A Little Mysterious Yet Also Familiar: Woodford Halse Interview

Mat Handley explains all on the origins, operations and objectives of his much-loved little label with a big-hearted reach

Whilst arguably easier than ever to make independently produced music available via digital routes, it is still hard to fight for actual listening attention and shelf space in physical libraries. As we’ve illustrated on these pages previously, with profiles of other one-person-run labels such as Polytechnic Youth, Castles in Space, Clay Pipe Music and Sonic Cathedral, it takes special levels of determination, distinctiveness and dynamism to properly curate and contextualise works of sonic art that might otherwise only bob around the Bandcamp or Soundcloud fringes and – in some cases – languish on home studio hard drives.

Woodford Halse is another such enterprise, currently running on an even smaller but steadily expanding scale, to provide space to creators whose productivity is currently having to be spread across several outlets as well as to those who might not otherwise be given a proper corporeal presence.

Directed from the Doncaster dominion of one Mat Handley (who also records as the leader of the richly chameleonic Pulselovers and as a member of several other musical projects), Woodford Halse has over the last four or so years brought us a slew of albums, compilations and the odd EP showcasing many familiar prolific suspects (The Home Current, Polypores, Rupert Lally, Drew Mulholland, Ffion, Apta, The Central Office of Information, Bernard Grancher) and some lesser-known intriguing characters (Personal Bandana, The Hologram People, Firefay, Xylitol, Bizarre Statue, Giants of Discovery, The Voice of Saturn). Along the way this has meant stylistically funnelling left-field electronica, amorphous psych-rock and folk exotica, from a wide variety of global outposts.

With each Bandcamp-tied-in release sleeved in holistically-branded in-house packaging, that marks out every cassette, CD and the occasional lathe-cut 7” outing as part of a completionist-rewarding extended family, while respecting the diversity of its affiliated artists’ own visions, Woodford Halse is fast becoming a cultural enterprise where high quality control, organisational efficiency and thoughtful presentations are converging in near-faultless fashion.

Conversed with over email, in between the day-job and assembling another strong autumn line-up of fresh product, the affable and self-effacing Handley proved to be the personification of Woodford Halse’s generous spirit behind the scenes too.

How, when and why did Woodford Halse begin as a label?

It was around 2017. I had been presenting a show on a local community radio station and as such, my email inbox was continuously bombarded with new releases on small labels, and it was around this time that I noticed that more and more albums were being issued on cassette. This was a format that I’d stopped caring about decades earlier, but something about the immediacy and nostalgia of the format piqued my interest again – so much so that I started buying tapes, usually via Bandcamp a good six months before I even had any means of playing them. Once my love for the format had been reignited, it wasn’t such a large step to considering putting out something myself.

Most of the artists that I featured on the radio show are fully represented on social media and I’d built up relationships with many of them simply by tagging them in the various plugs for the show on Facebook and Twitter. Getting such amazing artists such as Stephen (Polypores), Alan (Revbjelde), Paul (Time Attendant) and many others to submit unreleased tracks for a compilation was (mainly due to their gracious generosity) relatively simple. It was then just a matter of finding a duplication service I could trust. There have been two or three tried and tested over the years and I’ve now settled for a small family-run business who are also local-ish.

What inspired the choice of name?

Maybe it’s due to my age, but most of what I do artistically is steeped in nostalgia… more specifically nostalgia for my childhood and members of my family who are no longer with us. Woodford Halse is a small village in Northamptonshire on the outskirts of Daventry (where we lived as a family for around six years in the early to late 70s). It’s where my Great Grandad and Grandma lived from 1911 until their deaths (1952 and 1987 respectively). When thinking about starting the label, I wanted a name which was maybe a little mysterious yet also familiar. Woodford Halse seemed to fit the bill as soon as the idea popped into my head, I didn’t really consider anything else.

What other labels past and present influenced the way you approached things when you initially set up Woodford Halse?

Too many. I tend to have an affinity with labels that have a distinct identity, whether that be the look or style of the artwork, the cataloguing system or even the relationships between the acts that are on the roster. Favourite labels will be the ones I feel a need to own every single release. It’s an expensive and sometimes frustrating compulsion, but one I’ve had ever since I first started buying music in my teens. 4AD was always my first love; from Vaughan Oliver / 23 Envelope’s distinctive art direction, the AD/BAD/CAD catalogue numbers and the almost incestuous relationships between some the ‘classic’ era acts (This Mortal Coil / Cocteaus / Modern English / Colourbox / Wolfgang Press), there was always a reason to look forward to the next release. Other obvious touchstones would be Factory, Mute, Some Bizzare and in the current era, Castles in Space, Clay Pipe and Ghost Box.

