INDIGO / INDIGO SOUND STUDIOS

       

Indigo and Indigo Sound Studios were the house labels of Indigo Sound Studios, which were set up in Manchester by former Granada TV sound engineer Dave Kent-Watson.  The label's first mention in 'Music Week' came in the issue of the 7th of October 1972, which carried an advert for a now very collectable album by Guggenheim (GOLP-7001), available via Selecta.  The following month an article in the issue of the 11th of November said that Indigo had been founded two months ago by Kent-Watson and Bob M. Auger with the intent of making pop records, and that it had plans for an as-yet-unnamed Classical label - a recording of Michael Davis playing Walton's Violin Sonata No.2 had already been made.  The launch of the Classical label seems to have been a little delayed, as, now named 'Cameo Classics', it didn't see the light of day until September 1973; 'MW' of the 15th of September, reporting on the new label's debut, gave the distributors as Selecta and the manufacturers as EMI Ireland.  EMI Ireland were responsible for a lot of Indigo pressings in the first half of the decade, leading to the misapprehension in some quarters that Indigo was an Irish label.
In 1972-73 Indigo issued a series of Pop singles, using a GOPOP-0 numerical series, again with distribution by Selecta.  They don't seem to have been successful, though the company made a one-off attempt at cracking the Pop market in 1977 with a single on the 'Ice' label (see 'Ice').  There were also half a dozen albums, the last of which came out in 1975.  In addition to putting out its own releases, however, it had a second string to its bow in that it offered custom recording facilities, as noted in 'MW' of the 29th of May 1976; it made records for unsigned Folk / Club / Cabaret artists such as Therapy and The Three Crows.  It looks as though the Indigo Sound Studios label (5, 6) may have been reserved for these records, though from c.1975 that label was replaced by a plain blue one with the Indigo logo in the centre (7, 8).  Numbering of these private pressings appears to have varied, going through the IRS (or IRL)-5000s before settling down into the IDS (or IRS)-5300s, which became the IDS-52000s at some point in the middle of the decade.  'MW' of the 3rd of September 1977 mentioned the studio's fifth birthday, but that seems to have been its last reference to Indigo, in the '70s at least.
Singles on Indigo's own label came in one of two basic designs.  The first featured clouds, and had the Indigo name at the top; the name was in yellow (1).  GOPOPs 5 and 6 had a white label, with the company's logo at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock; the credits were in crimson on GOPOP-5 (2) and in black on GOPOP-6 (3).  The clouds returned with GOPOP-7, but this time around the name was in pink and the blue colour was darker (4).  Copies of GOPOP-2 can be found with these labels, presumably as a result of a re-pressing or a reissue.  Most of the even numbers in the GOPOP series weren't used, a fate that seems to have befallen GOPOP-9 as well.  Records on either of Indigo's labels are not often met with, as a result of which the 'discography' below is doubtless even more gappy than usual; for the sake of interest I've included the few self-financed (?) albums I've been able to find.  The second blue-labelled single shown above was pressed by Pye.  Thanks to Robert Bowes for the second scan, to Nicholas Hough for the fifth, and to John Timmis for the seventh.






Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.