Name: Volumes One and Two
Brand: The Prison of Winners

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

PY116

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2021-11-19

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Polytechnic Youth & Deep Distance

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

Total Cap

2 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

The Prison of Winners

Genre GB

Electronic

Label GB

Polytechnic Youth

A part-time label run from home in Crouch End, North London. Polytechnic Youth is inspired by a love of key era 1978-82 DIY minimal synth, early Mute, The Sheffield electronic scene, John Bender, Krautrock/Berlin School etc - especially private press/DIY and handmade packaging.

Self-distributed and fiercely pro vinyl only, the label was arguably the first to truly embrace what could be done with pre-agreed social media announced lathe cut releases. Small "art editions" always wonderfully packaged on often shaped disks were gobbled up within minutes of release. These were accompanied by wider scale releases available in all usual outlets across UK & EU.

Operational between 2014 and 2022 and run by Dom Martin (who also ran Earworm and The Great Pop Supplement as well as Deep Distance and more recently Feral Child), the label enjoyed a hugely loyal fanbase. Gideon Coe on BBC6 music and "Electronic Sound" magazine were hugely supportive. However, post-Brexit, the label faced challenges due to losing its strong EU customer base alongside rising costs of vinyl production.

The Prison of Winners is a brand new project consisting of David Mason of Listening Center and Martin Jensen of The Home Current. Between them, they have issued a range of acclaimed releases for labels such as Polytechnic Youth, Castles In Space, Ghost Box, Deep Distance and Woodford Halse, to name but a few. 

The collaboration’s two volume set contains a selection of music that came to life through a long-distance work routine back and forth across the Atlantic (David resides in New York and Martin is based in Luxembourg) between 2020 and 2021. Having been fans of each others’ work for years, it was only natural that they should eventually pool resources. 

Volume 1 had long been earmarked for a vinyl release with PY, but with the aforementioned problems of world vinyl production currently being on its knees, and with a boom in lockdown recording seeing Volume 2 quickly materialize; all parties quickly realized that a super value-for-money, lavish 2CD set might just come together perfectly. Thus, the double disc set is released in a beautiful sleeve featuring artwork from acclaimed photographer Geneviève Cygan and David Mason.

Both volumes lean heavy on the pairs’ previous wonderful electronic experiments, minimal DIY pieces intercross with more uptempo synth workouts, which the artists themselves reckon “inhabit a space somewhere in between feeling lost in car parks and hazy memories of nights out clubbing, in what feels like a lifetime ago.”

Volumes One and Two

Music GB