Value proposition

Ace Records is one of the leading reissue record labels and strives to bring you great sounding, well-packaged releases.

Ace Records is one of the leading reissue record companies and strives to bring you great sounding, well-packaged releases.

'Ace Records pioneered the meticulously curated, elegantly packaged reissue decades in advance of today’s boom for “salvage” labels like Soul Jazz. Digging deep in the crates to unearth lost gems of soul, rockabilly, rhythm-and-blues, and much more besides, the label delivered these treasures to the world with style and integrity. In the process, Ace has walked the line between art and business as deftly as non-retro labels like Island, Mute and Warp each did in their prime.'

Simon Reynolds (MOJO)

One way or another, it was inevitable that Ted (Carroll) would start his own record company, in the great tradition of retailers whose direct experience of their customers' purchasing habits provides a quality of market research denied to the suits in their corporate HQs. Ted's first label was called Chiswick and is remembered for such releases as the Count Bishops' Train Train and the Keys to Your Heart by the 101ers, featuring Joe Strummer, redolent of the time when the pub-rock of north and west London was starting to mutate into the full-blown punk movement.

In 1978, Carroll and his associate Roger Armstrong started a second label, called Ace, to handle reissues of recordings, many of them cherishably obscure, licensed from the original companies and repackaged with the expertise of true aficionados. It was with this project that they found lasting success. In the 30 years since Ace started out by assuaging a thirst for the sinister guitar instrumentals of Link Wray, the label has mushrooomed to encompass virtually every style of American vernacular music, from Kentucky bluegrass to northern soul and beyond, entertaining and instructing generations of listeners in the process.

Richard Williams (The Guardian)