Skip to content

Peter King Lathe Cuts

Biography

Though without any repute at all as a musician (his two releases are essential trial lathes, housed at the national library), Peter King is perhaps the most important man in New Zealand independent music – a fact he is quite oblivious towards.

Peter King is the eccentric and hyper-productive madman behind King industries worldwide, a one-man factory with a notorious reputation. since the 1980’s, king industries have churned out thousands, if not 10’s of thousands of individually crafted lathe-cut records, in runs as small as just 20 copies.

Using a handful of portable industrial lathe-cutting machines, some simple hi-fi equipment and a ton of poly-vinyl acetate, peter king has been the sole output for not just a portion, but the majority of New Zealand’s underground musicians being committed for the ages.

In the past, Kings’ records were often noisy or even poorly cut – but that was part of the experience, for an absolutely minimum outlet of hard-earned cash, just about any musician (or even non-musician) could afford them-self a short run of (almost) vinyl records, which vary from custom-made 5″ singles to full LP’s, with various different shapes, and even picture-discs being produced.

Over the course of the last 20 years at his Geraldine (and now Mt. Somers) abode, King has produced albums for the creme of New Zealand underground, along with a lot of the bottom-dwellers, and he currently finds himself almost too occupied making limited-edition releases for overseas interests (some as high-profile as sonic youth, pavement and even the Beastie Boys).

Peter King can be contacted directly for inquiries on his record-production process, and his lathe-cut runs – which are very affordable at between NZ$5 for 7″s and NZ$10 for 12″s per unit.

Discography

  • Money lathe-cut 8″ picture-disk [self-released]
  • First trial negative position lathe-cut 8″ picture-disk [self-released]

Contact Details

  • Peter King Record Manufacturing
  • 35 Comyns st, Mt. Somers, 1 rd, Ashburton, New Zealand
  • Phone/fax: 64 3 303 9755
  • Mobile: 64 25 623 5389

Leave a Reply