Universal Egg History

Universal Egg was initially begun by Zion Train to promote Zion Train music and productions. This expanded into the release and promotion of what we consider to be undiscovered and beautiful music. There is no aim for world domination just a commitment to quality output.

With labels like Studio One, Motown, Stax, Blue Note, Real World, ECM and Sun Ra's Saturn imprint as inspirations, Universal Egg has grown from humble beginnings, the first releases being distributed by London Transport, to having worldwide distribution and a reputation to match.

Although the early releases were mainly Dub sounds the eclectic nature of the label was demonstrated on early releases like Robert Charlesworth's tranquil, Eno-esque Music for the Third Ear and reached its pinnacle with the sublime Anoraks by Penumbra. 2001 saw another genre explored by Universal Egg the beautiful new folk of the Headmix album Reach Out.

Dub is our first love with Jah Free, Tassilli Players, Nucleus Roots, Dub Terror, Abassi All Stars, Jah Works, Mad Professor and Zion Train providing the bedrock of the label's output.

All of these artists help to maintain the reputation of Universal Egg as the most adventurous of UK Dub labels.

1998 saw the launch of our new vinyl label Deep Root following the traditional vocal/dub format. The response has been phenomenal, there are 46 vinyl releases on Deep Root in total!

As the early Zion Train works became unavailable we decided to reissue some of them alongside welcoming Love Grocer, Radikal Dub Kolektiv, Ragana, Dub Terror, Abassi All Stars and Nucleus Roots to our family.

Our first non-physical release was in 2005 Ages Of the Earth In Dub by Tassilli Players and we have gone on to embrace digital as well as physical formats in the following years.

The second decade of the new century brought new releases from Zion Train, Jazzmin Tutum, Ital Noiz, Jungle Weed and Krak in Dub, not to mention multiple remix collaborations and several compilation releases.

We continue to move forward on a musical mission.