For more than eight years, the Seaport Music Festival has brought some of the biggest names in independent music to the Seaport for free summer concerts in lower Manhattan. Amassing audiences 3,000 to 6,000 strong, the festival has hosted stellar shows by the likes of Animal Collective, Battles, Deerhunter, Dirty Projectors, Hot Chip, The National, Suicide, and Wire, among others.

"For the past couple of years, we’ve been trying out a number of ‘D.I.Y" ventures via a grassroots creative collective of like-minded people,” says the series founder/producer, Stephen Dima. “Launching Seaport Music Records makes sense for us, not as a permanent home for artists and bands, but a place for them to try out new music and have it heard by new audiences.”

Martin Clancy is the first Seaport Music Records’ Artist in Residence. Clancy’s been commissioned to create, collaborate, and produce a series of releases for the label in 2010-11.

Dima and Clancy first joined forces in June 2009 on a project involving a Brooklyn Philharmonic live performance on Pier 17 coinciding with an elaborate pyrotechnics display above the East River. Subsequently, the pair decided to collaborate further on a series of limited-edition 12-inch vinyl recordings for the new Seaport Music Records label.

A native of Dublin, Ireland, veteran producer/arranger, musician and all around music maker, Clancy came to the label via his association with the UK hardcore dance label Fingerlickin’ Records.

Down the road, look for more limited-edition 7-inch singles from the label in addition to the series of Clancy’s releases under different monikers.