MLF: With your re-releases, you’ve chronicled a number of influential British artists active in the 80s (Cleaners From Venus, The Monochrome Set, The Servants and The Wake). How influential do you find this era and these groups to be, in today’s music world?
MS: I think it’ll always be influential. It’s like 60s garage and psych or 70s soul. It’s not indicative of any state of affairs: good music is always timeless. Some things may come and go in terms of popularity, but it seems like every five years there’s a rehash of a Shuggie Otis or Os Mutantes craze. Look at Rodriguez, there was a huge surge of interest around ’99 to ’01 on him, ten years later and it’s treated as this lost thing, when in reality, he’d already been through one cycle of rediscovery. But, that’s what’s cool about it; it’ll always be that way.

In 25 years, current records will be 25 years old, you know? So why differentiate. We’re basically reissuing the first Beach Fossils and Wild Nothing records with every repressing of it. I toyed with the idea of a “C/T Archives” separate label but then I remembered that Matador did their Soft Boys and Mission of Burma reissues as regular “Ole” catalog numbers and I thought that was really cool and they were right.

MLF: Members of your current roster teamed up as supergroup Shitfather for CT’s recent fifth year celebration and performed tracks from the likes of The Cleaners From Venus in what was a full-circle of sorts. Do you feel a label’s identity should be more prominent in today’s music?
MS: I think it’s good to have a label identity, but it shouldn’t be so overwhelming that a band’s sound is pigeonholed by it. We have bands like Soft Metals, Naomi Punk and Chris Cohen who all sound totally different.

MLF: You were recently named Best Local Music Label by Time Out New York, do you plan on attaining your ‘local’ tag, or can we expect Captured Tracks to keep growing?
MS: Well, we aren’t focused on NY bands, it just seems they all seem to move here once we sign them. Our hub is here, but we’d never limit ourselves just to NY. We have bands in Sweden, LA, Olympia, and Berlin – all over.

MLF: What is exciting to you about being part of the current New York music scene?
MS: New York is always exciting, musically and non-musically. Some people think it ebbs and flows but I find it consistent. It depends on your taste and if whatever is current is what you like. If it’s not what you are interested, what you do like exists somewhere, in some pocket; it just gets less press.

MLF: You’ve recently spoken about the legacy of certain artists. What are the benefits of giving your artists multi-album deals?
MS: It’s mutually beneficial because you can get a comfortable enough relationship built and you’re not subconsciously worried they are going elsewhere after their release, so you can work hard off cycle. We get to avoid the fiasco of label mania by getting there early and staying the course.

MLF: With the recent opening of CT’s own store, where did the idea come from to get more into the retail side of things?
MS: I’d already owned a record store and had run a bunch after college; we had the space so it was natural progression.

MLF: As we reach the end of what was a big year for CT, what can we expect from you in 2014?
MS: More of the same!

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