eMERGENCY hEARTS is a “anarchist run underground indie art collaborative” as described on the about page of the labels webpage based in Austin Texas. The label consists of a variety of electronic artists, releasing new music from these artists as well as music that had had been lost for centuries only to be revived by the label’s effort to find recordings of these early electronic acts.
I had explored the artists and music of this label to get a good understanding I had the pleasure of interviewing scott crow, head of the eMERGENCY hEARTS record label. While I thought I would have direct quotes from the interview as I had recorded it, I did not realize that the audio did not record until I was done with the interview, leaving me with a video full of lips moving and no audio 🙁 . Here I do my best to translate my notes on the interview from memory. Remember kids, always make sure to check that your audio is recording both video and audio and have a back up plan such as your phone recording the audio through voice memos. Don’t be like me!
eMERGENCY hEARTS Artists
There is a quite a few artists associated with eMERGENCY hEARTS as collaborations and remixes are the modern lifeblood keeping the music of the label. Popular darkwave bands like Clan of Xymox frequently work with artists remixing their songs and creating music collaboratively. Even University of New Haven’s own “Ye Gods” has helped collaborate with artists on the label!
Lesson Seven
Lesson Seven was a industrial darkwave electronic band formed in Dallas Texas and active between the years 1986-1992. The members of the band include scott crow (vocals and synths), David Starfire (guitar, bass, and synths), as well as Wynne Matrin (synths, sampling, and programming). Chris Vrenna, drummer for Nine Inch Nails, was also a short member of the band playing on tour with Lesson Seven. In their heyday, Lesson Seven toured with many notable names in the darkwave scene including Nine Inch Nails, Clan of Xymox, Swans, and Front Line Assembly. Their single “Radiation” was featured in many mixes and compilations and their music had college radio airplay topping DJ charts all across the U.S. in the late 80s and 90s. Below is footage of Nine Inch Nails and lesson playing together live in Dallas 1990.
Since 2019, Lesson Seven has been releasing previously unreleased demos onto music streaming services and the band’s revival and modern 21st century remixes had influenced scott to start eMERGENCY hEARTS, a platform to release these demos and continue to curated historic and brand new underground electronic music in Texas and over the globe. Lesson Seven is only one of many legacy electronic acts being revived for modern music streaming by eMERGENCY hEARTS.
SINE
SINE is one of my favorite acts on the label. Originating as a drummer out of New York, Rona Rougeheart’s solo music project embraces distorted soundscapes and infectious reverb soaked rhythms. Her music defies the overproduced and controlled sounds of dance and opts for a “mix of jagged textures and dark, lush fusions.” She has released two records released on eMERGENCY hEARTS with more in the works and began writing for the Television series “Villains Wear Black Presents” in 2020. She reflects a modern generation of artists singed to eMERGENCY hEARTS continuing to push boundries of electronic music
The Interview
As we had introduced ourselves, he had expressed to me that he doesn’t get requests for interviews involving music often as he primarily gets requests for interviews surrounding anarchy and his political history. As a little icebreaker, we talked about music important to him at different points of his life such as the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, The Who, and Cabaret Voltaire. We also talked about our favorite music gear, and he expressed that is favorite gear he reached for when making music was the “producer”, which I thought was funny. He admitted to not being much of a “gear head” and often uses the Arturia V-collection plugin software suite when he wants a vintage sound rather than a hardware synthesizers when helping the music production process today. He admits to having a hand in the producing process when working with artists on a record, but also has several talented producers connected to the label
I had first asked scott about the inclusion of the “anarchist-run” part of his record label description and how those political ideologies begin to make their way into how he runs his label. Scott expressed to me how he sees anarchy as a way to give control back to the artists and work “collaboratively” with them. Collaboration was a big emphasis of this discussion as he talked about that impacts collaboration has within each member of the label and how the other members working inside the label practice anarchy to keep a positive work environment and broaden their view so they may look outside of the label for music and collaboration. Scott also emphasized that anarchy effects the way that he creates contracts with artists as he never “owns” any artists, making agreements for single and records and letting the artist choose if and when they would like to look for opportunities beyond the label.
I then asked scott how this electronic music scene in Texas began and how he became a part of it. This was a really interesting part of the interview as scott talked about how the cities cultivated the culture of these bands as well. He mentioned Philippe Starck’s video bar in Dallas, a now famous architect that designed an avant-garde nightclub in the city, akin to the bars forming around the same time overseas spawning the New Romantics and synth pop. He also cited psychedelic bands such as the Thirteenth Floor Elevators in creating an audience for underground music in Texas and specifically Austin. However it was the crossover of the synthesized pop of the early 80s and the popular industrial “Wax-Trax” from up north such as skinny puppy out of Vancouver, that that scott cited as the defining influence on the underground electronic music scene in Texas. Record stores such as Bills music in Dallas and Record Gallery in Austin also helped cultivate and share these industrial and techno tracks that helped keep feeding music from all over the world to these underground music enthusiasts. This lead to popular industrial acts such as Nine Inch Nails and popular synth wave artists such as Cabaret Voltaire making the trip to Texas on each of their east cost tours, further solidifying Texas as a hotspot for avant-garde electronic acts. He mentioned while not all commercially popular, these darkwave and industrial acts were popular in their own tightly knit community of fans.
Scott and I finally talked about his vision for the label and preserving the history surrounding Texas electronic and underground music. While resurgences of folk, country, and genres of rock have been highly studied and documented, scott was upset that there was nothing there for the electronic music of Texas. However, scott had lost a lot of his old recordings since he had left the music industry and only had recently began to prioritize music production and curation in his life again. Therefore, scott began to reach out to his fans to see if they had any recordings of concerts and music from Lesson Seven and other underground Texas acts. Scott told me the archive of electronic music he was collecting was at first going to serve as idea for a book, but ultimately ended up as a record label. Scott took the information and music he had collected and put bios of these historic acts on the label’s website as well as releasing these recordings on streaming services.
The work that eMERGENCY hEARTS in archiving electronic music and curating underground acts is important as it preserves history and inspires artists to follow in the footsteps of these avant-garde innovators. It was a pleasure to be able to talk with scott and I highly suggest checking out the playlist below and find some electronic music curated in Austin that you may enjoy as well.
Sources
Crow, Scott. eMERGENCY hEARTS. https://www.emergencyhearts.com
Simek, Peter. “How the Starck Club Changed Dallas.” D Magazine, 17 Oct. 2022, https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2013/april/how-the-starck-club-changed-dallas/.
Wilnosky, Robert. “Bill Wisener, Who Every Day for 40 Years Ran Iconic Dallas Store Bill’s Records, Died Saturday.” Dallas News, 12 Jan. 2020, https://www.dallasnews.com/news/commentary/2020/01/11/bill-wisener-who-every-day-for-40-years-ran-dallas-last-record-store-died-saturday/.
