- The co-owner of RA's #1 label of 2010 talks Amsterdam, the record business and more.
- Like each of its predecessors, RA's top label of 2010, Rush Hour, harnessed the defining club sound of the year. Unlike each of its predecessors, however, Rush Hour snagged the top spot by simultaneously ushering in a new era, and reveling in the past.
The past 12 months of the Amsterdam imprint has seen Recloose and Anthony 'Shake' Shakir mining their back catalogues, Detroit upstart Kyle Hall swapping stories with elder statesman Rick Wilhite, local luminary Tom Trago leaving a trail of new remixes from his recent album, while rough diamonds from the archives of Chicago’s legendary Trax Recordings were given new life—and a decent mixdown. That's not to mention the sublabel, Hour House Is Your Rush, which further dissected the legacy of the Windy City, as the lost tapes of Gene Hunt and Ron Hardy were nestled between new cuts from Tevo Howard and KiNK.
Christiaan Macdonald and Antal Heitlager started Rush Hour as a mail order business in 1996, and in three short years it grew to consist of a shop, distribution network and record label. RA's Christine Kakaire met recently with Macdonald to talk about the early years, the harsh realities of the digital age and how they so effortlessly join the dots between Detroit, Chicago and Amsterdam.
TracklistTom Trago - Lost in the Streets of NYC - Rush Hour
Theo Parrish - So Now What - Ubiquity
Rednose Distrikt - NY Boom - Rush Hour
Aardvarck - B-Side - Rush Hour
Rick Wilhite - Drum Patterns & Memories (Rick's Morning Service Mix) - Rush Hour
Ace & The Sandman - Let Your Body Talk - Rush Hour
Kenny Larkin - Lifeforms - Rush Hour
Virgo - In a Vision - Rush Hour
KiNK & Neville Watson - Metropole - Rush Hour
Rich Medina - Out of Nothing - Kindred Spirits
Aardvarck - Nosestep - Rush Hour
Anthony 'Shake' Shakir - Arise - Rush Hour
Nebraska - The Other Side - Rush Hour
B.D.I. - City & Industry - Rush Hour