Mountain Records

Mountain Records is a record label started in Cape Town, South Africa in 1980 by Patrick Lee-Thorp.

The record label produces mostly South African music and is known as the home of Cape Jazz recordings, having issued a number of albums by such names as Basil Coetzee, Robbie Jansen, Jonathan Butler, Tony Schilder and others.

In the early years of the label's existence, a certain amount of commercial success was garnered from releases by such artists as David Kramer, Robin Auld and later the neo-traditional African band Amampondo. This success was partly due to the label's involvement in the live presentation of these artists.

From the outset through to the early 1990s, the state-owned radio and TV media, SABC, restricted their stations from playing certain music by Kramer, Edi Niederlander, Coenie de Villiers and others because of the critical text in the songs by these performers on records released by Mountain Records.

From 1996, the label set up a European base, with an office in Hamburg, Germany. The label continued to market their own artists but also facilitated the release or distribution of non-label South African acts such as Brenda Fassie, Philip Tabane and the Soul Brothers. The artists Tony Bird (USA), Janvier Honfo (Benin) and Celso Fonseca (Brazil), all in some way connected by Africa and its music, were released on the label through the European offices. A sub-label, known as Sea Records, was launched in about 1989 to release jazz productions and several South African and German jazz ensembles had their music issued on this sister label.

The label still maintains an office in Cape Town. Releases in the period 2000 to 2010 include a DVD of the original Amampondo line-up performing live, and the re-issue of a classic Morris Goldberg recording and the third part in the label's Cape Jazz series. Former Amampondo leader Dizu Plaatjies has two solo projects on the label. The second solo album by Plaatjies, entitled African Kings, was launched in Paris and Cape Town in February and March 2009 respectively. These are distributed by EMI in southern Africa and New Music Distribution in Europe.

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