Biography
Born on 9 August 1960 in Bloomsbury, London, England, Foster ranked among the understated architects of Creation Records’ achievements. His roots, shared with fellow Creation veteran Ed Ball, reached back to the early 80s avant-garde pop of the Television Personalities. He produced that group’s classic album The Painted Word before linking up with Alan McGee during the formative phase of Biff Bang Pow! In 1983, Foster co-founded Creation alongside Alan McGee and Dick Green, thereafter serving as the label’s primary in-house producer. Through this position he oversaw many of the early singles and albums that defined the imprint, among them releases by the Loft, Primal Scream, Jesus And Mary Chain and Biff Bang Pow! From 1987 onward Foster began working with My Bloody Valentine, cutting singles for the Kaleidoscope Sound label before steering both that act and another Kaleidoscope artist, Dave Kusworth, to Creation. He produced two albums for Kusworth plus two Felt collections during 1988, then relocated to Holland for assorted Megadisc projects. Back in England he drew on that experience to support emerging bands touring the low countries and resumed live sound engineering, a role he had first held with the fledgling Jesus And Mary Chain. In 1991 Foster established a modest demo studio with Sonic Boom (ex-Spacemen 3) to capture the artist’s new recordings along with those of other local groups. The following year he rejoined Creation to launch the subsidiary Rev-Ola label, tasked with licensing and remastering material spanning the 50s to 80s, including the excellent reissues from the Millennium and Sagittarius. He continued directing the label while producing albums by 18 Wheeler and the Creation, the 60s psyche band whose name had originally inspired the parent company’s title. After Creation Records folded, Foster moved to the newly formed Poptones label. When Poptones encountered second-round financing problems in November 2001, Foster was unceremoniously dumped. He rebounded in 2002 by teaming with Cherry Red Records’ Iain McNay to revitalise the Rev-Ola label.
Albums
