Chris Lake’s label history did not begin with Black Book Records. In 2005, he launched Rising Music and used the imprint to release his own records and develop other producers. A decade later, after a period in which Lake felt his career had moved away from his own creative vision, he built Black Book around a more deliberate version of the same underlying need: control over what he released, when he released it and what kind of artist the decisions were turning him into.
The difference between Rising and Black Book is therefore not simply “old label” versus “new label.” Rising taught Lake how useful a self-run imprint could be. The years between the two taught him how costly it could feel when outside momentum, commercial opportunity and other people’s expectations began making decisions faster than he was.
RISING MUSIC STARTED IN 2005
Resident Advisor’s review archive identifies the first Rising Music release as Chris Lake’s “One Too Many / Electro Retro,” catalog RISE001, released in December 2005. The two tracks sat in the tech-house/electro territory Lake was exploring as “Changes” was beginning to expand his profile.
The logic was straightforward: Lake had somewhere to put out music on his own terms. DJ Mag later described Rising as a self-launched imprint that gave him freedom to produce and release music according to his own instincts during the first major phase of his career.
That independence mattered before “creative control” became a central public theme in Lake’s interviews. Rising existed before the US EDM boom, before “Boneless” and before the larger career reset. It was the first practical evidence that Lake preferred having an infrastructure around his own taste rather than waiting entirely on another label’s timetable.
RISING ALSO BECAME AN A&R PLATFORM
Rising did not remain only a Chris Lake self-release vehicle. In a 2013 interview, Lake said the label looked for an “x factor”—something recognizably different from what everyone else was making. He cited producers including deadmau5, Sébastien Léger, Michael Woods, TJR, Nom De Strip, Marco Lys, Rene Amesz, Hardwell and R3hab among artists Rising had worked with or supported over the years.
That list should not be rewritten as a permanent “signed roster” without contract evidence. What it does show is that Lake was already thinking about labels as discovery and development systems long before Black Book’s later artist-development model.
By 2013, Rising had become visible enough to support a North American label tour with Lake, TJR and Nom De Strip. Contemporary EARMILK coverage framed the imprint as one of Lake’s most important projects at that point, with releases from TJR, GTA, Lazy Rich and others extending its identity beyond the founder.
THE FIRST LABEL DID NOT PREVENT THE CAREER FROM DRIFTING
Running a label gave Lake freedom, but it did not insulate the rest of his career from scale. As North American EDM exploded, his profile moved further into large festival records and broader commercial collaborations. “Boneless,” with Steve Aoki and Tujamo, became one of the clearest examples of that chapter.
Lake has been careful not to disown the record itself. In DJ Mag, he said he remained proud of the instrumental. The problem was what success around that style began to communicate about the artist he was expected to be next.
DJ Mag’s account describes the shift bluntly: Lake was no longer consistently calling the shots. The same producer who had built Rising for freedom found himself dealing with a public and industry version of Chris Lake that no longer matched the direction he wanted to pursue.
THE RESET REQUIRED SAYING NO TO MOST OF WHAT WAS OFFERED
Lake has described the correction as much harder than simply changing genres. In a long-form conversation later published by Emanate, he said there was a large difference between how he saw himself and how other people saw him. To repair that gap, he rejected roughly 80 to 90 percent of the work being offered because accepting it would reinforce the wrong image.
That decision cost obvious short-term opportunities. Lake said he had to prioritize the long-term reputation of the artist over money and reject work even when it was commercially attractive.
The genre history documents what the sound did during this period. The more important point here is strategic: changing the records was not enough. Lake had to stop feeding the old narrative with business decisions.
OPERATOR WAS THE TURNING-POINT RECORD
By 2016, the musical reset was beginning to become legible. In a 2025 CULTR interview, Lake identified “Operator (Ring Ring)” as the major turning-point record: he had been working on a new sound, but people had not fully trusted the direction until “Operator” connected.
The release also created the practical reason for Black Book. Danny Howard heard the then-unreleased record and wanted to play it on BBC Radio 1 immediately. Lake and his team needed a release mechanism quickly; Black Book Records was founded in 2016, and “Operator” became its first release that December.
The full institutional story—catalog development, events, distribution and artist development—belongs in the Black Book history article. In Lake’s personal history, the significance is simpler: the record and the label arrived together at the point when the new artistic direction finally started receiving external confirmation.
BLACK BOOK WAS BUILT WITH MORE EXPERIENCE AND A TEAM
Lake’s 2020 909originals interview is useful because he compared the two labels indirectly. Rising had started without a particularly grand plan. Black Book arrived after years of experience and with a team around it, allowing the label to become something broader than an outlet for his own records.
By 2025, Lake could describe the difference more explicitly. Asked by CULTR why control mattered, he said the records he felt most connected to were those built around his own team and decisions. Working with outside labels can mean becoming subject to somebody else’s vision; with Black Book, he could keep the decision-making closer to the artist and the people he trusted.
That does not mean Lake stopped releasing music through other labels or collaborating with larger companies. It means the default center of gravity changed. Black Book could release Lake’s own records, build campaigns around his pace and also support other artists without requiring him to trade away the central curatorial decisions.
CREATIVE CONTROL BECAME MORE THAN SELF-RELEASING
The mature Black Book model is considerably larger than Rising’s original function. The label now runs events, develops artists and maintains the Black Book IDs discovery series. Lake has described mentoring artists on music, touring careers and the less visible operational problems of becoming a professional DJ.
That evolution is important because “creative control” can sound self-centered if it only means “I can release whatever I want.” Black Book turned it into a two-direction system: Lake retained more agency over his own records while using the same infrastructure to give selected artists more support and context around theirs.
THE A&R PHILOSOPHY SURVIVED BOTH LABELS
One idea remained remarkably consistent from Rising to Black Book: Lake’s preference for producers with an identifiable voice. In 2013 he called it an “x factor.” A decade later, he told DJ Mag that what makes an artist recognizably different is the quality worth protecting rather than smoothing out.
The language changed, but the principle did not. Lake has never publicly described the goal as finding producers who sound like Chris Lake. Rising worked with artists who later became very different kinds of electronic acts. Black Book’s catalog likewise ranges across different corners of house and club music.
2025–26 MADE THE CONTROL QUESTION EVEN MORE EXPLICIT
Lake self-funded and released Chemistry through Black Book in 2025, turning the label into the platform for his first fully developed artist-album campaign. The same period brought high-profile collaborations, the Skrillex track “LA NOCHE” and a widening release catalog.
In a 2026 interview, Lake said he was past allowing external pressure to dictate his choices. That is the long arc connecting the two labels: Rising gave a young producer somewhere to make decisions; the difficult middle of the career taught him why those decisions mattered; Black Book became the system built after that lesson.
RISING MUSIC AND BLACK BOOK ARE NOT THE SAME STORY TWICE
Rising Music proves that Lake valued independence early. Black Book proves that independence became more intentional after he had experienced the opposite.
The first label helped him release records and identify talent. The second arrived after a reputational reset, around a record that finally made people understand the new direction, and grew into an institution capable of releases, development and live events. The difference is experience.
That is why Black Book cannot be understood only as Chris Lake starting another label. It is the label he built after learning that a successful career can still move away from the artist running it—and that regaining control requires changing both the music and the decisions around it.