Emit Records: Амбиент музыкасының британ лейблы

British record label

Em:t Records (Emit Records) was a British record label, based in Nottingham, which specialized in ambient electronic music. They were active from 1994 to 1998, and after a period of bankruptcy, re established themselves in 2003 under new ownership and management. In summer 2006, the label officially ceased operations again.

em:t was born as a division of the t:me Recordings label in 1994. t:me released mostly vinyl records falling under the broad category of house music, and sought to create a new sublabel for more forward thinking ambient material. Over the next four years, they released a series of eighteen albums and compilations, packaged as a collector's series. Though em:t never enjoyed widespread commercial success, their releases were highly regarded and influential in ambient circles, and the label attracted a cult following encouraged, no doubt, by the collectible nature of the releases. em:t releases had strict rules governing their design aesthetic. Individual album titles were always the sequential four digit catalogue number of the disc; the album's cover was always a full colour picture of a wild animal; all albums were released on CD only; all CDs were packaged in digipacks; all CDs themselves bore the same Chinese character in black on the non playing face of the disc. The label garnered praise from music journalists at the time. Coda magazine wrote that "The Em:t series will surely go down in history for being as important in the 90s as the albums of Brian Eno were in the 70s", and specialist music magazine The Wire noted that the em:t catalogue represented "The vanguard of post dance technological music". Em:t produced promo postcards for the label on which these quotes, and others, were duly displayed. A Q&A in DJ Magazine in 1995 also stated the label's unofficial credo: "Never presume your audience is any less clever than you are". However, due to rights issues, only two of the original em:t series are available on iTunes; the rest continue to fetch exaggerated prices on auction sites such as eBay. In 2017, Bandcamp has made all Em:t releases available for both purchase and streaming except for Woob 1194 and Woob2 4495. However Woob 1194 can be found on Paul Frankland's Bandcamp account, but Woob2 is not seen anywhere (Most likely due to his dissatisfaction for the album). In 2018, however, the Bandcamp page disappeared.

em:t releases are noted for their striking graphic design, used consistently and thematically across the entire discography. Each CD is packaged in a cardboard Digipak case. The front features high resolution nature photography, depicting exotic animals in their natural habitats. The back is plain white, with the track listing in plain black text. Animals used on classic Em:t covers include Ceratophrys ornata, Plecotus auritus, Ctenophore and Ramphastos sulfuratus. Images of frogs were used exclusively for compilation releases, whereas individual artists were given freedom to pick an image from the Oxford Scientific catalogue. The "new" em:t releases did not have animal themed covers, but sported the same overall design aesthetic, and used the same numbering system. The animal themed designs were created for em:t by British design firm The Designer's Republic, also well known for working with Warp Records for many years. Post 2003 em:t releases were designed by Cambridge based design firm db|design.

All em:t releases are catalogued with a four digit number. The third and fourth digits represent the year of release, and the first two digits denote the order of release within a year, beginning with '00' and continuing on to '11', '22', etc.