How has Berlin changed since you founded City Slang in 1990?

[Christof] How long do we have? The city has changed a lot. We saw the fall of the wall in 84, then the German parliament voted to move the capital from Bonn to Berlin and the politicians and lobbyists moved in, followed by big companies. Berlin had always been a wonderfully cheap place to live, which made it a magnet for artists because they could live and create freely. But once people from all over the world started noticing how cheap it was too, that drove the prices up. Now it’s becoming very shiny and expensive. 

What was your introduction to American alternative music? 

[Christof] There were a couple of epiphanies – life-changing concerts when I was younger – that sort of turned my life upside down. The intensity and soul and directness got under my skin. I saw The Gun Club in 1982 and that changed my life. There was this guy on stage, singing his heart out, singing his soul out, to a pounding rhythm over a primitive, soulful guitar, and running through it all there's just this punk energy. It was like Credence Clearwater Revival and The Sex Pistols formed a band. I was like, what is this? 

I had an older friend who acted as a mentor and would say listen to this, then this, then this. I started going to Metalheadz all-nighters in London and saw Goldie and that lot performing live. Experiencing that bass for the first time… It was mind-blowing, mind-altering. 

Over the years, my taste has changed a lot, though. I think that’s important. It’s sad to keep listening to the things that got you through the ‘80s. 

Was there an American alternative scene in Berlin or did you have to convince people? 

[Christof] Not really, it was more just my personal taste. It was an underground scene back in 1990. I had booked some of the bands before, in my job as a booking agent, and they asked if I could help get their records released in Europe. That’s how it started. 

There's definitely more acceptance for what we do now. Sometimes our records even make it onto the charts. When Nirvana happened in 1989, it caused a seismic shift and our scene was suddenly thrust into the spotlight. But for the most part we exist on the fringe, occasionally poking at the mainstream. That hasn't changed. 

You said your taste has developed and changed over the years. Did that inform your decision to branch out into electronic music? 

[Christof] Yes, that move felt very organic. It wasn’t so much a decision as a logical response to what was happening in the industry. After Nirvana’s success, all the major labels suddenly started buying into our scene. They flooded the market with second rate Nirvanas, which meant that we could no longer get our bands into magazines, or get their tracks played on the radio. 

I got pretty tired of it all. Then a friend from Chicago told me about a band called Tortoise, made up of three drummers and two bass players. That was another epiphany. They pulled me out of the post-Nirvana grunge ditch I’d fallen into and introduced me to remix culture and electronic music. 

That being said, when I first played Tortoise for the office, they looked at me like, where do you want to go with this? That scared me a bit. But when we put out their first record, the public response was overwhelming. People really got it. After that, we started doing remixes with other electronic and drum and bass artists.

Of all the projects you’ve released over the past 30 years, which has had the most polarising or surprising public reception? 

[Christof] Unfortunately, not getting the hoped-for response to an artist is pretty standard in our industry. In terms of polarising, I worked with Hole back in the day and Courtney Love was always polarising. But she was a tremendous help to this label. I will never say anything negative about Courtney Love.

Like Miista, you have decided to remain independent rather than being bought up by a bigger company. Why was that important to you? 

[Christof]  We were first approached in ‘98 by someone who wanted to buy my share of the company. In other words, they wanted the rights to our artists’ music. This was one of the majors and they had done the same thing with Creation records and Skint records. They would cherry-pick an artist like Fatboy Slim and turbocharge their career, but in the process destroy the original label. I watched that happen, I saw it.

I did try it in ‘99, with Virgin Records. We built a structure where independent labels would work collaboratively with major labels, but I watched how the corporate culture destroyed even this beautiful little model. After four years, it fell apart. That was hard to come back from but I learned my lesson. Making yourself dependent on other people means that, when they don't do their job, everything is a mess. I never wanted to be in that position again. Now, I control the fate of my company. In terms of its art and its employees, at least. There are always issues like cashflow and logistical things like that. But I think independence is key.

How does being independent and having such an involved founder inform the way you work together as a team? 

[Christof] I mean, at City Slang we now have an office full of people from Paris, Chicago, Belfast, Philadelphia, Toronto, Medina…

[Laura] It’s interesting because we work like a family. We all have our individual talents and skills but we always work together. That’s what makes us strong, that we trust each other so much. That's what it really means to be independent. To be free to take initiative and have ideas and discuss and question why we’re doing things. Just the fact that we can be so spontaneous. That’s freedom.

Has social media changed the way you discover new artists?

[Christof] Yes and no. It was rare to catch great unsigned American bands playing live in Berlin in the ‘90s. So for me, it’s always been about the network. Have you heard this? Have you heard that? That’s my favourite sentence. Once we got going, we were able to give some of those US bands I’d loved from afar a home away from home. They would recommend us to other bands that were looking for a European home and the network grew from there. 

It's the same thing today, only there's a lot more music being made. Sometimes it’s a case of you should see this, but it’s hard to judge a live band from recordings. Sometimes you can get a sense of how far along they are. A couple of years ago we picked up a band who only had one song out, but we were all obsessed with it. By the time we saw them live, they were good. After a year on the road, they were insanely good. That’s the ideal scenario. 

If City Slang was a person, how would their friends describe them?

[Laura] I think there are two visions of us, from our artists and our audience. I think our audience would describe us as surprising and unpredictable but always reliable. Obsessed with the quality of our output. Almost annoyingly so, in fact. But overall, comforting. We always try to take people by the hand. 

For our artists, I think it's the same feeling of being part of an extended family. We try to be honest, caring and reliable. If somebody has a question, idea or problem, they know they can come to us, and that they can be themselves. We're not gonna just put them in a drawer and forget about them.

[Christof] I would hope we’re a friend you can trust. The most important thing is that our artists trust us to do our utmost for them. Because they essentially hand us their career on a silver plate and they only have one career, whereas we could theoretically put out a different artist every week. So there has to be mutual trust. We trust our artists to keep developing and creating; they trust us to push the right buttons to advance their career. 

What’s coming up that you’re excited about? 

[Laura] I think we agree on this one, and it’s something we can actually talk about! We have an incredible artist called Anna B. Savage. She’s incredible but Covid made things difficult for her, so we’re really excited to be releasing her latest record, in|FLUX.