What these labels all have in common is that the approach to the presentation is almost as important as the content itself. The sleeve/artwork that represents the music is meticulously curated and always seems to fit. I can’t listen to the Cocteau Twins’ album Treasure without seeing that lace-shrouded tailor’s dummy in muted browns, greens and amber. I don’t need to know the meaning of the image, for me the sleeve art and the sound belong to each other. I would never claim that the correlation between Woodford Halse music and visuals are so intimately entwined, but it’s certainly something to aspire to.

So far, you’ve been predominantly releasing things physically as cassettes, tied-in digitally with Bandcamp. What made you decide to take that route? Was it partly down to an ‘it’s either this, downloads-only or nothing’ practical economic decision?

I suppose so, yeah, though I have discovered that digital-only releases rarely get the attention they deserve; people generally only want to pay for something tangible. Bandcamp is the ultimate platform as far as I’m concerned. It’s just so simple to use. I don’t have the time, energy or will to look at other digital outlets (Spotify, Deezer etc.) and I’m certainly not a fan of how those businesses operate from an artist’s perspective. Having said that, every artist who releases music with me retains ownership of their music and they are free to put it on whatever service they choose to with no judgement from me, I’m just not interested in doing it for the label.

Until now, each physical album has only been produced in small numbers (50-150 copies), so there has not been a need for me to consider involving other physical outlets. However, I’ve recently started putting a few CDs out in slightly larger volumes, so there will be one or two current and forthcoming albums that you may see appearing in some of the more established online record stores. I’ve no desire to expand beyond that.

Are you accepting of the fact that some people are essentially buying a nicely curated artefact to go with a release they may only listen to as downloads or streams? Contrastingly, are you encouraged that people appear to be digging old out or investing in new/secondhand tape-playing kit to experience them in a corporeal form?

I’m certainly guilty of buying albums only to discover six months later that they’re still in their shrink wrap! It’s more to do with the limited number of free hours in the day than any sense of not wanting to play the thing. There will always be collectors who treat their acquisitions as artefacts and keep them sealed away somewhere away from dust and UV light. I hope that most people who buy a Woodford Halse tape or CD get the most out of their purchase by experiencing it in its intended form. There’s no beating sitting in a comfortable room with a nice mug of tea, listening to an album from start to finish on half decent speakers in the original format. I try and reserve at least four continuous hours a week to do just that and it’s the most relaxing and rewarding way to experience music. There are a couple of great eBay sellers who recondition vintage hi-fi units, so spending a few hundred quid with one of these guys comes highly recommended and is definitely the way to get the most out of your cassette collection.

Why do you think that cassette labels appear to have become so abundant and successful, in micro-scale terms, in the last few years? Has the enabling infrastructure combination of Bandcamp and Twitter been quite crucial?

I’m no expert and can only speak for myself, but it’s relatively quick and easy to do. I’m not technically minded and away from social media I’m extremely socially awkward, but if the synergy that exists in the virtual world between Bandcamp, Twitter and Instagram can enable someone like me to become reasonably adept at this sort of thing, I’m not surprised that a ‘scene’ has developed around this operating model.

All your releases are handsomely-packaged with semi-uniform die-cut outer sleeves. Where did you get the idea for that and why do think it has so worked so well? Has it proved to be an accidentally shrewd marketing move which certain collectors can’t resist?

This goes back to the inspiration behind starting the label itself. When the idea first started percolating, I knew that ‘label identity’ would be very important to me. I look for it when I’m searching for new music and sometimes, I’ll invest in a label’s catalogue purely (or initially at least) on the visual aesthetic alone. So, I knew that if Woodford Halse was going to happen, it had to have a certain look; one that appealed to the collector in me.

Luckily, back in 2018 I helped run a small independent cinema club in Doncaster (I use the term ‘run’ very loosely here; I was mainly in charge of putting the chairs away at the end of the night). Two of the people who also ran the club just happened to be artist and illustrator Nick Taylor and wordsmith (and future Miracle Pond / Beam Weapons main man) Paul Bareham. I gave Nick a ‘back-of-an-envelope’ scrawled draft of my vision for a multi part generic sleeve concept for the tapes and he turned that into the most beautifully designed template.

The first six Woodford Halse releases were all handmade and screen printed by Nick and are amongst my most treasured possessions in the WH archive. The reasonably rapid production rate of the label meant that the screen printing soon had to be dropped. The time and cost that this method incurred would have been prohibitive to the growth of the project. Armed with Nick’s template and a copy of Photoshop, I now take care of layouts, colourings and some design aspects myself and have the cassette sleeves printed professionally by machines, although the folding, sticking and assembly is still done at home by hand (by me!). Paul continues to write the strange episodes from an alternate Woodford Halse which appear on the cigarette cards for my compilation series Undulating Waters.

