Associated with Sonoton, a German music publishing / production / music library company, based in Munich. Sonoton was founded by Gerhard and Rotheide Narholz in 1965, as a recorder and supplier of background music for films and television. It proved successful, expanded its interests and its catalogue, and is still going today (2020). At first its recordings appear to have been reserved for the use of professionals, as is generally the case with music libraries, but in 1979 Gerhard Narholz introduced the Intersound label, which made some of the company's products available to the public. 'Music Week' of the 19th of May 1979 described Intersound as a 'new' label and said that it was being launched that month. The article confirmed that Narholz - better known in the UK as Norman Candler - was the 'guiding force' behind the label, and said that its intention was to concentrate on instrumental items for the MOR market. Records by Horst Jankowski, Kevin Peek and Xavier Cugat were in the pipeline, and distribution was to be by Selecta.
Initially Intersound seems to have had a foot in both the German and the British camps: its first twelve singles and its first eleven albums were all pressed in Germany but their labels - and sleeves in the case of the albums - carried a reference to being distributed in the UK by Selecta, 'A division of Decca Record Co. Ltd.' Singles were numbered in an ISS-100 series and they came with a company sleeve, which I haven't scanned sideways - the opening is at the top. 'Music Master' gives release dates for ISSes 101 to 104 and 107, and ISS-105 was mentioned on the 'MW' 'Releases' page of the 29th of September; the other singles have the same small spindle holes and the 'Trade distribution for UK by Selecta' text to the left of the logo but they weren't listed in the Trade literature. This may perhaps be because at the end of 1979 Decca was sold to Polygram and its Selecta arm proved surplus to requirements - 'MW' of the 26th of April 1980 reported that Selecta was to be wound down 'within the next two weeks'. With their distributor in that kind of state it is probable that the remaining singles received minimal promotion and were only available for a matter of months; they do exist, but they seem to be rare. Intersound appears to have broken its British link at that point and to have concentrated on its home land. From ISS-113 onwards the singles had large centre holes and had no reference to Selecta on their labels. The numbers got as far as ISS-214, around 1990, before the 7" vinyl format was discontinued.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.