“We apologise for the sundry glitches,” ooze the beige tones of iconic Thames Television continuity announcer Philip Elsmore, narrator on milestone Mordant Music album Dead Air. Unfortunately, the glitches that sent the precious hard drive of Baron Mordant (AKA workaholic Ian Hicks) into freefall are no longer a short-lived concern – almost a decade’s worth of work has been lost. Yet, faced with this cruel whim of circuitry, the label’s head is philosophical. “Bon chance – bon voyage,” is his back catalogue’s epitaph.

Mordant Music is not lost forever, thankfully. The bulk of the catalogue is readily available: seek and ye shall find. But, this particular glitch seems a fitting pause to 2009 operations. Why the hiatus? The arrival of catalogue number MM040 – the birth of his first child.

From the outset, UK label Mordant Music has ploughed a defiant furrow. The once-alluring tag of ‘independent’ now represents bland, corporate indie, but Mordant brings it back home. Its output is as diverse as it is challenging – and rightly championed underground for its queasy electronica, pop prowess and lyrical idiosyncrasy. Mordant Music refuses to be pigeonholed.

The imprint appeared in 2001, out of dissatisfaction with the established music industry, an industry Ian navigated in previous guises. “I’d been party to too many defunct record labels and hapless meanderings,” he elaborates. “[The label] was created to emit whatever transpired by whoever transposed. No artists as such – just a seam of shared gut feelings. Something that could have a life of its own.” 

The first sign of life was Nijmegen (MM001), a CD booklet sans CD, setting out the Mordant Music stall in the text of The Untrained Eye (“Suspend your prejudices and stigmas! Give in to madness and eccentricity!”). The label’s catalogue numbering system (MM) seems a twist on the legendary Factory Records’ model. Taking in gritty dubstep (critically lauded Shackleton’s debut lunge, Stalker, MM011: “This gave him a nudge. He did the rest with aplomb”), outsider art (the weird C90 manipulations of Dennis Greenidge, MM017), unreleased darkwave (from the mysterious Mr Maxted’s archive, MM022) and the mutant Scott Walkerisms of Vindicatrix’s recent debut LP (MM038), the label is a broad church. Ian’s own releases are more unclassifiable, taking in collaboration with cult comedian Simon Munnery (the lewd View-Mastur toy, MM007, limited edition of one), an electro CD in a Petri-dish (MM008) and an inspired pop collision of Kraftwerk and Pink Floyd (Dark Side Of The Autobahn, MM003), to name but few. 

After this flurry of covetable early releases, a mid-catalogue peak came with 2006’s epic Dead Air CD. This post-apocalyptic broadside weaved Philip Elsmore’s skewed pronouncements (“Continuity’s continuity”), into a glorious electronic tapestry, with aural echoes of childhood seeping into the present: nuclear holocaust UK never sounded so good. This classic release may share superficial kinship with labels like Ghost Box and groups like Broadcast, but Ian is pigeonholed reluctantly: “I don't think about relative associations that much. Everything spores and curdles of its own volition.”

Spores for Mordant Music’s most ambitious offering, 2009’s SyMptoMs, germinated in the penultimate cut of Dead Air: the catchy, electro-pop of Fallen Faces, featuring Ian’s underused larynx. The SyMptoMs collection is ostensibly more of a singer/songwriter affair, but don’t expect anything that straightforward. “Fallen Faces marked the potential for future pop lunges: the Baron Garfunkel persona was born. I decided to press on with a bastardised version of a singer/songwriter album. On the back of that, I’ve been approached to play live at Sonar 2010, but I need to think carefully about the presentation. I see Mordant Music more as an installation than a Jack Jones sashay.”

The label’s keen visual eye is also a vital component, most immediately apparent in the arresting folds of the Dead Air sleeve. The aesthetic owes much to now-retired collaborator Gary Mills, operating under the Admiral Greyscale moniker. Mordant’s magpie logo is a case in point, simultaneously recalling childhood TV and cultural debris ripe for the picking. Described as “on shore leave”, Mills’ input leaves its distinctive stamp on contemporary artwork. “His departure was a blow to the hull, without a doubt,” Ian concedes. “I’ve had to be resourceful with Admiral Greyscale’s residual templates and my own less than adroit digits. In the end, the show had to go on because Mordant Music is an aroma: it relies more on olfactory senses than a single individual. I’m even surplus to requirements most of the time.”

Joking aside, Ian casts a long shadow over the catalogue. Although birthed as a vehicle for his errant muse, the label is an umbrella under which the like-minded can shelter. “There’s a certain hue to Mordant Music cohorts. You can’t really A&R Dennis Greenidge or excavate Mr Maxted. They beam in from the zone on their own axis. All Mordant artists have a certain pedigree. They all have integrity and skill in their chosen disciplines. Fine characters to have crossed paths with, one and all.”

After 2009’s prolific work rate, it’s hard to see Ian downing tools for too long. This year’s final release, Craven Lodge (MM039), points to new avenues of exploration. Part of Mordant’s Travelogues subdivision, the MP3 download-only releases are aural postcards from locations as exotic as Bali and mundane as Southend-on-Sea. Some are solo, others are collaborative, but all suggest guerrilla operations for Mordant in 2010, a year consumed with impending fatherhood. “Travelogues have emerged as the key formula for future emissions. They represent the unshackled and ludicrously nourishing deep end of music making. The process involved is synonymous with that rare freedom encountered by a chance happening – like one behind Halfords in Cirencester,” he smiles.

The mysteries of what lurks in Cirencester may never be uncovered, but evidence of the Baron’s joyful, autodidactic approach to music-making can surely be unearthed from the archive of the label’s debut: “Now – where we are now and not the ‘future’ everyone covets so preciously – is about self-education. To get the best from life, it may be necessary to lie on your back and behave like an idiot.” This may be a template for MM040’s formative moments, but Baron Mordant is nobody’s fool.

For more information, visit www.mordantmusic.com