About Universal Egg

Universal Egg was initially begun as a record company to promote Zion Train and related artists. With it's inaugural release, Zion Train's 'Follow Like Wolves' Remix EP, in 1991 it established a format based approach to releases, CD's and LP's were for home listening while 12" singles were for dancing and DJing.

The earliest LP releases were the first Zion Train Dub LP's, an LP of classic Jamaican tunes sung by roots legend and former Studio One star Devon Russell and a collection of tracks recorded at the labels own studio The Wibbly Wobbly World of Music.

With the studio as the base and labels like Studio One, Blue Note, Real World, ECM and Sun Ra's Saturn imprint as inspirations Universal Egg has come from humble beginnings, the first releases being distributed by London Transport, to it's current level where all UK distribution is handled by SRD and European production and distribution is handled by Dekonkurrent in Amsterdam.

Although the primary sounds on the early releases were Dub sounds the eclectic nature of the label came to the fore early on with releases like 'Sound Information Vol. 1', a collection of underground ambient electronica from London in the early '90's, and Robert Charlesworth's beautiful, Eno-esque 'Music for the Third Ear'. This spirit has continued resulting in the critcally acclaimed 'Art Music' release 'Slumbermusic', intended to be absorbed while asleep.

As well as original material we have also tried to bring attention to releases which may have escaped peoples notice. As a result of this we released the Bush Chemists' 'Strictly Dubwise' and Conscious Sounds' 'Thunder Mountain' LP's on CD which had only previously been released independently on vinyl . We as a label maintain a commitment to vinyl and release whichever titles we feel are suitable on vinyl for collectors and DJ's.

The 12" singles released so far have all been limited editions, many are regarded as underground 'Classics', and all bar the most recent are long since sold out. The German label Echo Beach issued a special boxset CD with tracks from the first 12 releases and the Zion Train CD 'Siren' is a collection of their mixes from these same 12 but in the main the original vinyl copies are now snugly nestled in DJ boxes and discerning listeners collections around the world.

We have always enjoyed favourable airplay for our releases. In the UK John Peel, Andy Kershaw and many regional DJ's have championed us and across Europe and the rest of the World we have established a network of supportive DJ's and journalists, all true music lovers, gaining us a far reaching exposure which many larger labels would envy.

The main reason for any Universal Egg release is that everyone involved with the label loves the music and it would not otherwise be released. There is no aim for world domination just a constant commitment to quality output, which is revealed by the fact that many collectors buy our releases by catalogue number alone, confident that the music will be of a high standard regardless of the artist or style. A point reinforced by the fact that the first 10 releases all made the UK Indie top 20.

The later releases have established bands like Sounds from the Ground, Tassilli Players and Extremadura as serious artists with high quality control, as well as introducing new acts like Jah Free and The Power Steppers to the International music community. We always hope to bring to the attention of those people who are interested, items which they might not have otherwise come across, we aim to please ourselves and our friends and attempt to contribute positively to the universal musical community.

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