Wie de indie scene al een tijdje volgt weet dat Setanta Records het label was van onder meer The Divine Comedy, Edwyn Collins en The Catchers. Aan alles komt een eind, en nu lijkt ook de allerlaatste Setanta-release een feit. Het is een plaat geworden waarop acts als Mark Lanegan, Patrick Wolf en Brian Molko hun medewerking verleenden aan covers van onder meer Ramones, Talking Heads en Pixies. Keith Cullen over zijn label en over ‘Orchestral Variations V.01’, het album in kwestie:
“I’ve run a record label most of my working days and music has been (and continues to be) an enormous part of my life. However five years ago I stopped signing bands, making records with them and releasing music with the gusto that kept my record label afloat for the best part of fifteen years. I felt old and had no desire to keep going to the same gigs, going through the same rigmarole of spurting over enthusiastic shite talk about how some new artist was going to be huge. I didn’t want to feel embittered about how old fart my taste had become, being the bald old bloke at the back of the venue trying to be enthusiastic about some hot new band who didn’t quite have the attitude of the Ramones, the art house take of Talking Heads, the spunk of the Pixies, the youthful energy of early U2, or the kookiness of The Cure. So I stopped releasing records and started writing instead.
The record you hold in your hand (or have on your computer) is the only music related thing I’ve been involved with for a long time, and its taken a long time to finish because I’ve been focused on other non music things in life. Sometimes I think about how my record label’s profile ceased to have any relevance when other like-minded labels, like Domino, Bella Union and Wichita kept going, and through their own perseverance and determination found great breakthrough acts and I feel happy to be out of the game.
I still listen to music as much as I always did, but now I’m a fan rather than an industry person. The tracks on this record are songs I have always loved, sung by singers I love. Making this record has been a selfish exercise, and all the more enjoyable for it after years of being the person whose spent most of my working life finding an audience for other peoples ‘art’. Not that this record is ‘my album’ in any way, I didn’t do anything, just paid the musicians, picked the singers and the songs and paid the recording costs. But it feels like a good ‘final’ record to put out on my label. I like it, I hope you do too.”
De tracklist ‘Orchestral Variations V.01’ ziet eruit als volgt:
1. Something To Believe In (Ramones) – with Ed Harcourt
2. Video Killed The Radio Star (The Buggles) – with Anais
3. Once In A Lifetime (Talking Heads) – with Paul Noonan
4. Close To Me (The Cure) – with Mark Lanegan
5. This Night Has Opened My Eyes (The Smiths) – with Joan As Police Woman
6. Big Sky (The Kinks) – with Jaymay
7. Souvenir (OMD) – with Stephanie Dosen
8. Ghost Town (The Specials) – with Scott Hutchinson
9. Stories For Boys (U2) – with Martha Wainwright
10. Gigantic (Pixies) – with Charlotte Hatherley
11. Old Town (Phil Lynott) – with Patrick Wolf
12. West End Girls (Pet Shop Boys) – with Brian Molko