Labels We Love: Isle Of Jura

4 août 2025

Our Labels We Love series shares the story of a record label we’re excited about. This month's edition highlights Isle of Jura, the Adelaide-based label that's quietly become one of the most trusted names in underground music.

Few labels hit the sweet spot between discovery and timelessness the way Isle of Jura does. Based in Adelaide and run entirely by Kevin Griffiths, it’s become one of my favorite sources for warm, dubby, genre-spanning vinyl that feels as at home in your living room as it does on a dancefloor.

What makes Isle of Jura so compelling is how personal it feels. This isn’t a label chasing trends or the latest hype, it’s one person’s lifelong relationship with music, pressed into wax. Kevin, who also records under the name Jura Soundsystem, handles everything himself. And I mean everything: from licensing and sourcing reissues to packing Bandcamp orders and handling releases from new artists.

Kevin Griffiths, Isle of Jura's label head

Before starting Isle of Jura in 2016, Kevin spent years in nearly every corner of the music world: running deep house label Tsuba, managing vinyl distribution in the UK, and touring as a DJ across Europe. But when he moved to Australia in 2014 to raise a family, he decided to reset and launch a new label built around his love of genre-blurring records with a certain mood and staying power.

The first release set the tone: a reissue of Fire in My Heart by Escape From New York, a shimmering, new wave-leaning pop track from 1984 that had long deserved another life. “Call it beginner’s luck or whatever,” Kevin says, “but it was such a solid foundation for the label.” It’s still in demand today and feels like a mission statement for what Isle of Jura does best - unearthing music that’s rare and timeless.

You’ll often see the word “Balearic” used to describe the label’s sound, but that’s only a starting point. Isle of Jura’s catalog moves between cosmic disco, ambient, reggae, leftfield electronic, and early house music, all curated with a collector’s ear and a deep sense of cohesion. “There is a common thread,” Kevin says. “It’s fundamentally my taste in music.”

That taste has evolved over time. While reissues remain central to Isle of Jura’s identity, Kevin has been releasing more original work in recent years, highlighting artists like D.D. Mirage, The Kyoto Connection, Alek Lee and Daniel Monaco. “It keeps things interesting,” he says. “And I’m lucky there’s a fanbase that’s receptive to the curation, even when it’s not a known name or reissue.”

Much of the music Kevin finds comes through online digging. Physical shops are scarce in Adelaide, so he lives in the rabbit holes of Discogs, YouTube algorithms, and private tips. “I’m not short on music I want to reissue,” he says. “The hard part is tracking down the original producers.”

But the challenge is part of the thrill. And when a long-lost track finally reaches a new generation, it feels like more than just a win for the label, it’s a reminder of why he started this in the first place. “I get to release records for a living,” he says. “That still feels kind of insane to me. So I never get complacent.”

Releases like Voice of Q and the recent Aerobic EP by Shiva (featuring remixes of music from a 1980s aerobics video) have helped grow the label’s cult following. But for Kevin, Isle of Jura is just as much about forward motion. His own project, Jura Soundsystem, remains a central part of his creative life, and there’s a new album in the works with a dubby, Balearic tilt.

Asked what advice he’d give to anyone thinking about starting a label, he doesn’t hesitate: “Be true to yourself. Stick to your guns. Just do your own thing with love and intention.”

That spirit runs through everything Isle of Jura puts out. It’s not just a label, it’s a trusted source. The kind of imprint you follow blindly, because every release feels like a record you didn’t know you were searching for.