Record labels that pride themselves on a strong visual aesthetic always seem to have a bit more pulling power. Rwina Records – headed up by Amsterdam’s Akka – has quite the considerable tug due to a reputation for weird and wonderful strokes of bewitching artistry. Consistently alluring label artwork and videos have been at the heart of the label since they launched in 2008. Now, the ever-growing family is an international affair thanks to Akka’s nifty ability to bag records from heads like Swindle and Starkey in the formative parts of their careers alongside output from proven vets like Terror Danjah.
With all this in mind, we asked the Dutch label head to put together a short list of his favourite label art creations and wonky video productions. All this before him and the rest of the team take over Boiler Room x Rotterdam Beats on November 15th.
EPROM – HALFLIFE
“David O’Reilly, who did one episode of Adventure Time, made the artwork. He’s the king of glitch in my eyes. If you look at the artwork, you may not see the heart straight away, but if you look closely, you can just see the glitch effect with it floating in a black space. The colour co-ordination looks really sick. It all contrasts really well with the album title.”
TITTS – WOEF
“Jameszoo and Y’skid formed this group to basically have fun with trap and hip hop. “Woef” is about this character called Billy Doots who has a lot of bad luck but eventually gets revenge by killing his wife. It’s made by Opslaan Als and Thomas de Rijk, who is a friend of ours, and also made a couple of hip hop videos for Dutch artists.”
JAMESZOO – FAAVEELAA
“It’s made by a friend of ours from Amsterdam. It’s showing a favela in the eyes of the designer with a bunch of animals; one of which is holding a gun and another animal that is cooking. It looks childish, but in the same breath, it’s also quite evil if you look at the faces of the animals.”
STITCHES – BRICK IN YO FACE
“This one isn’t from the label but it’s just this funny, terrible dude trying to rap.”
KRAMPFHAFT – MAKIN’ MAGIC EP
“This one was made by a design studio from Amsterdam. Krampfhaft actually has red hair and people used to call him Fox. If you look at the art, the fox is in the middle in a polygonal style. In Germany, Krampfhaft means to be stressed or awkward. The fox is biting its own tail.”
JAMESZOO – THE CLUM TWINS
TORUS – TEMPLES EP
“It refers to a famous painting from the Italian Renaissance. Its original purpose is deflected now and its more about the setting; the temple, the emptiness and the skyline in the back. I love how Torus approached this EP and also how he pulled of this sleeve. His EP is dropping on November 24.”
Akka is joined at Boiler Room x Rotterdam Beats by label compadres, Jameszoo, Torus, I.N.T. and Krampfhaft on November 15 at 6:15PM GMT. Make sure to tune in via the Boiler Room session here.