SOUTHEND electronic label Hottwerk has been nurturing its stable of artistes for four years and owner Tony Pontius decided it was high time to showcase some of the talent.

Hottwerk recently released a special compilation album, Future Imperfect, featuring an array of its top names and Tony couldn’t be more proud of the result.

“It’s consolidating the first four years of Hottwerk with the next chapter,” he explains.

“Most of the tracks on there are from the back catalogue with new mixes, all of them are exclusive mixes for this album and won’t be appearing in this format anywhere else.

“I kind of wanted to keep the Southend connection, so the people who’ve done the remixes are people who’ve signed to Hottwerk or Arcade Pony, who we label manage, or are friends of the label with a Southend connection.”

The compilation features a mix of names, including Tony’s own music project Dpplgngrs, Little Penguin, Spatial Awareness, Punx Soundcheck and Lo-fi Beats.

Tony says that reviews from industry glossys won’t be out until later this month, but the reaction has been good so far.

“It’s been really, really very good,” he says. “We’re still waiting for the glossy reviews, but we had a very good one in in the Irish Daily Star and DJ reviews have been brilliant.

“DJs like Brandon Block have thought it’s really cool and it’s being played across the world, with people playing tracks and supporting it, which is really positive.”

It’s been a good year for Tony, with Dpplgngrs bagging electro single of the month in April’s edition of DJ magazine and his label going from strength to strength.

“It’s been a big year for us,” he says. “We’ve got some remixes coming out for some quite big names – we did a remix for Losers ft Brian Molko from Placebo.

“We’ve had really good reviews from DJ magazine and Mixmag, it’s all onwards and upwards, we’ve been pushing for four years and just been building up and building up.”

He adds: “Southend is brimful of talent and talented people. Every two years there is someone big coming out of Southend, whether it’s the Horrors, These New Puritans or us. It’s nice to be able to do our bit for Southend’s artists.”

Future Imperfect is available to download. Check out Hottwerk at www.hottwerk.com