To be honest, I think I uploaded one of DJ Jester’s mixes to a primitive website of mine (back in like 2000 when I coded everything in HTML.) We went to the same college and we ended up talking. At some point, DJ Jester asked me if I’d help him release a mixtape. At the time, I was already producing music. I started making beats in 98 using the worst DOS programs called trackers to make beats but by then I was using Acid and a Yamaha RM1X…purchased via scholarship money.With DJ Jester’s CD and my own material ready to be released, I thought to myself, might as well start a record label and have these two projects be the first releases. It was a very DIY operation…always has and always will. Everything designed by us including placing stickers onto every blank digipak for the artwork. My first album, released as Theory of Everything, came out in 2002 with only 200 copies…printed up mostly for people I knew. 2002 was also the same year that we put out DJ Jester’s mixtape, Heavily Booted.

A few years later and there was a handful of little releases but always very small numbers. Around 2006, a few friends and I had the idea to all chip in money and press up a “real CD.” This CD was Collapsing Culture. The album featured music by Aether, AM Architect, Darby, Mnolo, and myself…all of us friends living in San Antonio at the time. We pressed up 1000 CD’s and we were really proud of ourselves. We sent the CD’s out to a few places and actually got some good feedback. Mostly people thinking how in the hell is this kind of music coming from San Antonio?

The next few years from 2007-2010 would be pretty amazing. We released some heavy records, including Aether, Diego Bernal, and Pollination to name a few. It was in those years that we launched an annual compilation of music to coincide with Austin’s SXSW Music Festival.

The label had made some waves but my personal music projects started becoming more important. I signed to Friends of Friends as Ernest Gonzales and created Mexicans with Guns and signed to Innovative Leisure. It was around this time that I stepped away from Exponential to focus on my music.

Which brings us to now.

In wrapping up this album with Diego Bernal, I have realized the importance of keeping the label around. Looking through my hard drive, I see so many folders of artists and music that I have had the pleasure of working with but more importantly these are friends and their music should be remembered. Also…there are more of us out there….with tunes that haven’t even been created yet. Exponential is going to be there.

At this point, Exponential is here to present to you quality music from Texas. Each and every album will be available to download for free but you are more than welcome to donate and pay what you like. Be on the lookout though for limited edition physical products like vinyls and cassettes.

Thank you for listening and being there with us on this ride,

EG