I got a chance to work with these guys on a project called "Jakatta". I asked on an earlier thread because I thought they were very talented and wondering how big they were in the U.K. The tracks we worked on were very portishead-ish, deep, dark, and sensual. I tried finding some of there stuff in the states, and one record clerk told me he thought they were on the dance side of things. Any info for me?

Ministry of sound are a HUGE dance music club & record label. They are NOT artists or producers or remixers. MOS started as a nightclub. Now they do hugely successful dance music compilations throughout Europe and the Far East. Folks will buy just 'cause of the 'good name' of the organization. Artistically they probably only license already made product that they pick up the rights to, perhaps they have an A&R division that signs acts & commissions recordings as well but it's not the main thrust of their activities. They are immensely wealthy via licensed tracks put together on complications. The wildly successful MOS nightclub in South London provided instantly hip 'branding' name for the label, gaining it instant public recognition and credibility.

UK - Ministry Of Sound
US - Interscope

On the same sort of scale...... but ALL dance.

I would be surprised if there were less than...100 employees of Ministry of Sound UK. It's big in European independant label terms...

Hope that helps some...

Thanks for the info Jules. It saves me the embarassment and asking them "Are you guys big in the UK?".

I'm currently working on Justin Berkman's album. He was the guy who came up with the original idea for the Ministry, alond with the name & logo. The guy with the money is a guy called James Polumbo, who really has no personal interest in the music apart from how much money it can make him..

He was a property developer and the Ministry is built in an old hosepipe factory! dfegad

Justin fell out with them and just gets to use the "Founder of The Ministry of Sound" monkier... No money.. That's the music industry for you.

Anyway I'm happy to chat about anything dance related or insider gossip about certain establisments but would prefer to use email ;-) you can get me on [email protected]..

BTW Jakarta is a very cool project, and they had two big hits here (the 1st being MUCH bigger), the 1st used the theme from American Beauty, the second used Shiela Chandra's vocals from the 80s hit "Ever so lonely". Bother were on the more commercial end of the scale..

A mate of mine released a track on Cream (Which I worked on) based around "Sorrow" from Gladiator which was constantly compaired to the American Beauty track..