book (for me at least) but it was also addictive reading. There are so many perspectives juggled here from the obvious in Ivo Watts Russell and his various assistants and capos to the late, great Vaughan Oliver and a sizable portion of all those involved with making of the albums/eps/singles from the inception of the label in 1980 all the way thru the publishing around 2012. Aston has done a stunning job managing it all!
I came to the book already a fan of some essential acts on the roster like Cocteau Twins and Pixies but left with a heightened awareness for Throwing Muses, Colin Newmann, GusGus and especially His Name is Alive (Warren Defever). I also hadn't realized how much 4AD has continued to serve as a beacon for all things cool post Ivo (after 1999), signing acts as diverse as Mountain Goats, TV on the Radio, St. Vincent, tUnE-yArDs and many more. Summing up, "Facing the Other Way" is essential reading for all creative people. A cautionary tale but also a blueprint for dreaming new ways forward in an otherwise dull, mediocre world. Care about what you do!
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