With the 2nd Berlin chapter of Independent Label Market in front of us, we’ll portrait a few labels close to our heart that exhibit at this event. Second in line is London based Lex (which is run by Tom Brown), a freewheeling Lodown fav that combined outstanding cover artwork with a strong and rather unusual artist roster since day one.

“I founded Lex at a time when CDs cost £15 and print press was all important. The recent boom in vinyl has been great though. It’s given us confidence to carry on making beautiful LPs because we know there’s a market for it.“

Tom, your label might touch a certain genre superstructure but certainly crosses over to other styles - and hopefully therefore a different audience - as well... was that a quintessential point on the label's agenda from the very beginning? It was right at the start. I was at Warp for seven years, and they had been trying to get away from being labelled as a techno, house or bleep label for years when I joined. I wanted to start Lex at the stage Warp had got to after years of hard work. Warp were just artist focused, not scene focused. They’d find a great artist that they thought they could work with for years and support them making music, whatever genre that was. That’s what I set out to do with Lex… What I found out was that after the Grey Album, we were always going to be identified with that end of hip hop…

Besides building a unique artist roster, how important is the visual side of the label to you? The visual side is really important to me, and it’s getting easier to turn around ambitious plans. We’re working with Keith Tyson on Nevermen and Tommy Lee Edwards on I Speak Machine… They’re both vast art projects. Working with Steve Powers is like a dream, he’s such a hero and the JJ DOOM and Golden Rules albums have been some of our best yet… 

Any artist you wished you would've signed when you had the chance to? I really wanted to sign Edan back in 2001.I met him at Scribble Jam… but Lex was just starting. 

Is there actually a release on your label that you're particularly proud of? I’m especially proud of Ghetto Pop Life, Hymie’s Basement, Golden Ticket and the new Nevermen album. 

If you knew back then what you certainly know now, would you consider founding a record label again? There’ve been times I would have said no way… but right now, definitely. Business is fantastic, I’m working with some amazing artists - heroes of mine, old friends who’ve been on the label from the early years and loads of new artists that whose work is so exciting.