The new cutting edge of music has finally arrived.

Just as Sire Records and the now-defunct I.R.S. Records used New Wave music as a launching pad to cook a melting pot of various musical genres during the late ‘70s and ‘80s, Sutton Records brings back cutting-edge unpredictability and a sense of fun to a gloom-driven and stagnant rock & roll scene. Founded by multi award-winning music journalist Michael Sutton in 2005, Sutton Records is the home for unbridled creativity and passion. Although New Wave is an essential part of Sutton Records’ focus, the label really has no stylistic boundaries, encouraging artists to expand the definition of pop music. The company’s first release, Prettier Than Pink’s Chop Suey, epitomizes the label’s philosophy of breaking down walls within genres, fusing funk and psychedelic rock to danceable New Wave grooves. Sutton Records believes in squashing the mindless anger and pointless fatalism that has infected rock for more than a decade. Let melody and positive vibrations reign.

Born in the Philippines, the half-Filipino, half-Scottish Sutton is committed to exposing talent that is rooted in his Philippine and British origins. Growing up in the disco era in California, Sutton developed a curiosity towards pop-music history at an early age. Mesmerized by old clips from American Bandstand, Sutton researched rock & roll’s past, listening to records from the Motown icons, the Doors, Frank Zappa, Elvis Presley, the Monkees, and J. Frank Wilson, Jr., whose lost-love classic “Last Kiss” became a favorite of his decades before Pearl Jam covered it. 

When Sutton returned to the Philippines in 1984, he soon fell under the spell of the U.K. New Wave imports that were then regularly spun on the legendary Manila station DWXB-102. Upon relocating to Washington State in 1987, Sutton was embraced by the grunge revolution, later contributing to the scene’s seminal fanzine Backlash and co-founding The Underground and Pandemonium!, the latter featured in the critically-acclaimed theatrical documentary Hype!

Sutton Records is fueled by the sense of wonder that colored his view of music as a child and the adrenaline rush of excitement that burst from his New Wave days in his teens. From Pinoy Rock to New Wave to Contemporary Christian, Sutton Records will deliver exciting revolutionary sounds without any geographical boundaries.