Criminal Tribe Records is a music label, specialising in Breakbeat (not to be confused with the Breaks subgenre), Big Beat, Funky BigBeat, Industrial Breakbeat and Hardcore Breakbeat.

History

The label, Criminal Tribe Records, was officially founded on April 25, 2014 by the artist and the promoter, hailing from the Smolensk region, Alexey «Hornet» Tereshkov. The path to the creation of this project began in December 2013, after a joint alliance of Alexey with Industrial Breakbeat producer «3D Stas». After a lengthy communication between the two parties, Alexey Hornet had the idea of creating a music label, with the main purpose to resurrect such legendary music styles as Breakbeat and Big Beat. Additionally providing an opportunity to publish music to young and promising artists from all over the CIS working in these genres.

From that moment on began a joint search for the producers; and to offer work in this project. Thus was formed the backbone of the future of the label. It included the following artists:
- Dmitry «FB Force» Shinkarchuk, who became the official sound engineer for the Criminal Tribe Records studio in Israel;
- Eugene «[SC] Smash3r» Shulyabkin, who led the team within the IT sector;
- Dmitry «Little Orange UA» Garkusha;
- Alexander «Aequo» Korolev;
- Alexander «Raze Weid» Dmitriev.

Invaluable support, in the official legal registration of the project, came from a Drum and Bass artist named Anna «AnnGree», who was living in England at the time. Thanks to his relationship with different music labels, Alexei received clear instructions on registering a private company. Thus, April 25, 2014 was established «Criminal Tribe Records ltd.», which received an address in London.

The next step in the development of the project was finalising the contract for official distribution with the company, Cygnus Music [UK]. The demo materials that were sent from Criminal Tribe Records to Cygnus Music made a great impression on this company, which, gave rise to the joint cooperation, despite the lack of reputation or experience of the newly created label.

Progress

During the first half of the labels existence, Criminal Tribe Records was joined by the following artists:
- Oleg «Subface» Akimenko;
- Yuri «Age Of Rampage» Makarenko;
- the project «Submotorz», which consisted of the following personnel: Dmitry «Floyd The Barber» Gulin, Anton Litvinov and Maxim «Motor X3Me» Pustovoy;
- the project «Under Influence», a joint project of two producers: Sergei «Klux» Bezmagа and Pavel «The Synthetic Plastic Worms» Korshunov;
- Alexander «Izotope» Kormilitsyn.

On July 1, 2014 marked the first official release for Criminal Tribe Records: an album by «3D Stas» entitled «C.L.A.W.», which, took first place in the TOP 100 Breaks Releases on Beatport, the main online electronic music store. The album also hit the monthly magazine by Cygnus Music, «Cygnus Newsletter».

So opened the first season of the project, which, was followed by the release of a large number of albums from the team of residents. Each release has always landed in the TOP 100 Breaks Releases on Beatport and received warm support from the genre’s fans worldwide. The dream of an uprising of Breakbeat / Big Beat music from the underground scene, no longer seemed so elusive and fruitless. Work by the label’s resident began step by step, to approach the whole team’s set goals.

In the fall of 2014, after releasing their debut album, the Submotorz project collapsed due to ideological disputes within the team. Maxim Pustovoy left the ranks of the residents, and Dmitry «Floyd the Barber» Gulin joined the label as a solo artist. Anton Litvinov, at this time, engaged in the revival of his old project «Secret Sexy Signal», while remaining a part of the label.

In 2014 October 29, through the efforts of Eugene «[SC]Smash3r» Shulyabkin, the official website of Criminal Tribe Records was launched, designed to further become the focal point of all true fans of Breakbeat / Big Beat music to follow the progress of the label’s residents. By March 2015 the project had already gained a considerable reputation: the label began to be noticed by a number of famous international artists. These included projects such as Omar Santana and Freestylers.

In the spring of 2015, for ideological reasons, «3D Stas» left Criminal Tribe Records, in March of the same year, Criminal Tribe Records included Egor «Interra» Zavyalov, and In August 2015, Dmitri «D.Bruce» Shtoda joined the ranks of residents at Criminal Tribe Records.

On August 13, 2015 was launched Сriminal Tribe Radio, which became the world’s only radio station to broadcast exclusively Breakbeat/Big Beat/Industrial Breakbeat music. The chief editor of the radio station was, and still is, Dmitry «Floyd The Barber» Gulin. In addition to this, two radio shows have been put into rotation: «Molotov Cocktail», a personal project of Alexey, «Hornet», as well as a brand new show from Dmitry, «Floyd The Barber» under the name «Floyd’s Breakbeat Shop».

