Grooves

Singles going steady

The East Bay's Isota Records feeds the vinyl evolution.

By Ari Messer

An Anglo-Saxon king's highest wish was to be buried with his ship. Despite such highly muscled wills – the king's "supporters" were left without a vessel – the Anglo-Saxons decorated their vessels, armor, and accoutrements with delicately ornate carvings and clasps; they were invaders of great style. –Isota Records gets its name from the mother of cofounder Joseph Finlaw's old friend, but the word isota – which has mysterious, ancient British origins – is a suitably mythic and crafty moniker for the East Bay label. Even with setbacks piling up – from the departure of his business partner Michael Saltzman (who is pursuing screenwriting full-time) to the theft of Finlaw's laptop (which stored all of Isota's files) from his Oakland home – the label owner has shown only true, umbilical love. Is this the love of a crazy father, a wild-eyed king? On his 2003 Isota single "My Best Friend," vocalist-gut wrencher Gerald Collier sings, "Everyone knows / Life can be twisted / And the weight of it sometimes / Can't be lifted." Isota has been trying for the last four years to turn twisted life into audible art, but these efforts are full of paradoxical urges.

"I want the label to be successful, but I don't think we can be successful without doing things right," Finlaw said in a Berkeley coffee shop on a break from his "other" job, helping Cory Brown at Absolutely Kosher Records. "It goes against itself. It costs so much money to do things right. I want everyone in the world to know Sean Smith, to know Birds of America, to feel Nat [Russell's] artwork."

This may not be Alan Greenspan's definition of success, but doing things right has always been the motivating force at Isota, which Saltzman calls "an exercise in customer care." A listener once wrote to Finlaw that Birds of America's cringing, wistful "Yes, I Know That I Am Free" held him together in the wake of 9/11. Such feedback keeps him pumping blood into Isota, but can a label really survive on short moments of positive response?

The craft

Isota started with a series of 7-inches. Many singles are now collected on the Isota Singles Club CD. That disc, while a perfect introduction to Isota's catalog, fails to capture the aesthetic pleasures of the 7-inch series – thick, earthy woodcuts on the sleeves (together they make a minimalist nature series) and witty, flirty inserts. And in many ways, Isota has evolved to support what Finlaw calls Russell's "artistic genius." Birds of America's Russell is now the in-house designer, and as a result, Isota's marketing has a quirky simplicity and a trickster's tone.

Birds of America's music – Russell croons, "If I was your sister, I'd draw you a picture," over watery guitars – captures the intimate nature of Isota and the "need" that drives it. Maybe it's the way Russell's songs get inside you and live there like stories whispered in bed. In the meantime, Finlaw's care and devotion are present in every release, an intimacy that extends into unexpected places. Finlaw, for instance, has gone out of his way to put out, on vinyl, synth-pop masterpieces by New York's Double Agent recording artists the Telescopes and My Favorite. Isota released the Telescopes' groundbreaking techno-free jazz album Third Wave on vinyl in 2002, just behind its Double Agent CD release, then did the same with My Favorite's sexy, heartbreaking The Happiest Days of Our Lives, in 2003. Finlaw likes experimental sounds, though with a melancholic edge and intricate song structure.

Heavenly sounds

The singles naturally branched out into many genres. Isota released Birds of America's 2001 very lo-fi folk disc, "Yes, I Know That I Am Free," "out of necessity," Finlaw said. Lo-fi is low-cost. "But the second single is the Fluke Starbucker. They're the Heavenly States now.

"When I found that band, I felt like Alan McGee when he found Oasis!" he continued. "My musical tastes live in the '90s. I love guitar with good melodic sense, male/female vocals." After those lo-fi releases, Finlaw dove into highly produced art-loft space-pop, with the Whitey on the Moon UK (now Department of Eagles) single "Mo Tussin – The EP," in 2002. Isota began doing records in pairs: Will Oldham's gorgeous, distorted "We All, Us Three, Will Ride"/"Barcelona," and Colin Gagon's country-rock miniepic "Central Control" in 2002; and, in 2003, it put out the "spooky space rock" of the Capsules and Low Flying Owls.

