In the centre of Nijmegen city, at the hout straat 61 is established comic store Señor Hernandez with a huge collection regular and underground comics and related articles. Señor Hernandez has been started in 2005 by JP and Jorick who worked together before in another comic store in Arnhem . After a while JP and Jorick decided to sell vinyl records as well because they had difficulties to find certain records themselves. Their selection is small but interesting because they have chosen to sell genre specialities which are not for sale in the regular stores. These record boxes in their store are well visited by now and there is of course a website where records can be ordered.

Since the winter months of 2008 I can call myself a regular visitor and have bought many great releases. Slowly I found out that there is a Roadburn connection through their Burning World records which they own together with Jurgen van den Brand. And so it was time for a little investigation here.  

Jurgen van den Brand is one of the major forces behind the worldwide famous stoner/psychellica Roadburn festival which originally started as an E-zine. When you translate Jurgen’s sure name it says burn making the connection complete. Three years ago Jurgen also started the Roadburn label and Burning World Records. JP “Hernandez” and Jurgen who are friends already for many years and visiting concerts everywhere have decided to work more closely together including Jorick in 2008 and started to join forces working more closely together concerning the labels.

Roadburn records is doing especially stoner, space rock and “Live at Roadburn” releases. This happens on their favourite medium vinyl exclusively. Among those releases are releases from the likes of Nadja, Kruger, a split 10” by Lesbian and Ocean and more recently the fantastic Wolves in the Throne Room “Live at Roadburn”. Very proud are Jurgen and JP- being great fans- to announce the release of the Current 93 performance from 2008. Next to this pretty slab of vinyl they also planned some releases from Years of no Light/Fear Falls Burning-“Live at Roadburn 2008” and Church of Misery-“Live at Roadburn 2009” as well as a split 12” by Nexus and Kodiak.

Burning World records is concentrated to more extremer genres like doom, noise ambient, black etc. Releases from this label so far contain ultra extreme black ambient project Gnaw Their Tongues, experimental ambient project Machinefabriek, Greek avant doomers Universe 217 and ambient act the Austrasian Goat. Recently they released the new Gnaw Their Tongues double LP All the Dread Magnificence of Perversity which also has been released in a limited wooden box version including T-shirt and special silk screen prints.

Due to the Roadburn link both labels are able to sign bigger acts but mostly they are looking for smaller acts that attract their attention and making them decide it must be heard by a bigger audience. Everything seems to work out well as earlier releases like those of Angelic process, lesbian and Gnaw Their tongues are almost sold out.  

Jorick, the one I spoke with, did let me know there is no special philosophy behind the records they release except from those they like and their love for music and its vinyl medium. At the basics of their choices is only if the music is exciting like the warm organic black metal like Wolves in the throne Room or Altar of Plagues. “This can be totally different within a year. "Starting-point is that we do what ever we like. This can be surprising for ourselves also because tastes are changing aren’t they”. All three have a broad taste in music and with having two labels the possibility to release from a broad spectrum has magnificently increased. “For now we are very happy with all compliments we get about the diversity of our releases and the constant quality. We take special care for the packaging. Everything has to be complete as one and looking fine. It is not just the record what is important but also the way how to present it."

                                                                                      
There are plenty of plans for the future. One of those is the plan to do so called “Licensed Releases”.  Together with other labels they would like to do re-releases of records that are out of print for many years. There are negotiations going on but they find it to early to hand me any names. Besides is there a new mailorder site in the air were records can be bought.   

However Burning World is housed in the catacombs of Señor Hernandez are they not businesslike connected. But here are a lot of beautiful books on the shelves to be found with music as subject like books from graphic artist Kozik or books dealing with music in one or other way. This and more are making it worth visiting the store once when visiting historic city Nijmegen . The label is a kind of hobby running out of hand. It requires a lot of work but is completely satisfying thus to Jorick. There seems a bright future for Burning World, a label we will hear from more often.
 
http://www.senorhernandez.com/
http://burningworldrecords.com/
http://burningworldrecords.wordpress.com/