When asked to sum up the essence of his WNCL label, Bob Bhamra keeps it simple: “I like it raw.” From his base in West Norwood, South London, Bhamra has supplied DJs and dancers with deadly and unorthodox club tracks for just over 10 years. WNCL has become a launching pad for imaginative new producers, coaxed fresh material from well- established greats, and consolidated its position as one of London’s go-to imprints, favouring energy and dancefloor potency over genres, fads or fly-by- night trends. From Kevin McPhee’s swung leftfield techno to J.Tijn’s metallic overdriven grooves, the bleepy garage of Boxwork to LMajor’s devastating 140bpm jungle, not to mention Bhamra’s own material as West Norwood Cassette Library, there’s a through line to WNCL’s releases influenced by decades of bass-heavy UK dance.
Growing up in a household full of records, Bhamra’s three older sisters guided his early appreciation for music. Kraftwerk’s ‘The Model’ and New Order’s ‘Confusion’ attuned his ear to electronic sounds, before he started getting into hip-hop and electro, and began to buy his own wax.
“By the time the house music explosion hit the UK, I already had the bug for buying records, but it was expensive trying to keep up — all the best tracks were usually imports,” Bhamra says. “Once you amass a bit of a collection, I suppose it’s inevitable that buying decks is the logical conclusion, although I took my time getting there. Even though the records were designed to be mixed, I was quite happy for years just listening to them from end to end!”
WNCL, an acronym of his own artist name, was initially to be an outlet for Bhamra’s productions, though quickly snowballed into an imprint putting out like-minded artists. Chicago house, hardcore and jungle were all early inspirations for Bhamra, but it was another more recent UK innovation that encouraged him to start WNCL in 2010. At a time when dubstep was rapidly cross-pollinating with other forms and mutating into various exciting hybrids, he felt compelled to release music of a similar tempo.
“Even though 2010 was a bit late in the dubstep timeline, I kicked the label off with tracks in the 140bpm template as a nod to the genre,” he says. “The clubs, the music and the people I met through dubstep inspired me to get back into making tracks, dusting off the decks, starting a podcast, writing a blog and eventually, launching the label.”