Network Records.. Quality House Music

"I'm not dissing dance, the music's still great, but its part of the mainstream now.." - Neil Rushton.

Birmingham based and originally formed out of Kool Kat Records by Neil Rushton and Dave Barker, Network has gone on to be recognised as an incredibly important label in the progression of dance music in the UK. The label has had a pretty diverse range of sounds and certainly did not limit itself to pigeon holing one particular genre. Some of the very early releases (Bio-Rhythm) concentrated on breaking the Detroit Techno sound in the UK but as the label expanded the next couple years saw releases from (and this is not an exhaustive list) Altern8, Nexus 21, Reese Project, Mother, Slo-Moshun, Rhythm Quest, Darleene Lewis, Sure Is Pure, The Groove Corporation, La'Homme Van Renn, Love Revolution, Kevin Saunderson, True Faith and My Friend Sam. The label was a trove of quality dance music with a spattering of chart success from the likes of KWS. It is of course also worth pointing out that label owner Neil Rushton was the Project Co-Ordinator on the very first Renaissance Mix Collection, mixed by Sasha & John Digweed. Here we have an interview from 1995 talking all things music..

"I was pissed off that the last Reese Project wasn't a big hit.. We're being careful to set things up properly"

"Sony earn 49% of us, which means we're still in control. We're certainly not their in house dance arm.."

Article first appeared in DJ magazine - June 1995