September was a glorious label - a delicious aural experiment up there with Factory and 4AD. Founder Paul Sutton had a huge enthusiasm for his bands and wanted to create a label that had class and savvy. His main bands of course were McCarthy and Wolfhounds, two of the finest young bands in London, and September seemed assured of a glorious future.

It didn't dawn on any of us that McCarthy wouldn't storm the pop charts with the same subversive pop spirit that The Communards and the Pet Shop Boys had recently done. McCarthy seemed perfect for Top of the Pops, and we were filled with anticipation.

As a record sleeve designer Mccarthy proved to be the perfect band for me. We built a set of sleeves that were deeply influenced by the greatest Dada and Expressionist art - the style was informed by Marinetti and John Heartfield and tried to reflect the messages engraved deep into the songs.

Wolfhounds were a tougher proposition - contrary and contradictory. As with their music their intense style proved hard to package. After Pink's understated elegance the September sleeves were more aggressive and disjointed. Other bands emerged too - notably Brighton's Whirl and Martin Stebbing's Catapult ( a man now known for his engineering work for the likes of R-Kelly in Chicago.

With both these bands the best was yet to come, visually. When Paul closed September we had two extraordinary sleeves ready to roll. The Wolfhounds had been working with brilliant illustrator and artist Charlie Hackett on a vibrantly coloured sleeve for Bright and Guilty - meanwhile Paul and I were cooking up a black and purple McCarthy cover that would be covered with stickers of carefully chosen art, photography and illustration. Both real innovations. Charlie had just done a delightful sleeve for Paul's Reggae adverture with Bass Dance ( formed by Basil Gabbidon, founder of Steel Pulse) and we wanted to see him let loose in full colour. The result was spectacular.

All this bit the dust with September's demise - Midnight Music were not interested in blowing money on sleeve art and Charlie's multi-colored masterpiece (a fitting follow-on from Justin Ryan's terrific screen for Unseen Ripples) never saw the light of day. The Wolfhounds themselves set about the cover after that, creating a huge collage image that currently props up a Trad Arr piano. Contributions from just about everyone ensured a mad Jackson Pollock job.

Paul bogged off to spin the wheels on the South Coast and nothing more was said about the music business. Or record sleeves. Both of us had other fish to fry. Many thanks to the Tangents people and Alistair Fitchett in particular, who reminded us of the greatness that was just beyond our grasp.

ANDY ROYSTON
Tangled Spider

The political influence of the September label was made artfully clear from the outset. Connections with the cultural and political revolutions of the early twentieth century were obvious, from the name itself (as in the September Revolution, one assumes), to the clever appropriation of artistic imagery.
ALISTAIR FITCHETT
Tangents
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The only difference between our wolfhounds and our daughter is our daughter can ask "why".

I have a feeling if our Wolfhounds could talk, that would probably be their favourite word!