Interview with Author Martin Aston – 4AD Biography – Part 1
by Killian Laher

Facing the Other Way: Anniversary edition, updated with a new afterword – 12 Mar. 2026
Find out more about Martin Aston on his website here. 

No More Workhorse spoke to journalist and author Martin Aston about his 4AD book and got his thoughts on music.

No More Workhorse: When did you first come across 4AD?

I started writing for Melody Maker in about ’84. The first time I wrote about a 4AD band was probably a live review of the Cocteau Twins. I bought Garlands, pre-writing. In the early days, with limited amounts of money, you couldn’t buy everything. People talk about 4AD as a collector’s label and all that, and I can absolutely see that. But I couldn’t afford, and probably didn’t realise, how much stuff was coming out. I was an avid reader of the music press, but you can’t be across everything. When I started writing, and therefore I started getting free music, I would get to hear much more of what was on 4AD.  A real turning point was hearing the first Throwing Muses album, which, with (Cocteau Twins’) Heaven Or Las Vegas, are still my two favourite 4AD releases. Hearing the Muses and then seeing them supporting the Cocteau Twins the night after I had interviewed the band. Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, and Dead Can Dance were obviously a focal point for the label. That’s what they talk about, the classic 4AD sound, though there was much more to it than just that sound.

I bought the first This Mortal Coil single (Sixteen Days/Gathering Dust). Tim Buckley was pretty much my favourite singer at that time, which is why I think I got along so well with Ivo Watts-Russell early on. Then I think, seeing Throwing Muses, Pixies, and so many great records. I went back and heard earlier 4AD releases as well. Just trying to gather all the information that I could.

NMW: Was Melody Maker your break into music writing?

MA: Yeah. I did a bit of fanzine writing very early, in the early ’80s. I did a bit of writing for a trade magazine called Record Business, but that wasn’t paid. Melody Maker was my break. Then from there… I did some stuff for Record Mirror, and Music Week, and a new indie magazine called Underground. I left Melody Maker because I didn’t get on with the guy who became the features editor. Then I went on, and I was English correspondent for a main Dutch music paper (OOR) and an American magazine, College Music Journal. Then went on to Q and Mojo, Select, and… it’s been a long time.

NMW: How did the 4AD book come about the first time around?

MA: For the first 10 years of the 21st century, I was working in the dot-com world in the Time Out meets Rough Guides travel culture. Then I did a lot of work for the BBC, and I was editing and writing, not just music, but a lot of different subjects. That all came to an end in 2010. I went back to full-time freelance writing, and I got asked to write a piece about This Mortal Coil for Mojo. I had more time to think about features, and I’d written a couple of books in the ’90s. I just had veered off into other areas. There had been a book on Factory Records, and I thought of the subject of 4AD.

Ivo had moved to America in ’93, and I had done sleeve notes for a 4AD compilation, Lilliput.  I had interviewed Ivo in 1998 about a compilation, Anakin, that I wrote a press release for. Then he disappeared in ’99 into the New Mexico desert, where he still lives. We probably weren’t in touch for at least 10 years. Then, when I wrote a piece about This Mortal Coil, we struck back up. I said to him, I’m sure there is a book in 4AD, but he said, “Well, yes, fine, but Vaughan (Oliver) has to say yes as well”. And Vaughan at first was like, “Why are you writing a book about 4ad? I should be in charge of this whole thing”. I loved Vaughan, but he was a complex character, and he felt he should be in control of the situation. I didn’t want to do a coffee table, visual book… I wanted the story. For about a year, he sat on it and didn’t do anything.

Then I did another piece about Vaughan, a Mojo special about album covers.  I said to him, “Whatever happened to the 4AD book?” He said, “What have you done about it?” I said to him, let me do it. I’ll just take over, and we’ll do a proper story. And literally, the first publisher that I went to said yes. That was how it came about. I knew that there was a great story; there was obviously the music, bands had been documented, but the story itself hadn’t.

NMW: Visuals are important to most labels, but especially 4AD.

MA: It was, in a sense, an equal partnership, Ivo and Vaughan, in terms of the aesthetic.  Factory Records, with Peter Saville, is a comparable label in terms of the fact of having an in-house art director like that.  Bands were not forced to use Vaughan, but those that didn’t in a way lost out. I can understand that bands wants to be in control and want to have their own identity or their artwork. They don’t want to be folded into a label aesthetic. But Vaughan was broad enough to not just have one style by any means. When you look at the sleeves that he did for bands, and then you look at the sleeves that bands did for themselves, I think you can see that Vaughan was a real asset, and it was so integral to 4AD because of the way it looked. People would buy a 4AD record because of how it looked.

Back in the day, it wasn’t so easy to hear things. You might be listening to John Peel a lot, or you might be listening to Radio One at 8:00PM shows.  You would go into record shops, and you’d hunt stuff down, and you’d look at something and think, what’s that going to sound like?

NMW: How did you find dealing with Ivo Watts-Russell?

MA: Complicated. A complex character. In some ways, really easy to talk to. There are no lulls in the conversation. But the whole story of 4AD is that you can see the highs and the lows and the vulnerability that he had when things started going awry with different episodes. The whole difference between the record company and the record industry, the record business.  You have to balance the books, or you’ve got to have an accountant and all that stuff. Art versus commerce. He found that aspect quite difficult, and he wasn’t a businessman. Bands were upset about contracts and about payments. He felt very vulnerable when things started turning, and arguments started to take over. The more success that bands on 4AD had, the more that other bands would think… well, why aren’t I having that success? And shouldn’t I be this, and shouldn’t I have that? Then the industry itself changed, and there was much more pressure.

Ivo found that signing a band that did really, really well lifted the atmosphere of the people working at the label.  To him, it didn’t matter so much, but he could see that it really did matter to people at the label that you had success. Then, when ‘indie’, awful term but I’m just going to use it, independent music, started to really cross over in the wake of Nirvana, suddenly there were millions of albums, and obviously Pixies had done really well. Video changed things because videos cost a lot of money, but you needed videos to compete. Then you’re trying to get into the charts, seven-inch singles, twelve-inch singles, CD single, CD1, CD2, extra B-sides. The whole thing changed the way that Ivo had to operate and deal with bands.

Ivo ended up moving to America because he felt that he should be overseeing the American operation with a big distribution deal with Warners. That was almost the beginning of the end for him because when he got there… I think he was hijacked by the changing face of the industry. He stopped going to gigs. He was famous as the record label head that never went to see his bands play.  He ended up not going into the office. He had what you would call a nervous breakdown and had years of therapy afterwards. In the end, it culminated in him selling his share of the label and using the money to build a house in the desert outside of Santa Fe and has had nothing to do with the music industry in the last 27 years, apart from still being a fan of music. But he’s had nothing to do in terms of any record. I think Kim Deal still goes to him to say, can you sequence this album for me? But that’s the extent of it. He really got burnt out by the whole thing, but left behind an extraordinary catalogue.

NMW: He’s a very different character to, say, Alan McGee, but he similarly had a bit of a meltdown as well.

MA: You would say that you’ve got the likes of Tony Wilson at Factory and Alan McGee at Creation, and Ivo is the complete polar opposite. He’s not partying. He’s not even going to gigs. He’s not an introvert, but at the same time, he’s not someone who goes to parties. He’s more of a loner. So he was the complete opposite.