In the summer of 1999, just a few months before 4AD's 20th anniversary, Andy Zax sat down with 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell to discuss the history of 4AD. (NOTE: This interview was conducted for the now defunct Atomic Pop music site) Before 4AD Born in Northamptonshire in 1954, Ivo Watts-Russell spent his boyhood listening to the cutting-edge sounds served up on the radio by John Peel. Wanting to be around music,17-year-old Ivo moved to London in 1972 and began working in a series of record shops. While working at a shop in Ealing, he became friends with Steve Webbon, a customer who shared his appreciation for the music of Gram Parsons. When Ivo was promoted to manager, he hired Steve as his assistant. Ivo returned to London in 1975 after a trip to Morocco. Looking for work, he sought out Steve, who had just opened the second store in the fledgling Beggars Banquet chain. The Beggars Banquet stores sold both new and used records--at the time, a radical concept. Steve told Ivo that a third store was about to open in Ealing; at his suggestion Ivo went to see Martin Mills, Beggars Banquet's co-founder (with Nick Austin), who offered him a job. By 1979, Beggars Banquet had expanded from a chain of shops (by now there were five) to a successful independent record label that had tasted early success with such acts as Tubeway Army and the Lurkers. Ivo was now overseeing all of the shops. He was based out of the Beggars offices in Hogarth Road, located upstairs from the flagship Earls Court store which was being run by fellow music enthusiast Peter Kent. Bands looking for deals with the label would drop their tapes off at the shop downstairs, which meant that Ivo and Peter were often the first to hear them and make recommendations to Martin Mills and Nick Austin about prospective signings. Ivo and Peter became particularly enthused by a demo tape from a band called Modern English, who they urged Mills and Austin to sign. Mills and Austin eventually suggested giving Ivo and Peter some money to start their own independent label; if anything took off, they could switch it to the Beggars label for distribution. Ivo and Peter readily agreed and proceeded to line up the initial releases for their new venture with the ?000 investment. After lengthy discussions, the label was christened (at Peter's suggestion) Axis. [As it happened, Ivo had already made a decision to try and put a record out. One of punk's lasting legacies had been the proliferation of d.i.y. indie labels, and Ivo had become intrigued by the possibilities. What would it entail, he wondered, to go about actually releasing a record? He'd become acquainted with engineer John Madden (years later, Madden wound up working with The Wolfgang Press) who had been recording some late-night sessions with friend Martin Atkins. Atkins would go on to play with PiL and Pigface, but at this point he was going by the name Brian Brain. Atkins wanted to release a Brian Brain single and Ivo offered to do it himself. Forty-eight hours later, Mills and Austin (who knew nothing of this) offered financial support. The Brian Brain single never happened, but it brought Ivo from the point of thinking about putting out records to actually having an opportunity to do so in the space of a few weeks.] 

