{"id":18980,"date":"2025-06-27T11:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T11:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/18980\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T11:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T11:56:08","slug":"numero-group-record-label-marks-22-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/18980\/","title":{"rendered":"Numero Group record label marks 22 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

History is not just a study of the past, but a conversation between where we\u2019ve been, where we\u2019re at and where we\u2019re going. And no record label understands it as intimately as Numero Group.<\/p>\n

Founded in Chicago in 2003, the primarily reissue label has grown from a confident upstart to a seasoned veteran. Much of the ethos and initiative that made the label succeed where others may have failed has not diminished in its decades of existence. If anything, the label\u2019s founders, Ken Shipley, Rob Sevier and Tom Lunt, have doubled down on what has made Numero Group such a success \u2014 dipping their toes in a variety of overlooked or misunderstood genres (such as soul, country, gospel) and technological mediums to share the good word that is their music.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing we used to say at the very beginning of almost every meeting was that Numero lives at the nexus of story and song. And that was something that catapulted us a lot further,\u201d Shipley said.<\/p>\n

Now, in the weeks after its unconventional 22nd anniversary celebration, the label is set to launch one of its biggest \u2014 and most personal \u2014 compilations yet. Titled \u201cSequoia,\u201d<\/a> out June 20, the 25-record box set dives deep into the first decade of emo. It\u2019s an ambitious project for a label known for its ambitious projects, but also a coming home of sorts. Shipley\u2019s love of music was born through this kind of music. But the label\u2019s journey to this moment is a lot more eclectic and expansive than one singular compilation.<\/p>\n

Numero began as a direct-to-consumer label. Their first release, \u201cCamino Del Sol,\u201d was a spacey, jazzy, bossa nova and new wave hybrid album by the French band Antena. Their next releases covered gospel and power pop and private issue folk.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe narrowing of our tastes never really happened. If anything, it just got wider,\u201d Shipley said. So yes, they began with soul music, but that led to boogie and electro and house and jungle. Pushing further and further into genres is how they approach change.<\/p>\n

To that end, there is no singular Numero Group sound so much as there is an institutional directive to find, support and promote the best music of the past for audiences in the present. Groups they\u2019ve worked with include Blondie, H\u00fcsker D\u00fc, Syl Johnson and Blonde Redhead. Many of them are released through sublabels, focusing on genres such as punk or soul, or time periods such as the \u201980s and \u201990s. To do this, the label has a weekly meeting where they just listen to things. And while they can\u2019t chase everything, they have a lot more people, so they can chase a lot more things.<\/p>\n

Take the group Duster. The slowcore indie rock band from San Jose found a contemporary audience not on the radio, but in the YouTube algorithm. Numero Group set about releasing some of their past work, including a compilation record, \u201cCapsule Losing Contact.\u201d But as the band regrouped in 2018, the label also handled their new releases, like 2024\u2019s \u201cIn Dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat moment of digital discovery not only changed my perspective on what digital could be; it also completely altered the way we release music,\u201d Shipley added.<\/p>\n

Playlists are a big facet of this business model. Shipley likens them to mixtapes and compilations. They also drop music up to five days per week digitally, using their analytics to better understand their audiences and what they may want in the future. If the modern music release strategy is a game of experimentation, then Numero Group is winning on multiple fronts.<\/p>\n

\"RobRob Sevier, left, and Ken Shapley of Numero Group flip through singles at the Record Dug Out in 2013. (E. Jason Wambsgans\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Another realm of success? Their music syncing. Inspired by his time working at Rykodisc and their work with Nick Drake, Shipley adamantly incorporated music syncing into their business structure from the beginning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw how you could take something kind of cool and small and different and reinsert it into the culture as if it was a forgotten thing that might make people more receptive,\u201d Shipley recalled. The department is now led by Jen Newcomer.<\/p>\n

Their efforts have landed songs like Penny and the Quarters\u2019 \u201cYou And Me\u201d in the Ryan Gosling-starring film \u201cBlue Valentine.\u201d Marion Black\u2019s \u201cWho Knows\u201d has more than 60 million streams on Spotify and has appeared in TV shows like \u201cSeverance.\u201d Pastor T.L. Barrett, from the city\u2019s South Side, has had songs sampled by artists like T.I. and DJ Khaled. \u201cLike A Ship,\u201d one of his best-known tracks, can be heard in episodes of \u201cHacks,\u201d among many others. These placements have helped the music find second and third lives with younger audiences from around the world, cementing the artist\u2019s legacy and confirming Numero Group as a singular tastemaker for the obscure yet profound in music.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the artists we\u2019ve worked with have had meaningful changes to their lives because of the revenue that they\u2019ve gotten,\u201d Sevier explained. \u201cThat\u2019s virtually always after spending many, many years building something. It doesn\u2019t happen overnight in almost any case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like always, Numero Group has a number of things in the works. Their most ambitious project, \u201cSequoia,\u201d has been 30 years in the making. The label considers it a sequel to their compilations \u201cEccentric Soul: Omnibus\u201d and \u201cEucalyptus,\u201d an examination of the 1995 scene around Tree Records. The collection features 25 7\u2033 records documenting emo\u2019s first decade or so, accompanied by a 136-page hardcover book that tells the tale of the genre through stories from across the country, illustrated with photographs, flyers and ads from Numero\u2019s vast archive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just been so fun and rewarding to revisit something that I held really near and dear, but to do it with the perspective of a 47-year-old who actually knows how to make records now,\u201d Shipley said.<\/p>\n

Record labels are not dead. It\u2019s possible to run something truly great in 2025. But that requires perspective and effort, something Numero has in spades. Champions of underrated, undiscovered musical history, Numero remains a visionary Chicago stalwart pushing the industry forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe in our taste enough that we\u2019ll stand behind anything that we put out,\u201d added Shipley. \u201cWe know that there\u2019s a very, very long tail on this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Britt Julious is a freelance critic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"History is not just a study of the past, but a conversation between where we\u2019ve been, where we\u2019re…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,171,5386,1818,2765,1370,5424,1072],"class_list":{"0":"post-18980","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-keywee","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-music-and-concerts","15":"tag-things-to-do"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114755206089013369","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}