R&S Records

R&S Records is an independent record label. Founded in 1984 in Ghent, Belgium, it is now based in London and managed by Andy Whittaker and Dan Foat.

R&S represents the initials of Renaat Vandepapeliere and Sabine Maes, the couple that created the label. The label was first named as Milos Music Belgium but just one record was released on the label. Vandepapeliere went from DJaying to developing the label in response to his personal irritation with the Belgian music scene while getting inspired by Belgian New Beat in the late 1980s: "I worked in a record shop, but as a DJ I was getting very frustrated with the Belgian scene. The clubs were so commercial and American music just wasn't accepted. The guys that were importing records here, they went straight into the studio and created a bad cover of it. I didn't like that. I said 'Respect the artist. License it in, and let's have the original track'. That's where the idea to start the label started, and it was New Beat that gave me the chance."

R&S Records has had several subsidiaries, most notably Apollo Records (Belgium), which was reactivated in 2009.

Releases on R&S and its subsidiaries include Jaydee (Plastic Dreams), Capricorn (20 Hz), Aphex Twin (Digeridoo, Selected Ambient Works 85-92), Biosphere (Microgravity, Patashnik), C.J. Bolland (Ravesignal III, The 4th Sign, Camargue), Sun Electric (O'Locco, Kitchen), The Source Experience/Robert Leiner (Visions Of The Past, Different Journeys), Model 500/Juan Atkins (Deep Space, The Flow), Silent Phase (The Theory Of Silent Phase), System 7 (Power Of Seven), Dave Angel (Classics) and Ken Ishii (Extra, Jelly Tones).

After a hiatus from 2001 to 2006, the label re-launched from its current London base with brand new releases from new talents like James Blake, Delphic, Pariah, Space Dimension Controller, Untold, Blawan, Vondelpark, Radioslave and the return of Model 500/Juan Atkins.

When asked in an interview with Clash Magazine in November 2009 why the label went on hiatus, Vandepapeliere explained, "I've been away because I was totally bored with the business side of music. At that moment, I though the whole dance music scene was repeating. I was listening to the same records with the same sounds, so I said 'I've had enough. Bye, bye'. I could have been a very clever businessman and exploited it. I could have made much more money, but if I don't feel something in my life - I stop."