The label Harthouse was founded in 1992 in Frankfurt/Offenbach by Matthias
Hoffmann, Heinz Roth and the well known Frankfurt DJ Sven Vaeth. Harthouse,
in the early years from 1992 to 1997 a sublabel of Eye Q Records, was a
plattform for young newcomer artists. It was designed for the more harder,
more minimalistic sound, the sound that didn't fit into the commercial line
of Eye Q Records.

Sven Vaeth commented on this:"We wanted to create a stage, a playground -
even an experimental one - and I think we quite succeeded." In the
beginning Harthouse defined a sound that today is well known as the "Sound
Of Frankfurt", a harder but danceable version of "Trance" - "Hardhouse" or
"Harthouse". The first release was produced by the Harthouse A&R himself,
Sven Vaeth. His co-producer up to year 2000 was Ralf Hildenbeutel, known
from todays "Schallbau". Sven Vaeth also had different projects on
Harthouse together with the other "Schallbau"-members Steffen Britzke
(alias B-Zet) and Matthias Hoffmann (alias AC Boutsen).

From the very beginning Sven Vaeth decided on what was released on
Harthouse and what was not. In the first years Harthouse releases were kept
heavily limited, around 2000 copies each release. The labels promo-list was
also kept small. In a very short time Harthouse became the "flag-ship" of
German Techno.

The label became well known and it's artists achieved world fame and
success on international charts.Due to the limited copies and quality
releases, demand rose rapidly. The real first big success was Hardfloor's
first release "Hardtrance Acperience" (1992,HH-008). While hardly noticed
in Germany, it moved into British charts (1992/93, No. 56) after having
been re-released there half a year later. To oppose the trend to produce
with constantly growing speed from track to track was a revolutionary idea
in 1992. Up to today there is an international demand for remixes created
by "Hardfloor" (Ramon Zenker & Oliver Bondzio). Examples are Mory Kante,
The Shamen and Anne Clark. Then one hit followed the other: Arpeggiator's
"Possible future of mankind" (HH-016), Hardfloor "Trancscript" (HH-019)
(place 72 on Brit. Charts 1993) or Resistance D. "Human E.P" (HH-020).

Due to the fast worldwide success foreign departments were founded in 1992:
"Harthouse UK" in England, distributed by "Rising High", and "Harthouse
America" in the states in a licence-deal with with "Moonshine Music". But
soon in 1994 the deal with "Rising High" was canceled and Harthouse
reopened an own department in the UK. The cooperation with "Moonshine
Records" in America like in the UK appeared not to be successfull too.

1997 was the worst year for Harthouse. Artists were not paid, but given
hope to. At the beginning of 1997 complete confusion showed up: Sven Vaeth
left the label. The firm moved from its vast office in Offenbach to Berlin.
Two months later the firm was insolvent, and filed for bankruptcy. The
artists could not be paid or were put off with ridiculous sums. The
managing directors proved unwilling to comment on the reasons for the
bankruptcy. But the tremendous discrepancies between aims and reality are
obvious: on one hand they wanted to be a German techno Underground Label -
on the other - they rented a multi story office that had to be payed for;
they cut down sales by limitation while the managing directors started to
jet to their branch-offices in the UK and US. To all parties concerned it
was obvious: this could not work out. Limitation was stopped fast enough
but the move to a smaller office came too late. Only a few people know why
the labels sales in Germany petered out.

Sven Vaeth, when asked about his bailing out, mentioned conflicts of
interest between his partners and himself as well as serious doubts about
the discrepancies between his initial dreams that had given him power &
crude reality of the whole affair.

At the beginning of 1998 the Under Cover Music Group (UCMG) took over the
rights to use the brand name of the label as well as the trade mark
"Harthouse". For UCMG the essential point of this deal was the assurance of
giving back the artists/authors the right of use on their titles - UCMG
edited a "Retrospective Box", a collection of the most successful releases
of Harthouse.

After the Retrospective Compilations Harthouse/UCMG started a new line of
single releases as well as a few albums and promos. A&R of the new
Harthouse was Oliver Bondzio. The design of the releases was changed from
the minimalistic black sleeves with the blue Harthouse-logo to white
sleeves with gray Harthouse-logo. The releaselist was kept short at all. In
the few years from 1998 up to 2003 where Harthouse existed under UCMG,
there only appeared 9 singles, a few albums and, what was new at Harthouse
at all, a few DJ Mix-CDs mixed by various DJs like Oliver Bondzio, Frank
Lorber and Plank. There also appeared one foreign release by Hardfloor
under Harthouse UK, by the english UCMG department.

In 2001 Harthouse/UCMG started to re-release some of Hardfloors old albums
(TB Resuscitation Remastered and Respected Remastered) which had appeared
under Eye Q in the early 90's. In early 2003, UCMG started to get into
financial problems. In the middle of 2003 Harthouse planed to re-release a
set of old singles, but after some first testpressings were made, UCMG was
closed.

In 2004 Daredo Music takes over the rights of the Harthouse brand. There
will be a different release-strategie than UCMG had, with different design
(based on the Harthouse style), more quality releases and new artists - an
adequate follow up of the old Harthouse sound and mythos. Watch out for
more..... Harthouse is coming!