1999 was a relatively dormant period for American electronic music, it seems.Exactly, it was an in-between period. In Detroit too, there was a sort of turnover. Europe had really taken the ball and run with it. We were all sweating Cologne’s Kompakt, Berlin’s Perlon. The UK had Warp, Rephlex, trip hop, drum and bass. Everything was crystallized there. Detroit was chugging along but didn’t really have a new wave yet. So we thought: how do we present this as a boomerang back to Europe? We’re learning from the heroes before us but also pulling from IDM, drum and bass, picking up influences and shooting it back. It’s still the same philosophy now. We work in traditional genres, but the artist has to have a slight tilt. The human has to be leading through all the music, the worlds. It’s world-building as integral to the art, not as a marketing idea. Like Kraftwerk, like Devo, like Prince. You need to create a physical or visual space so people understand what you’re talking about. If you did a blind taste test, you wouldn’t draw a line from Matthew Dear to Ginger Root. But to me, it’s the same. They’ve built their own identities. Ginger Root is a great example of the kind of artists we love working with because even though there’s more surface area with social media, it’s actually harder now. It was easier when it was just a flyer, a record sleeve, and a couple interviews. Now it’s overwhelming. Ultimately, it comes down to: I like tunes. I like melody. I enjoy the music. We take it for granted that the song is still the elemental thing. We’ve always wanted to be a lowercase-p pop label, so like popular music that people enjoy without needing a degree in whatever genre the artist comes from. I’ve always been proud when we hit those moments.