Text taken from the intro page of the Relentless website:
In May of 1998, after a slamming DJ performance in Vancouver, some happily exhausted party people described me as being relentless. It’s in the way I spin, mixing records at lightning speed amidst a blur of knob twisting and button pushing, with no mercy for people’s energy levels. I liked their description, and promised myself to keep it in mind for the day when I would have my own label (created in the summer of 1999), which I would name RELENTLESS. I also promised myself to always live up to that name, and exclusively release music that respects the title of RELENTLESS. This will always be my point of distinction from all other labels, and a common trait among all releases on the RELENTLESS label, from my own productions to those of other international artists. RELENTLESS is a vehicle of expression for my tastes and opinions. This is the reason why I wanted to start this label. I can release whatever music I please, spin it in my DJ performances across the planet, and enjoy the amazing freedom it brings me. RELENTLESS is the main techno label for my company Energia Productions. The name Energia also reflects my personality. All this relentless energy I pour into my love for techno, that doesn’t let me sleep at night due to the amount of excitement I get out of doing my thing, explains why my DJ name is spelled with 4 “s” (instead of the correct spelling of only 3). MISSTRESS BARBARA is a play on the words ‘Miss’ and ‘stress’. Energia Productions will grow to be a major company and allow for the development of RELENTLESS, as well as my house label (coming this year), and other labels of various musical styles, possibly started by myself or other artists. So RELENTLESS will always remain true to its name in terms of style, but also in terms of the evolution of techno music in the forthcoming years, and in terms of the sound I love and wish to play in my DJ performances. Finally, this site is for all the RELENTLESS lovers, and for all those who are seeking answers to their questions about me and my music. So have fun on your site wandering, and thank you for visiting RELENTLESS! Respect to all the real techno lovers out there! MISSTRESS BARBARA
Relentless now becomes Iturnem
Sadly but for the best, after over 3 years since the creation of my label RELENTLESS the time has now come to change. Never would I have wanted or even thought to drop such a strong name like RELENTLESS, of which I was so proud because it always reflected so much all that I am about, but due to certain important factors which could lead me into problems in the future I have decided to change the label name and continue the whole catalogue with the name ITURNEM.
From April 2001 until the end of that same year I have had some legal issues with some people who were saying they were the Trade Mark holders of the name RELENTLESS, in the US. They weren’t bluffing, it was true, but they wanted me to cease and desist my label name immediately, even in Canada, and they also wanted me to give them the relentlessmusic.com URL. As I am not stupid and didn’t get scared by their pretension, I fought. And I fought hard. I managed keeping the TM of RELENTLESS in Canada and being the only one who had the right to use this name in this country. It was all fine, since the label is Canadian after all, and I managed proving to them that I have been around longer than them, in Canada anyway, and so they couldn’t do anything against me anymore. This took many months, lots of energy out of me and that’s not to mention the amount of money, too. But in the end I’ve kept the name and they finally went away.
Today, I am still the holder of the TM of RELENTLESS, in Canada. And I will always be. This name is just being changed, but it will always be mine over here, and it will always be precious in my heart, and I would never allow anyone else to use it in Canada. But today, I am more and more busy and I have less and less time to take care of the label and the time has come also to hire a label manager. I will keep on deciding what music will be released and I will keep on deciding about the whole look and design of the label, but the rest will be done by my label manager. Since the label was already partly a UK label, by having a UK distributor and manufacturer, and since my label manager and all contacts of the label are UK based, we can almost say that the label is fully becoming a UK label, and keeping the name RELENTLESS would have led me into problems sooner or later and I will now explain why…
In the UK there is another RELENTLESS label, ran by Ministry Of Sound. They hold the Trade Mark of the name RELENTLESS in the UK. So, for my label, the fact of having been based out of there, in the same country as them, with the same name, would have become a major problem sooner or later. So in order to prevent instead of having to eventually repair, and in order to avoid any problems with such a big and respected company such as Ministry Of Sound, I decided to change the name.
The catalogue will continue as of number 12, in March 2003, with the release Misstress Barbara VS Barbara Brown VOL. 2. ITURNEM will then kick in, to stay. The actual logo with the circles is staying the same. The website also. The design also and the whole concept as well. The only thing that’s changing is the actual name and the font of it, which won’t be the same font as the RELENTLESS word.
The nice thing about ITURNEM is that the word is not as limited as the word RELENTLESS is. Before, I felt like I constantly had to release “relentless” music. Therefore more techno oriented music, as I find that techno is the most “relentless” music among the whole electronic music sound. And so to be able to work with house music, which I love very much as well, I’ve always had plans to start a house label but due to the lack of time to run a second label (and to make more music myself!) I never have. Now, with ITURNEM, I won’t feel limited anymore. I won’t require to receive strictly techno tracks demos anymore. I won’t want to strictly release techno anymore. House is welcome. So I won’t need to start that house label anymore. At least not for now anyway. And my whole love for both styles will now be found under one same roof.
The way ITURNEM has been created was a pretty funny story… I had looked in a Thesaurus for a synonym of the word RELENTLESS and I found a Latin word that means Eternal, which translates pretty well the “never-ending / non-stop” meaning of RELENTLESS. That word in Latin is AETERNUM. I liked it a lot and I thought it sounded classy and feminine also, which, let’s not forget it, is who and what I am. So at the end of a long night of partying with my friend Charissa (DJ RAP) I was telling her about my label and the fact I was changing name… When I told her about AETERNUM she said “Damn girl, you’re a genius!”. So, really surprised that she caught the meaning right on the spot, I said “Euh… What? You know Latin?”, and she replied “No I don’t know Latin! But why? I mean… ITURNEM!! It’s great! I-TURN-EM! Wicked!”. (Obviously when you don’t know Latin and you mention a word like AETERNUM, you may hear it as ITURNEM…) So I looked at her, with my mouth wide open, and I said “OH-MY-GOD!! YOU are the genius!! YOU are SO clever!”. Obviously she didn’t get it and she must have thought I was crazy… She didn’t understand what was so clever about finding someone else’s idea clever! But then I explained to her that the actual word wasn’t ITURNEM but AETERNUM, but that as of that moment – thanks to her – it was going to be ITURNEM for good!
So that’s the story. Thanks to Charissa I managed finding this even more original word than AETERNUM and I also managed avoiding falling into problems, because my lawyer had already checked for the availability of the name AETERNUM and found that there is a Death Metal band in Germany that’s called like that. As I was changing name from RELENTLESS to avoid any problems in the future, I was certainly not going to spend more time and energy and money on the development of a new name to then end up running into problems later on, in case that that band would become huge one day! So ITURNEM is for the best.
It was a non existing word, until now. The Trade Mark of ITURNEM in the US, in CANADA and in the whole EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (including the UK of course) is now held by Energia Productions INC., my company, and is now unavailable for anyone else to grab. You can only grab those sweet bits of vinyl in the shops, and enjoy TURNING’EM all night long.
You can get to the site by typing www.iturnem.com , or www.iturnem.ca and you’ll get to the same place.
I hope this answers all your questions.
I know that the word RELENTLESS described me and my music so well but if you think about it, after all, the name was born after a night of RELENTLESS SPINNING. Because I play those records so RELENTLESSLY. Because “ITURNEM RELENTLESSLY”. And this phrase will be the official motto of the label, which you will find on each release and on the ITURNEM website, from now on.
Thank you for visiting ITURNEM and enjoy the music, always!
Peace & Respect.
MISSTRESS BARBARA