1984 Modern English began the year with a new single, "Chapter 12" (BAD 401) which preceded the release of their final 4AD album, Ricochet Days (CAD 402). With producer Hugh Jones taking an increasingly active role in sculpting the band's music, the result was one of the most underrated albums of the era, coupling an almost Beatlesque sense of melody to the band's increasingly polished sound. Colourbox's 1984 output consisted of a pair of singles, both featuring vocals by Lorita Grahame. The first was the inadvertent by-product of Ivo loaning Martyn Young his collection of reggae records. Colourbox's cover of U-Roy's "Say You" (BAD 403) was the result. A few months later the super-charged electro-funk of "Punch" (BAD 406) found the group genre-hopping with ease. Both singles deserved to be hits, but 4AD lacked the resources to promote them onto the radio and the charts. 1984's major addition to the roster was Dead Can Dance, who would evolve into one of 4AD's flagship acts. Though the seeds of their later work were present on both their self-titled debut album (CAD 404) and the Garden Of The Arcane Delights (BAD 408), Dead Can Dance during this period were still nominally a dark, post-Joy Division rock & roll band, albeit one with an eccentric lineup (guitar/bass/drums/yang t'chin) and the widely contrasting vocal styles of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. The Cocteau Twins lineup stabilized for good with the arrival of bassist Simon Raymonde (formerly of Drowning Craze, and the son of noted arranger Ivor Raymonde). The first new offering of 1984 was the "Pearly Dewdrops' Drops" single (AD 405) and its expanded EP version, The Spangle Maker (BAD 405). One of their finest records, it nearly became a major hit (the group declined to appear on Top Of The Pops to promote it). Later in the year, the group released its third album, Treasure (CAD 412), a critical and commercial success. [One accidental legacy of the album haunts Ivo to this day. Instead of conventional song titles, Liz Fraser had given all of Treasure's songs proper names: "Amelia," "Persephone," etc. The album's first track, christened "Ivo," features Liz singing the refrain "Peep-Bo" (the song's original title) in a manner that caused many listeners to assume that she was singing "Ivo." Result: Ivo still occasionally contends with people who think his name is pronounced "ee-vo." (For the record: it's "eye-vo.")] Xmal Deutschland returned with their second and last album for the label. Tocsin (CAD 407) coupled a more refined and textured approach than previous efforts, along with a more straightforward rock sound. The group parted ways with 4AD in the months following its release, and subsequently signed to Phonogram. The Wolfgang Press returned with the first of a trilogy of EPs produced by Robin Guthrie. With Andrew Grey completing the lineup, Scarecrow (BAD 409) marked the group's first steps into the kind of hypnotic avant-funk they'd perfect in the coming years. Featuring musical contributions from Colourbox and guitar from Robin Guthrie, the EP's highlight was a twisted version of Aretha Franklin's "Respect" featuring backing vocals by Liz Fraser. By late 1984, Ivo had completed work on the first This Mortal Coil album. Working closely with engineer/co-producer John Fryer at Blackwing Studios, Ivo invited a sizeable contingent of players into the studio to work on a selection of songs by the likes of Alex Chilton, Roy Harper, Rema-Rema and Colin Newman (the already-issued "Song To The Siren" was also included on the album). Lisa Gerrard contributed two compositions; several more were written in the studio (Ivo remains particularly proud of "Fyt," the first piece of music he ever wrote). Many of the contributors were 4AD artists--members of the Cocteau Twins, Colourbox, The Wolfgang Press, Modern English and Xmal Deutschland participated - but there were important performances by outsiders as well: Gordon Sharp of Cindytalk and Howard Devoto (Magazine) each contributed vocals, while Martin McCarrick (Marc Almond, Siouxsie & The Banshees) and Gini Ball provided the string parts. The single "Kangaroo" (AD 410) was issued just prior to the album It'll End In Tears (CAD 411). The striking cover photographs of model Pallas Citroen were originally intended for Modern English's Ricochet Days, but the group rejected them. 

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The preceding summer, Ivo had undertaken his first and only non-4AD production job, working with ex-Bauhaus vocalist Peter Murphy on his album Should The World Fail To Fall Apart. While in the studio, Murphy played Ivo an unlabeled tape of a Bulgarian women's choir that he'd been given by an acquaintance. Ivo found himself stunned by the power of the singing, and embarked upon a frantic quest to learn the identity of the album and acquire a copy of it. It transpired that the album in question was entitled Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares [The Mystery Of The Bulgarian Voices], and that it consisted of field recordings made over a 15-year period by archivist Marcel Cellier. Ivo decided to license the recordings from Cellier and issue them on 4AD (CAD 603). The resulting release proved massively popular and highly influential. Colourbox returned with not one, but two new singles, both of which were released on the same day. "Baby I Love You So" (BAD 604) was a brilliantly sculpted reggae-pop gem, while the sly mock-pomposity of "The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme" (BAD 605) actually came very close to being selected as Britain's World Cup theme that year. Sadly, apart from a track on the following year's Lonely Is An Eyesore anthology, these were the last recordings Colourbox ever released. While The Burden Of Mules had been assembled over a lengthy span of time, The Wolfgang Press's second album Standing Up Straight (CAD 606) was the group's first experience with making an album during a specific period. It was also the first Wolfgang Press album to feature Andrew Grey, who had joined the preceding year. The group was still honing their increasingly compelling mixture of angular rhythms and Cave-like theatrics, but the album had many highlights, including the climactic "I Am The Crime," which featured Elizabeth Fraser and strings from Martin McCarrick and Gini Ball.