A major connection was formed in the second half of 2015, when Alexei Hornet became aquainted with a radio presenter from England, [allFM 96.6 Manchester] by Linda B Brenson. Being a responsive and kind person, Linda went to meet the CTR team, and all of the outstanding releases of the label at the time immediately fell in to rotation on her radio show «Linda’s B Breakbeat Show». Among other things, a joint agreement was signed, still in force to this day, that every second Friday of the month would be surrendered to a guest mix from one of the residents of Criminal Tribe Records. So from there, the CTR team broke into the English market.

In autumn 2015, the label’s team ranks were joined by:
- Sergei «Sj Ocean» Kravchenko, who led, among other things, the label’s design department;
- the revitalised project, «Secret Sexy Signal» by Anton Litvinov and Yaroslav Belousov.

In November 23, 2015 the world’s first, Community Service radio show, produced by The Crystal Method, put a track from a resident of Criminal Tribe Records in their rotation, namely Under Influence & ElectroGorilla — Restless Dance, remixed by Sergei «Sj Ocean» Kravchenko. February 6, 2016, hit the first of the guest mixes from CTR in the Community Service radio show, provided by Under Influence. From this point on in 2016, were also played guest mixes from Oleg «Subface» Akimenko and Yuri «Age Of Rampage» Makarenko.

In March 31, 2016 within the framework of the «Molotov Cocktail» radio show, was played an exclusive mix from world famous artist, Alex «Ursula 1000» Gimeno. After working together with Criminal Tribe Records, Alex became a friend of the team, and the first representative of the USA artists who have supported the project.

In May 16, 2016, was Criminal Tribe Records first international release, a joint album from Under Influence and English Big Beat artist, Rory Hoy.

In May 26, 2016, the release made a new record for sales on Beatport and got on to line 56 of the chart of «All Releases», thus marking the return of Big Beat music to the masses. The album has received broad support  worldwide including the rotation on BBC World Radio. Also on this day, the radio show «Molotov Cocktail» sounded an exclusive mix from well known artist, iLS.

By the end of summer 2016, resident of Criminal Tribe Records, Alexander «Raze Weid» Dmitriev left the ranks.
In September 13, 2016, into the Criminal Tribe Records team, entered Christina «Krizzz» Nesterova. A little later the label was joined by Varvara «Var4ka Trofee» Trofimova, who became general manager of CTR.
In January 2017, Alexander «Aequo» Korolev left the project.

In February 2017, Under Influence was nominated as a candidates for Best Producer in the International Breaks Awards (IBA).

Achievements

In Autumn 2016 occurred a major event for the project. Legendary breakbeat band, The Prodigy announced their big tour of five cities in Russia. The list of these cities: Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow. Marvelous news came when the all-russian competition was announced, for all the countries artists, within the framework of the tour. The main prize of which was the possibility of playing support performance for the legendary team, The Prodigy. Criminal Tribe Records’ team deployed a promotional campaign to draw attention to its own residents as worthy representatives of the genre. As a result, 6 residents of CTR were declared to participate in the 4 out of the 5 city tour.
Among them:
- Alexander «Aequo» Korolev;
- Dmitriy «Little Orange UA» Garkusha;
- Dmitriy «Floyd The Barber» Gulin;
- Christina «Krizzz» Nesterova;
- Egor «Interra» Zavyalov;
- Yuri «Age of Rampage» Makarenko.

Absolutely all the artists get into the finals, in which he, Liam Howlett personally choose the artist for support. In October 25, the competition results were announced, which resulted in Novosibirsk for win Alexander «Aequo» Korolev, and in Moscow — Yuri «Age of Rampage» Makarenko. This event became a historic one for the team. Residents of Criminal Tribe Records opened a big Russian tour for The Prodigy in the Siberian capital on 2 November 2016; and closed a series of warm-ups in the capital on November 9, 2016.

Key performance was Yuri «Age Of Rampage» Makarenko. The project «Age Of Rampage» secured the longest warm-up before the main performance by The Prodigy in the CIS. The team personally thank the artist for his work, and Yuri approached The Prodigy to include a live set composition of The Prodigy — We Are The Ruffest. This was the result of an interesting personal dialogue between Yuri and Liam. Yuri received special thanks from the maestro himself for a compilation of material filled exclusively with Breakbeat / Big Beat music.

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