Steve is one of New Zealand’s most respected music professionals. Co-founder of Rattle Records and formerly a full-time professional musician, he began working as a sound engineer from the mid-80s. Since taking over the sole management of Rattle in 2010 (when former partners Tim Gummer and Keith Hill left to pursue their individual creative aspirations, Tim as a designer and Keith as a writer), Steve focused his professional and creative aspirations solely on the development of the label, which has grown from releasing an average of one album a year (between 1991 and 2010) to one a month over the last ten years.
His eye for detail informs every facet of production, which is reflected by the label’s impressive number of award-winning recordings and critical acclaim (not just for the music, but also for the consistent quality of the label’s cover designs and packaging), but of equal importance is the quality of the relationships the label fosters with its roster of artists.
While he stands behind every album released on Rattle, he has a particular fondness for albums with a strong improvisational character, albums such as Tuhonohono, Te Ku Te Whe, The Gristle of Knuckles, Ponguru, Te More, Dialogos, Utterance, Two Tides, and more recently an album he is particularly proud of, Rewa. But he is equally proud of projects by artists such as Michael Houstoun (Trois, Diabelli Variations, and the Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas), Jonathan Crayford (Dark Light and East West Moon), Roger Manins (Trio, The Thing, No Dogs Allowed), and NZTrio (Sway, Vicissitudes, Lightbox), as well as the impressive talent of Lixin Zhang, to name only a few of the many artists Steve proudly goes to bat for in his role as "Mr Rattle".
