Basically a Punk / New Wave label, from the late '70s and early '80s, Albion was one of the more professional and longer-lasting of the companies which dealt with those types of music. Ian Grant, Dai Davies and Derek Savage started it c.1976 as a management company and booking agency, and it soon had The Stranglers and 999 on its books; its first venture into the record business as such seems to have been with the release of a single by 999, 'I'm Alive', on the Labritain label, in September 1977. The Albion label as such first appeared in March 1978, and used almost the same design as Labritain: it was an old-fashioned-looking silver-and-black affair, closely resembling that of the 78rpm Rex label (1). The label was launched through United Artists, with manufacture and distribution therefore being by EMI. Singles were numbered in an ION-0 series. Alan Edwards' and Barry Cain's publishing firm Modern was linked with the Albion company and initially with the label, Edwards serving as label manager, but his and its involvement ended in May ('Music Week', 6th May 1978). In the summer of 1979 Albion broke with UA and signed a licensing deal with Arista ('MW' 23rd July), adopting a new catalogue numbering series (DEL-0) and a new injection-moulded label design (2) while it did so; manufacture and distribution were now done by Phonodisc, as they were for Arista at that time. The relationship lasted for about twelve months. The second half of 1980 saw Albion on its own again, with a third label design and a new distributor in Spartan. The catalogue prefix returned to ION, but the numbers were now in a 1000 series. Albion hit the charts with three Hazel O'Connor singles and three 999 singles, all in 1981; one curiosity was the licensing of an LP and a 7" by Krautrock group La Dusseldorf. The label continued on into the '80s, beyond the scope of this site, and numbers reached ION-1051 ('On The Mountain' by John David) by July 1983. The discography below only covers the 1970s.
Copyright 2008 Robert Lyons.