 The label was begun in 1998 as a spinoff of the music venues called Knitting Factory and signed artist Thomas Chapin as the first artist, according to the "New York Times".Since then, it has promoted a variety of independent artists and groups such as Hasidic New Wave, which featured Jewish musicians combining with Senegalese Muslim musicians in 2002.In 2008, while working as the Night Manager for The Knitting Factory venue at their Leonard St. location in Manhattan, Tim Putnam was approached by Knitting Factory Entertainment CEO Morgan Margolis to form a strategic partnership with Partisan Records.