Then came Uberhund's gutsy "Welcome to Hhothh," still Finlaw's favorite single. Uberhund's drummer, Jay Pellicci, has recorded Deerhoof, the undefinable type of band that could easily be on Isota. Yet perhaps something does tie Isota's artists together: a type of haunting sound with lyrics and melodies coming back to the listener at unexpected times, whether from louder bands like Boyskout (2003's "Secrets" is great bike-crashing music) and the Black Keys ("Leavin Trunk," 2003) or quieter, twangier, and poppier artists such as Gerald Collier and Chris T-T ("You Can't Stop the Machine," 2004).

In the end, Finlaw wanted the singles tree to grow bigger than its roots could handle. "I really miss the jukebox single," he said giddily. "There was a time when we were doing 7-inches where I was contacting everybody that I like. I wanted to put out a jazz single: Brian Blade, Brad Mehldau." He wanted to do a Stella comedy 7-inch, but Michael Showalter got too busy. "I wondered about doing limited pressings of Beyoncé's 'Crazy in Love' ... but I don't think that most people who run independent labels have tastes that are in the pop realm as much as mine," he added. The major pop and jazz labels ignored him.

In its attempt to turn Finlaw's scattered tastes into something other people can understand, the label has evolved into more of an experiment than a business. He confessed Isota didn't make much money on the initial 7-inches. "But the people who got back to us really loved what we did. It's important to offer these out on vinyl to the people who need them, me being one of them," he said with a laugh.

Add it up

Yet Isota is evolving. In 2005 the label focused on co-issuing vinyl by non-Isota artists and releasing new CDs by its own Birds of America, Sean Smith, Uberhund, and Remote Islands, with new releases by Birds of America, Department of Eagles, and guitarist-dream weaver Sean Smith expected in 2006. Highlighting the co-issuing phase in 2005 has been a string of beautifully produced Isota vinyl releases licensed from Berkeley's Orange Twin Records: Neutral Milk Hotel mastermind Jeff Mangum's Live at Jittery Joes and Major Organ and the Adding Machine's eponymous album (featuring Elephant 6 artists) and the rerelease of the self-titled '60s gem Elyse. Mangum and Elyse share a raw folk sound, somewhere between screaming and singing out their hearts. Major Organ's experimental underwater organ, jittery yelps, and truly broken beats are also raw in their own late-night way.

Why has Finlaw given so much time and energy into putting the pure product back in the vinyl junkies' line-of-sight? "I think there's still a little bit in everybody that wants to own something," he said. "The vinyl is like a big canvas ... I think it sounds better – there's a magical quality." This I-love-it-so-I-do-it attitude is working: Isota is starting to reach the public radar. The Mangum release sold out its first pressing in less than three weeks, and at the same time, the label is making an imprint in an industry that Finlaw criticizes for releasing "flimsy" vinyl. When Oldham's 7-inch sold out on the first day, Finlaw asked for a repress "because I couldn't live with these 7-inches going for $90 on eBay. I want the vinyl to be available."

Still, some releases are hardly noticed. Author Rick Moody's 2004 spoken word album on Isota, Rick Moody and One Ring Zero, with the McSweeney's house band One Ring Zero, "didn't sell that well," Finlaw said, but "Mike thinks that ... 50 years down the road, people will look back on Rick Moody as the Hemingway of our time. We do things that we love ... if they're artifacts, that's fine."

Isota balances between urgent indie pop and sound art, which is a feat because both aspects can alienate people. Moody speaks with such urgency – in the Deep Purple tribute "Metal" he spits out, "certain foods, certain ideas of food, made me think I was gonna throw up ... everything was about throwing up ... though I was also terrified of being alone when I vomited" – that if it weren't for One Ring Zero's lounge-jazz-meets-radio-drama backing horns, listeners might be scared away. And then where would we run? Isota releases are available at www.isotarecords.com. Isota artist Boyskout plays Sat/7, 9:30 p.m., Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. $6. (415) 923-0923.