You’re also branching out into CDs and lathe-cut 7″s. How is that going down for you? Will we see even more of those in future alongside or instead of cassettes?

The beauty of the cassette is that I can receive a mastered album on the first of the month and near enough have the album manufactured and ready to ship by the 30th. This kind of turnaround is simply not possible with CDs or lathe cuts, so there will always be cassettes. For those who simply refuse to buy tapes, CDs are also going to continue. I currently have two new CD releases in my possession and three or four more in production.

The 7” lathe cut I’ve done recently was very well received and I will be doing more, however these are items that only just break even, so they will only be done when I’m feeling particularly flush and have something that begs to be put out on this niche format. I’ve got another in the pipeline, but it’s too soon to give anything away just yet!

Do you eventually hope to release some albums on vinyl, or do you feel that’s a route closed off to you due to the current headaches with manufacturing? Would it also slow you down in releasing as much material as you would like to?

I’ve always said to myself that the full vinyl route is not for me. I have only one small room to work out of at home and this is also the room that doubles up as my studio too. I’ve seen other label bosses post pictures of full pallets of boxes arriving from the factory and I’m pretty sure my better half would kill me if I were to start getting such deliveries. I’ll never say never though, just don’t hold your breath.

Speaking of your release rate, 2020 and 2021 has seen Woodford Halse consistently delivering an average of two albums each month, with remarkably consistent quality control. Behind the scenes, has this been a logistical challenge or you have got into an increasingly well-drilled rhythm?

Initially, the ramping up of production was enabled by the pandemic. I was working from home and had so much usable free time as a result, I just couldn’t seem to say “no” when someone approached me with a great project. I now find myself in a position where I’m not happy unless I have several projects on the go. The problem is I now no longer work from home, and I also work odd hours with the NHS including night shifts. I may need to reign things in a little at some point, but for now I seem to be able to keep on top of it. I do most of the layout/artwork myself these days and I’m pretty efficient at it. My printing and duplication contacts are also very good at their jobs and know what I like/need, so it’s a very well-oiled machine.

You’re also part of a cluster of small label-owners sharing the profuse spoils of recordings from some of the underground electronic scene’s most relentlessly productive artists – such as The Home Current, Polypores, The Central Office of Information, Bernard Grancher and Rupert Lally. Is it hard but fun keeping-up with them and navigating when to schedule releases alongside their other hosts?

Scheduling has been one of the things that up to now I’ve not really considered too much. However, with the mentioned artists above (and some others), their proficiency does occasionally mean that there is new product available elsewhere and is being promoted before the ink on their last album has fully dried! I’m still to work out how to manage this as far as my own scheduling is concerned, and so far, it’s not really been a problem. But yeah, slow down guys, please let me keep up!

Encouragingly, you have also been diversifying genre-wise more in recent times, with the pan-European folk-rock of Firefay, the kaleidoscopic psych of The Hologram People and the hard-to-classify Ghostwriter. Are you keen to ensure that Woodford Halse extends its stylistic reach, to reflect your own broad tastes and to stop it from becoming too easily pigeonholed?

Absolutely. The intention was never that Woodford Halse would be a purely electronic label. My own tastes are diverse, and you only have to look at the first two volumes of Undulating Waters to know that there is room for acoustic, folk, experimental and psychedelic sounds within these walls. There are certain genres that probably wouldn’t be a good fit for the label even if I’m a fan of the music – I can’t see me putting a ska album out any time soon. But there is still a lot of rich and varied music out there and if it fits with my own personal ideas of what Woodford Halse is about, I will consider releasing it.

How much active searching for new sign-ups do you undertake now or are you at the point where one artist connection just leads to another?

I get sent demos almost daily and I do listen to every one of them. I also try to reply to everyone as quickly and democratically as I can. There is certainly more music sent to me that I like but don’t have the time or finance to work on and this can be frustrating for me and especially the artist. I’m grateful for each piece of music that drops into my in-tray even if I’m not able to consider most of them for release. Occasionally, I will approach artists and ask them for something, usually for compilations when I’m trying to curate a certain mood or feel. There are also plenty of people who I’ve asked but have either turned me down or put me in the ‘promised land’ for years on end! I keep sending those people a little reminder!

What Woodford Halse wares do you have lined-up for the rest of this year and beyond, that you can reveal at the moment?

