On-U Sound News & Facts Bulletins and Catalogues

In the early days, On-U Sound was not only a production house, but also a fully functioning record label (even with its own 'press officer' and mail order facility). Central to the promotion of the label, its acts and its releases were a steady stream of hand-crafted press releases and self-produced sale catalogues. For a while in the early-to-mid 1980s, many of the former took on a familar design and called themselves On-U Sound News & Facts Bulletins.

Often skillfully crafted and packed with enticing detail, these photocopied A4 pages were distributed to anyone with a listening ear who would read them, and gave an excellent overview of what was up-and-coming on the label and who was working with Adrian Sherwood at the time. For the On-U historian, they now make fascinating reading, offering glimpses of a growing label, of collaborations as they evolved and of planned projects that were destined never to be released.

Collected here are many of these N&F Bulletins from the 1980s, together with a selection of Catalogues from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s (occasionally complete with the scribbles of their original owner!). Marvel also at the now rare records you could buy back then at bargin prices (in today's money), and perhaps wonder why you didn't snap them up right there at the time. Of course, there have been plenty of other press releases over the years, and many of these appear in the Image Bank in their own section.

Please contact me if you would like to offer further or similar material for display here. The content below is presented in *approximately* chronological order, left to right, top to bottom. Click on an individual thumbnail image view the full-sized version. Text transcriptions of the News & Facts Bulletins are also available as indicated. NOTE: The large images are not hosted on the 'skysaw.org' domain, and so their availability depends on the external host being up and running.

News & Facts Bulletin #1: 1983 (Introducing LP5, LP13 and LP13) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #2: 1983 (Introducing LP8, LP17 and LP18) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #3: 1983 (Introducing On-U Sound releases on Cherry Red Records: LP6, LP7, LP10 and LP15) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #?: 1983 (An apparently numberless sheet in the series introducing DP8, LP23 and LP24) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #4: 1983 (Mark Stewart and the Maffia's releases DP5 and LP24) [ Text version ]
News & Facts Bulletin #5: 1983 (Singers And Players' 'Staggering Heights' album (LP23)) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #6 (version 1): 1983 (The official On-U Sound prospectus) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #6 (version 2): 1983 (Identical to version 1, except for the correction to Shara's name and the addition of three small pictures) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #7: 1983 (An introduction to the New Age Steppers. Unrelated, hand-written notes courtesy of Steve 'On The Wire' Barker) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #8 (version 1): 1983 (The release of the first two 'Mixout' releases (MIX1/MIX2), as originally scheduled) [ Text version ]
News & Facts Bulletin #8 (version 2): 1983 (With MIX1 delayed for 'secret reasons' (the involvement of Tom Silverman), MIX2 is relaunched on its own with a new B-side track) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #9: 1983 (London Underground's 'Between The Lines' single (S3) and 'Current Affairs Session' album (LP28M)) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #10: 1983 (African Head Charge's 'Drastic Season' album (LP27)) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #11: 1983 ('Epic Sound Battles Chapter 2' album (LP26) by Playgroup) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #12: 1983 (New 10-inch disco plates DP9 and DP10) [ Text version ]
New release update: 1983 (A whole host of late '83, early '84 releases, including the long lost Japanese compilation LP31)	For-sale catalogue: 1983	News & Facts Bulletin #13: 1984 (The 'Warzone' album by the Missing Brazilians (LP34)) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #14: 1984 ('North Of The River Thames' LP by Dr Pablo and Dub Syndicate (LP30)) [ Text version ]	News & Facts Bulletin #15: 1984 (The former 'Mixout' release MIX1 is relaunched, now on the Tommy Boy subsiduary label, Bodyrock in the USA) [ Text version ]
News & Facts Bulletin #16: 1984 (New LP from the Singers And Players: 'Leaps And Bounds' (LP33) via Cherry Red Records) [ Text version ]	For-sale catalogue #1: 1984	News & Facts Bulletin #1?: 1984 (On-U Sound moves house) [ Text version ]	For-sale catalogue #2: 1984	For-sale catalogue #3: 1984 (Late '84 catalogue, complete with hand-written updates)
News & Facts Bulletin #1?: 1986 (Introducing Fats Comet and Tackhead) [ Text version ]	For-sale catalogue (page 1): 1987 #1	For-sale catalogue (page 2): 1987 #1	For-sale catalogue: 1987 #2	For-sale catalogue (page 1): 1994
For-sale catalogue (page 2): 1994	For-sale catalogue (page 3): 1994	For-sale catalogue (page 4): 1994	For-sale catalogue (page 1): 1995 (Announcing the launch of Pressure Sounds (then an On-U subsiduary))	For-sale catalogue (page 2): 1995
For-sale catalogue (page 3): 1995	For-sale catalogue (page 4): 1995	For-sale catalogue (page 5): 1995 (The On-U Sound email discussion list gets a mention as On-U makes its first concession to the electronic age)	For-sale catalogue (page 6): 1995	Blanc Records newsletter (1996) (Page 1) [ Text version ]
Blanc Records newsletter (1996) (Page 2) [ Text version ]	Blanc Records newsletter (1996) (Page 3) [ Text version ]	Stop Press update: 1995