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PREFIXAUDIOFILESublight RecordsTwisted fairy tales from Winnipeg’s darkest record label.words: Cameron Macdonald Illustration: Sandrine PagnouxAaron Rintoul has a tip if you want to visit Winnipeg. He recalls anincident where a man convicted of robbing a Pizza Hut in Arkansaswas legally forbidden from entering Canada. No red tape could stoptrue love, and so he underwent a 100-hour trek on foot from NorthDakota to Winnipeg to see his internet girlfriend. Eventually, he wasfound wandering a golf course with hypothermia, and had to haveall of his fingers and some of his toes amputated. The moral? “If youplan to visit in February, pack something warm.”Rintoul’s fondness for the abnormal is reflected in the music on hisSublight imprint. Within two years, his label has gone from spewingout splattered beats fresh from bedrooms where the sun never shinesto becoming one of Canada’s prime breakcore outposts. In winter2005, Method of Defiance, led by maverick NYC producer/bassist BillLaswell, released its debut album on Sublight; luminaries includingRichard Devine, Jason Forrest, Fanny, Venetian Snares, Hecate, andDatach’i are also on board.At Sublight, a dark, introverted sensibility prevails. “Many of therecords explore subjects that don’t fit into the normality of society–things that are dark or perverse and also within themes that look atthe world with wonder and see beauty despite the negative,” Rintoulexplains. He began the label after watching Venetian Snares andFanny perform in Winnipeg’s unheated clubs. “It sounded like nothingI had ever heard before,” he recalls. “[It was] more inspired bypunk than by dance music and it really represented what growing upin Winnipeg can be like when you’re young.”Aaron “Venetian Snares” Funk was perhaps the first artist toscream Sublight’s name loud and clear to an unsuspecting public.The inner cover of his Horse and Goat EP was a painting of aLolita surrounded by toys and lollipops that only Dr. Freud wouldlove. Painter Trevor Brown, best known for his portraits of bruisedJapanese schoolgirls, was responsible; he also inspired the record’schromosome-damaged ruckus. “I did have a little trouble getting itprinted,” Rintoul remembers. “Several manufacturers wanted nothingto do with it but I was determined to get it out there.”And then there’s Funk’s gabber-drummed revolt against his hometown,Winnipeg is a Frozen Shithole. One track samples a newscasterannouncing that a Winnipeg wrestling coach was accused of sexuallyassaulting one of his students. The reporter encountered the recordand called Rintoul.“I thought for sure I was about to be sued,” he recounts. “But thenhe proceeded to tell me he had been playing the CD in the lunchroomat work all day and just wanted to say he really liked the album.”Method of Defiance’s The Only Way To Go Is Down, Hecate’s Brew Hideous, and the Eyelickercompilation are out now on Sublight. www.sublightrecords.com1819