I'm Benoit Sonnette, I live in Paris and run Textile since 2001. Many People work for Textile, Marie Caillou for the sleeve illustration (www.mariecaillou.com), Sylvie Astier from Doki doki for the sleeve design (www.dokidoki.fr), Fabien Louis for the distribution, Stephane Sommet for the Web Site, my girlfriend for secretary and hard work, Arnaud from les instants chavires for the festival, and many other... Franq de kengo from the Bimbo Tower because he always have good beer, and Francois because we do swimming pool competition together ! !
The label started officially with the first release in 2001, but the idea was in the air a long time ago. I started the label with Stephane Sommet because we had a long history together... Before Textile , we both did fanzines, small tape labels and radio show. But the real beginning of Textile was when Fabien Louis from the FL corp decided to organise the world distribution.

Started in 1991 just to put out a couple of singles from friends (vhf#1 Rake “Motorcycle Shoes” and vhf#2 Wingtip Sloat “Half Past I’ve Got”). I wasn’t really planning on making it a continuing enterprise but somehow it got a momentum of its own and here I am 13 years later still doing it.

We have no real concept for Textile, the label is divided into two parts, One side with the Textile Vynile serie, which is a 12'' vinyl serie including Marie Caillou artwork on the sleeve, only with split or collaboration between musicians
and Textile Records, where we release albums on cd and vinyl with proper bands artwork.
Marie Caillou does the artwork for the serie, she's also working for press, japanese company and she's currently working on a cartoon.

It was a real long night : I visited Stephane for some holidays. At that time, he was living in Amsterdam. One day after, Textile was born. I can't really explain why we choose this name, but I just can say there are a stong << rapport >> between music and skin.

5 years age I stayed 6 month in Glasgow / Sdcotland and worked in the 13th note, a well known place for music and beer. I met Bill Wells there and he gave me his cd featuring Lol Coxhill, and it was for me a really good first shoot... after that I met Ticklish when they played at the 13th Note, their live act are just amazing, they played electronic music with a unique video creator..

I generaly contact the bands after a gig or when I really enjoyed a release, but listening the bands on gig stays essential.
For the two last releases Volcano the bear opened for JOMF during their tour, and Padden give me his first cd out on Catsup plate (New York label) which is great, and he sent me the second one last year, and i just said yes immediatly.

Do you accept demos ? if so, please tell us where to send them .

I never released disk from demo, but i start now to receive good stuff, all demos are welcome but i'm very slow to listen and answer (sorry for the bands).

TEXTILE
B Sonnette
appt 28 bat B
84 quai de jemmapes
75010 Paris
France

We released this album on cd and vinyl in October 2002. For that occasion I organised their first european tour. It lasted 1 month and a half : we made 43 gigs.. 8 countries...
Before this record we also released a split 12'' with JOMF and Vibracathedral Orchestra from Leeds (uk), but this 12'' is now sold out.

With the Jackie O Motherfucker cover story of the Wire, reviews and distribution, Textile get more attention. This JOMF album was really important, because it was the first big release and a big experience for me. Now we can work with a little bit more money and the Textile name starts to be wellknown..

I think that runing a label today is very hard, releasing cd is hard and vinyl is awfull. I'm very lucky because Fabien the textile distributor, has lots of good plans. Today in Europe and particulary in France you can get help if you got help in the past.. which is very strange.

Textile is totally independant on the artistic choise, and very carefully about the economy, we don't make lots of promo and adds, we just think about the records quality. The only way of promoting the releases I want is to organise tours and gigs, which is the best way to discover some new sound !

I know some improv musicians, pop & rock bands or electro musicians, their are lots of great music, we have the luck in Paris to have the Bimbo Tower a great record shop with a big Japanese influence, lots of obscure releases..

The nearest future is the Textile Festival which consits on a 3 days, 3 venues in Paris celebration of outsider improv among other things with all the Textile crew and some guests... Jackie o Motherfucker, Vibracathedral orchestra, Volcano the Bear, The One Ensemble Of Daniel Padden, Ticklish, Hassle Hound...

About the releases, Ticklish << Here is the new instruction >> will be the next record on cd. Concerning the 12" vinyl series, Bobby Moo (2 french boys & 1 japanese girl ) release << Adventures >> should be available for the Festival.
We will also organise European tour for Volcano the Bear and The one ensemble of Daniel Padden next fall, and maybe a Japanese Textile Tour...