DIY punk label TNS Records is taking pre-orders now for its landmark 100th release.
TNS began life in Manchester back in 2003 as a zine and then band night, and evolved into an independent label five years later.
It aims to support and spread the word about bands who are punk in either sound or ethos. The emphasis is based around community spirit, the DIY ethos and working collectively with like-minded people.
TNS100: Cheap Cans, Broken Vans and Basement Bar Bands showcases 33 bands who are either on the label or involved in the DIY punk scene.
Among the bands featured are Incisions, Brassick, Faintest Idea, Nosebleed, Aerial Salad, In Evil Hour, The Restarts, Knife Club, The Domestics, and Pizzatramp.
The label said: “As we approached our 100th release, we knew we wanted to do something a bit different, something that said something about our whole time as a label, and something that involved lots of members of the DIY community.
“We realised this wasn’t actually far from what we were thinking when we started the label… what did we do right back at the start? We released a compilation featuring the bands we loved, who we felt weren’t getting the attention they deserved.
“TNS100 being a compilation album seemed like the obvious choice. We grew up on compilations. In pre-internet/streaming days they were absolutely the best way to find new bands. We loved them as albums in their own right too.
“We miss those days. It was incredible when over the years people said they got the same experience from our compilations that we got from numerous compilations ourselves.”
TNS has previously released three volumes of compilation albums (as well as a sampler for Safety Pin magazine). Volumes two and three were double CDs, allowing it to include loads of bands from the DIY scene.
TNS added: “We didn’t want it to be a label sampler. We wanted to include some bands we’d never worked with before who we wanted to give some exposure to, very much in the spirit of our first release.
“We didn’t want it to be a retrospective, as we wanted it to be forward thinking. We wanted recently released music and at least a handful of unreleased tracks. We wanted it to represent the diverse range of sounds we find in the DIY scene.
“So, this is where we ended up. This is just a small part of what TNSrecords is about, spread over two records or one CD.
“There are some bands we have worked with in the past who are very big parts of our story who aren’t on this release and numerous bands that we absolutely love that aren’t either.
“There are even a couple of bands who we have planned to release stuff for, who we’ve not included. Sorting the track listing for this was very hard. But, there is a tentative list for next time round if this goes well and we are convinced this sort of compilation is still worthwhile.
“In short, there are many, many bands that are part of the TNS family and important to our story.
“We certainly aren’t claiming this represents the whole of the huge and wonderful DIY scene. This is just where we are now. It is a collection of bands that we absolutely love who have either recently been released on our silly little label or who have blown us away at a small venue in recent years.”
TNS100 will be released on February 19, 2021, and will be available on double vinyl, single CD or to download. You can pre-order it from the TNS website HERE, or from the label’s Bandcamp page HERE.
