when michaela meise performed at westgermany at kottbusser tor in berlin-kreuzberg on march 20, 2015, accompanying herself on the accordion, i was perplexed. i knew her first album from 2010, which was about hymns (»preis dem todesüberwinder«, originally released on clouds hill, available as a download and stream through my label from july 2018 on), but what she was playing weren’t spiritual songs?! i wanted to put this music out on my label: the songs sounded sad, aloof and wistful but also proud, determined and unerring. the album title »i am greek« is a tribute to melina mercouri’s album »je suis grecque!«, which was released in 1971 when mercouri was deprived of citizenship by the greek military junta. mercouri lived – like mikis theodorakis and many other cultural workers – in exile. meise’s album is dedicated to the chanson scene of post-war europe, whose songs were popularly folksy, but also political. some talk about the experience of war, the shoah and labor migration.

endlich da ! die neue dial mit dem tollen >groove 100 compilation< beitrag von efdemin. darüber hinaus lässt lawrence seine chicago-liebe aufblitzen bevor michaela meise & sergej jensen die platte mit akustisch ambienter gitarrenmusik beenden

cassette / tape, ltd to 300

when dial records started in 2000 with a bunch of friends highly inspired by deep house, detroit techno and cologne lovetunes, nobody of them ever thought about running a decent record label. the only concept david lieske, peter kersten and paul kominek had in their mind was never to be part of any proper record business, never to be controlled by any rule or trend, always to let the record label be a part of their love for music and arts. even the dial family was never intended growing that big, almost 70 percent of the artists on the first compilation are the same on >2010<, the history starting from a small label based in hamburg turned out climbing a high mountain. touching cities like detroit, tokyo, paris, berlin, buenos aires, releasing music like contemporary classic, drones and glitches, ambient, guitar pop, singer songwriter, deep house, minimal techno, discovering arts of protagonists such as michaela meise, sergej jensen, dirk stewen, hanna schwarz, anna mšller, cosima von bonin, all this fills a decade of dial records. but still the main part is the music and as we hold the 2010 compilation in our hands and listen to the tunes of phantom ghost, isolŽe, pantha du prince, carsten jost, john roberts, efdemin, lawrence, christian naujoks, dominique, rndm, pigon, kassian- we still have this enthusiastic feeling that wants to tell us: this is only the beginning