Dead Can Dance's third album, Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun (CAD 705), was their finest offering to date. Split into two distinct halves, with Brendan Perry's increasingly Scott Walker-ish vocals on Side One, and Lisa Gerrard's regal glossolalia streaming across Side Two, its ambitious grandeur was a harbinger of things to come. More than either of its predecessors, it was this album that sowed the seeds of Dead Can Dance's worldwide following (a good thing, as no one in the UK seemed to take much interest). Ivo had admired a demo tape sent to him by Brighton's Frazier Chorus and sent the group into the recording studio with Gil Norton. Although "Sloppy Heart" (BAD 708) was a delightful piece of flute-driven pastoral pop, it was their only 4AD release. The group signed to Virgin shortly afterwards. On a trip to the United States to see Throwing Muses, Ken Goes, the band's manager, handed Ivo a tape of a local band that Muses drummer David Narcizo thought he might be interested in. Ivo subsequently listened to their demos on his Walkman while striding around New York City. He liked what he heard, but was uncertain about the band's punk-rock ferocity, which had little in common with the acts he'd been working with for the past several years. It took 4AD's Deborah Edgely to set him straight. Don't be stupid, she told him, they're brilliant. Thus it was that The Pixies became 4AD recording artists. Seven tracks from the band's demos were released as the mini-album Come On Pilgrim (MAD 709). The response to the band in Britain was immediate and explosive, with the press and John Peel quickly won over, and the public not far behind. By late 1987, Pieter Nooten had left Xymox, but Ivo continued to be intrigued by the tapes Pieter would send him. He suggested a team-up with guitarist/producer Michael Brook, who had been working with Brian Eno as well as recording for Eno's Opal label. The result was a quiet album of fragile songs and dreamlike soundscapes entitled Sleeps With The Fishes (CAD 710). Xymox (who had dropped the "Clan Of" again) finished off 4AD's 1987 with the unabashedly poppy "Blind Hearts" (BAD 711), which was produced by Peter Walsh (Simple Minds, Scott Walker). They signed to Polygram the following year and have continued making music into the late 90's. Although not, strictly speaking, a canonical 4AD release, the label's Japanese licensee issued a compilation, 12-inch (CY-2085) which collected five of the year's EP's--by Throwing Muses, The Wolfgang Press, A.R. Kane, M/A/R/R/S and Frazier Chorus--on one CD.

1988 4AD's first release of 1988 was a second volume of Les Mysteres Des Voix Bulgares (CAD 801) featuring a further 18 performances drawn from Marcel Cellier's archive of field recordings. Throwing Muses second album House Tornado (CAD 802) marked the group's continuing refinement as Kristin Hersh's fiercely original songwriting talents became steadily more pronounced. They embarked on a now-legendary tour of the UK and Europe with the Pixies which found both bands in peak live form (A few Muses performances from this tour sneaked out the following year on B-sides). The Pixies, meanwhile, had also released their second album, the epochal Surfer Rosa (CAD 803), produced for maximum raw sonic impact by Big Black's Steve Albini and recorded in a mere 13 days. Later that spring, the band entered the studio with Gil Norton to re-record two Surfer Rosa songs for an EP--"Gigantic" (the first song to spotlight the talents of Kim Deal) and "River Euphrates." Also recorded during these sessions was a version of "Here Comes Your Man" which remains unreleased. The two studio tracks were coupled with live versions of "Vamos" and "In Heaven" (from David Lynch's film Eraserhead ) and issued as the Gigantic EP (BAD 805).

The Wolfgang Press's "King Of Soul" (BAD 804) served as an early preview of the group's third album, Bird Wood Cage (CAD 810), released at the end of the year. Recorded with up-and-coming producer Flood (whose credits at the time included Depeche Mode and Nick Cave) it was the band's most powerful statement yet, by turns seductive and menacing. Tracks such as Kansas (released as a single the following year) began to attract audiences in Britain, as well as in the States, where the album had been licensed by Rough Trade. Subsequent tours with both Nick Cave and the Pixies (Black Francis would join them onstage each night for an encore of "Rema-Rema") also helped to raise their profile.

明明是我回的，怎么作者变成了yeats_cn

http://pages.infinit.net/saum/4ad/history_01.html

楼主是不是在官网找到的，我似乎又好像在哪里看到过，想不起了。