Yarada Lij,” a four-song EP from Ethiopia’s Mikael Seifu, will be the first release on 1432 R by Ally Schweitzer

For a couple of years, Subterranean A was one of D.C.’s best-curated DIY venues. Or at least that’s the case I made in a 2012 story I wrote for Washington City Paper, which ran not long before the basement space hosted its last official show. Now, Subterranean A lives once more—but through a new record label, 1432 R, which borrows its name from the venue’s old address.

DJ and producer Sami Yenigun is one of the label’s founders. He and former Subterranean A residents Eric Tilden, Joyce Lim, and friend Dawit Eklund—who makes music with Yenigun as aLamont—started the imprint as a means “to explore our own sound,” Yenigun writes in an email. “Joyce, Eric, and I started saving up money, Dawit started getting crazy in the lab, and it all took off from there.”

But the label’s debut release—heard for the first time on the Fader this week—comes from an artist with no official tie to Subterranean A. He’s an Ethiopia-based producer named Mikael Seifu, and he’s a good pal of Eklund, Yenigun writes. “Dawit and I have been listening to his stuff for a while now, and when the label started up, we just knew we had to get him on board. He’s one of these people who has been honing his craft for years, but has never released any of it.”

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