Jalapeno Records

Started as a vehicle for the Skeewiff releases of founders Elliot Ireland and Alex Rizzo, Jalapeno has grown into an oasis of funked up, fun-loving dance music which defies pigeonholing. From a super cool Henrik Schwarz remix of Kraak & Smaak to a lounge cover of The Final Countdown and from the ice cool club beats of Kid Crème to a sitar cover of Man of Constant Sorrow you can expect the unexpected from Jalapeno.



The core album artists on the label are Skeewiff, Kraak & Smaak, Smoove & Turrell, Soopasoul, Dr Rubberfunk and Radio Trip. Skeewiff are the daddies of the funk breaks scene with their early tracks providing inspiration to go against the grain for the new school of funk producers such as Fort Knox Five and All Good Funk Alliance both of whom have since come to record for Jalapeno. As well as breakbeat funk the Skeewiff boys have a penchant for lounge, and downbeat soundscapes – a leaning that led to the formation of IKON, a leftfield electronic act that is also produced by Elliot and Alex. The IKON collective is fluid but has included Kirsty Hawkshaw , Alison Limerick, Dee Morrison , Ian Britt and others - generally only ever all coming together for the occasional festival appearance.



Kraak & Smaak are the poster boys of Jalapeno Funk. Stepping up to the world stage and making their mark with a killer debut album (Boogie Angst), a killer live show that has seen them sell out venues and play to massive festival crowds around the world and responsible for Jalapeno’s biggest hit in Squeeze Me – the debut single from their second album Plastic People featuring Ben Westbeech on vocals. Expect to see them rock a stage near you in 2009.



This year saw the release of Soopasoul’s debut album Twin Stix. It received rave reviews from first class DJs to the top mags, proving that the man most certainly has the F.U.N.K. Danny Soopasoul is a rave pioneer turned soul funk legend. Having tasted fame as Direckt in the halcyon days of rave, he gave it all up to become a VW driving, heavy smoking surfer dude in Newquay. But you can’t keep a good musician down and before long his raw funk releases on his own Nu Funk label came to the attention of Jalapeno. A swift trip to the south coast later and the deal was done.



Joining the Jalapeno family on the third time of asking is funky drummer Dr Rubberfunk.

Both his previous albums elicited a call from Jalapeno HQ saying “Doctor! Doctor! there’s a funk fever over here. We need you”. Persistence paid off, he joined the firm and is currently in the middle of producing his third artist album for release by us.



Newcomers this year are Radio Trip and Smoove & Turrell. Radio Trip is the studio project from two founder members of The Apples. MixMonster (Uri Wertheim) and Schoolmaster (Ofer Tal) are producers, cut & paste artists and keen vinyl junkies. Their wide range of influences led them to create a unique musical blend unconstrained by anything except their imaginations. Their debut Jalapeno album, Music Heads, contains elements of turntabalism, blues, jazzed-up breaks, funk beats and psychedelic samples – a journey into vinyl culture, with hundreds of records from various countries and eras cut & paste into one blossoming, cheerful trip.



Ask anyone on the funk or breaks scene who it is dropping a rocking beat and “A Man called Smoove” is the earnest reply. He’s not just good, he’s damn good. One day while searching for that extra something he felt was missing from his aready magical beats, he found his muse in John Turrell. Finally a vocal match that was worthy and so Smoove & Turrell was formed. This year they released their debut album, Antique soul, have performed live on BBC Radio2 (where their first single was Record of the Week), Radio4 and 6Music (where their second single was playlisted).

They have festival appearances at Glastonbury, Big Chill and Kendal Calling lined up and are winning new fans every day with their funk fuelled live show



Album artists aside there are a wealth of other producers who have contributed 12s & EP’s to the label or tracks to our J-Funk compilations. Respect is due to All Good Funk Alliance, Fort Knox Five, The Pulver crew, Maelstrom & Napz, D'Stephanie, Freestyle, Wicked Lestor, Malente, Torpedo Boyz and all the other brothers and sisters we’ve forgotten.



As well as the core Jalapeno label there are a couple of house imprints.

Illegal Beats (under the watchful eye of legendary house producer Kid Crème) and Floorplay under the enthusiastic steering of hot DJ / producer duo Prok & Fitch. Last but not least there’s JAL Recordings a home for singer-songwriter Ian Britt and any other leftfield pop that doesn’t sit right on a “dance” label.



Between the labels we’ve clocked up over 100 releases – we’re still going strong – putting on gigs, throwing parties and releasing music that whether it tops the charts or is a greatest hit of the stockroom we can proudly say - “That was good”.