Labels

Of all the labels in the wild and wonderful Ace Records galaxy, none encompass more stylistic variance than Big Beat. Over the years, it has mostly our home for rock'n'roll and pop recorded since the mid-1960s, though the label's roster also encompasses folk, country, easy listening and other genres of yesterday or today - that are not instantly identifiable candidates for Ace, Kent or BGP. That's not to say that Big Beat is the repository for everything that doesn't fit specifically on our other labels - quite the opposite. In fact, if you had to use one word to sum up the Big Beat label, it's eclectic and willfully so.

It should be noted however that 1960s rock is the stock in trade of Big Beat, and our humble imprint is in fact renowned the world over for treating 1960s vintage pop, garage and psych with the loving respect it deserves. The label's release schedule has verged from acts exemplary (Zombies, Sonics, Big Star) to underrated (Dan Hicks, Gosdin Brothers, Sharon Tandy) to terminally obscure (She, Dean Carter, Frumious Bandersnatch), but we love it all, and the wilder and woolier, the better. There's heavy emphasis on the US with regionally-focused series such as Nuggets From The Golden State and Northwest Battle Of The Bands, but make a note of our Big Beat International sideline, which showcases vintage sounds from Japan, Iceland, Australia, and beyond, that are all well worth investigating. More chronologically up-to-date sounds on Big Beat comes from Ace/Chiswick punk stalwarts the Damned, and the best of the garage rock revival crop like the Prisoners, Billy Childish's Milkshakes and the Hammersmith Gorillas, amongst many others. On the other end of the spectrum, we have folk legends Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, vintage loonies the Fugs, not to mention Mahogany Rush. As we said, eclectic.