Well, before next year there are two new volumes of Undulating Waters in production with contributions from the likes of Korb, Sairie, Angeline Morrison, Listening Center, Prana Crafter and many more. Depending on when this interview is published, we have albums from drummer/percussionist Ryan James Mawbey, a collaboration between US drone duo Requiem and British Cellist Simon McCorry, experimental electronics from Spykidelic, an album of heavily manipulated stock audio from Simon Proffitt and hopefully an anthology collection from the musician / artist / director / model / all-round polymath Maya Hardinge. 2022 will also be a full-on year with confirmed releases from The Home Current, Medusa Phase, Bernard Grancher, Busy Microbes (Nick Edwards and Katie English) and lots more.

Do you envisage doing any Woodford Halse live events, as pandemic life hopefully continues to ease?

It’s a nice idea but I think looking at my location (my hometown of Doncaster does not have any interest in live music) and my general demeanour (the social awkwardness) mean that it’s highly unlikely.

Forced at gunpoint to name some of your favourite Woodford Halse albums to date, what would you choose?

That would change every day. The sensible me would say the most recent release (whatever that is at the time of reading this article). But with a gun pointed to my head, I would pick out albums from Bizarre Statue, Xylitol, Apta, Field Lines Cartographer, Polypores – how many can I have?

How are things coming together for your own next releases as Pulselovers?

Slow! I have two projects finished and one in the last stages of completion, all for different labels and none of them likely to see the light of day until next year. I can’t really say much about them as they’ve not been announced yet, but I’m very excited and they’re all quite different from each other in sound and execution (for one of them I’ve all but ditched the computer/DAW). I’m also working on a couple of different new things; one is a follow up to Cotswold Stone (different concept, but similar in mood/feel) and another is more in line with the ‘Northern Minimalism’ stuff I’ve been doing where I’m taking inspiration from the electronic and post-punk sounds of the late-70s Sheffield-Manchester-Liverpool scene.

Has being a musician and a label boss been useful in terms of seeing both sides of a key music industry fence?

I don’t really see myself as either to be honest. Every time I put something out there, whether it be a new Woodford Halse album or something from Pulselovers, I get this sinking feeling that I’m going to be outed as a fraud, an amateur or a faker. I’m sure I’ve learned things on this little adventure, but I always feel like I’m winging it and just happened to have got lucky. Self-doubt is a terrible thing, but I am getting better.

Were you in many other bands before founding Pulselovers?

Not really. I first tried making music in the early-80s before real life got in the way and only started thinking about it again as my kids got to an age when they didn’t need me to wipe their noses every five minutes. Pulselovers was just a name that I tagged onto the music as it sounded better than using my own name and I really (REALLY) love the early Human League – “Pulse Lovers” was the name of one of their early tracks which I thought I could nick without too many people immediately getting the reference. I have played minor roles as part of some local improvisational projects here in Doncaster, and I recently uploaded an album of some of these experiments on Bandcamp. I’ve also collaborated on some live things here too, but nothing I would recommend looking for!

There was a brief but productive collaboration with Allan Murphy of Midwich Youth Club in 2016. Our digital album The Overload is still one of the things I’m most proud of, yet it went way under the radar at the time. I’m sure that one would benefit from a physical reissue should any sympathetic label be reading this! Currently, I play with the band vert:x and have recorded three albums with them: Death to False Motorik, Hed and the latest one a collaboration with legendary Sheffield vocalist Pete Hope – this one should be released before the end of the year I think. I also play in Floodlights with John Alexander and Harriet Lisa (who regularly play with me in Pulselovers too). I’ve recorded two albums with them (Floodlights, A Beautiful Stage) and a third is nearly finished too.

Do you have anything else you’d like to pursue?

Time travel? There are not enough hours in the day to consider other projects. If I did have more time, I would only want to expand/improve on the two related but separate projects that already take up all my downtime. I feel blessed to be able to work with so many talented and generous artists. The fact that there are people who trust me to present their art is amazing and pushes me on to make as good a job at it as I possibly can.

An abridged Woodford Halse starter’s guide:

Below is an almost entirely subjective selection of releases from the Woodford Halse canon, in approximate chronological order, to check out without delay.

The Home Current – Coal Pit Zen

The Central Office of Information – Treedom

Polypores – Tempus

Field Lines Cartographer – Formic Kingdom

Apta – Vignettes

Personal Bandana – This Time It’s…

Firefay – Tales of Monsters and Fairies

The Home Current – Endless Exile

The Central Office of Information – Private Issue Synthetic Music 2010 – 2020

The Hologram People – Sacred Ritual to Unlock the Mountain Portal

Giants of Discovery – Orpheus

Salvatore Mercatante – Tre Sfere

Ffion – Sessile

The Voice of Saturn – Gratitude

Ghostwriter – I Was Mistaken for a Literary Man EP