✨ IC Community Weekly
ft. the A2IM Libera Award nominees, Carpark and nonclassical head to Indie Label Market Manchester, we head to AIM Connected, new signings, music from Pearly Drops, Divorce, PACKS, COMMANDO & more!
Hey and welcome to another IC Community Weekly, the second in its shiny new format! Any concerns about there not being enough IC Community content for a weekly format have been *thoroughly* dispelled.
Keep scrolling for the great many IC catalogs nominated for A2IM Libera Awards, new signings, new releases, tours, shows and our new Catalog Connections section, and let us know if there’s something you want included next week!
Also, if you haven’t yet do check out Hunter’s Music Business Worldwide article Gamma, Downtown, Utopia, and the Rise of the ‘Inside Out Majors’, the most shared article on MBW this week!
CATALOG CONNECTIONS
The Independent Label Market Manchester edition is this weekend and what better way to connect IRL with others in the community than heading along to the event where you’ll find at least two labels from who use IC:
Carpark will be selling (via Manchester label Melodic), all the recent releases from The Beths, Tanukichan, @, Hans Pucket & Jared Mattson, plus select test pressings from their back catalog and a t-shirt lucky dip!
Nonclassical will be there with all their latest releases, from Marcus Vergette's Tintinnabulation, to Quinta's Aeolian Mixtape, alongside limited edition vinyl copies of some of their very first releases.
You can also check out a playlist featuring the labels appearing at the market here
A reminder that we’ll be at the AIM Connected, their flagship conference for independent music business leaders, next Wednesday in London - if you will be too, let us know by hitting reply! If not, there’s still time to register for tickets here
NEW RELEASES
Here’s a round-up of what you’ve been announcing and putting out this past week!
🎧 Cascine released the newest single by Pearly Drops (pictured at the top) called Feed The Fire, “a polished pop track with mellow synths and swirling vox that plays on their blueprint of woeful storytelling”.
🎧 Spartan Records released Artisans & Merchants, the new album by cult indie favourites The Van Pelt. The vinyl release is limited to 500 copies, which you can buy here
🎧 Hand In Hive have put out a limited run vinyl of Get Mean, the debut EP by Divorce. Get yours here or, if you’re in London, head to Rough Trade to get a signed copy.
🖥 🎧 Fire Talk just released EC, the new PACKS single and you can watch the self-directed music video below. It’s taken from forthcoming album Crispy Crunchy Nothing, which you can pre order now ahead of its release on March 31st.
🎧 Kill Rock Stars released the new COMMANDO single Four, which “takes the textures of a meandering, dirge like monologue about overlapping contexts of bisexuality and ethical non-monogamy and melds them with a metaphoric middle-fingering toward negative stereotypes, stigma and respectability politics that have long been parroted by members of straight and monosexually gay/lesbian communities.” Listen or download
🖥 🎧 Joyful Noise are pushing the boundaries of physical media with a new "Four-Sided" record by The Folk Implosion! The iconic indie duo of Lou Barlow (Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr.) and John Davis are releasing It Just Goes With… on the uniquely-designed four-sided lathe cut format, featuring a triple-spindled clear 10".
Here’s Lou himself explaining how it all works:
🎧 Innovative Leisure revealed that the debut album by Sam Blasucci Off My Stars will be out on June 2 and released lead single Turn Yourself Around from it:
🎧 Suicide Squeeze are re-pressing the Cotton Jones record Paranoid Cocoon in a limited edition of 1000 copies (on hardwood vinyl). It’s an “album full of quiet, wooden psychedelia reflecting Cotton Jones' casual pursuit of comfort and freedom”, taking in elements of soul, rock and gospel and you can order it here.
AWARDS
A2IM revealed the full list of this year’s Libera Awards Nominees and catalogs who use IC featured very highly, including four of the nominees for label of the year with 5 or fewer employees.
Community nominees include:
🤞 Polyvinyl for Record of the Year (Alvvays - Blue Rev), Video of the Year (Alvvays - Blue Rev), Best Alternative Rock Record (Alvvays - Blue Rev), Best Folk Record (Julia Jacklin - PRE PLEASURE)
🤞 Captured Tracks for Label of the Year (6-14 employees), Video of the Year (JayWood - Thank You)
🤞 Don Giovanni for Label of the Year (5 or fewer employees), Best Country Record (Lavender Country - Blackberry Rose)
🤞 Fire Talk for Label of the Year (5 or fewer employees)
🤞 Innovative Leisure for Label of the Year (5 or fewer employees), Best Jazz Record (Leland Whitty - Anyhow)
🤞 Topshelf Records for Label of the Year (5 or fewer employees)
🤞 Merge Records for Label of the Year (15 or more employees), Best Classical Record (Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn - Pigments), Best Global Record (Ibibio Sound Machine - Electricity)
🤞 Mexican Summer for Best Global Record (Dungen - En Är För Mycket och Tusen Aldrig Nog), Best Latin Record (Sessa - Estrela Acesa)
🤞 Innovative Leisure for Best Jazz Record (Leland Whitty - Anyhow)
🤞 Sooper/Secretly Canadian for Best Outlier Record (NNAMDÏ - Please Have A Seat)
🤞 Kill Rock Stars for Best Punk Record (Big Joanie - Back Home)
🤞 Bandcamp for Independent Champion
🤞 Redeye for Independent Champion
🤞 Secretly Distribution for Independent Champion
Congrats and good luck to all of you ✨
NEW SIGNINGS
✍️ Kill Rock Stars signed Nashville, Tennessee based queer country artist Shelly Fairchild and released her cover of the Loretta Lynn track Fist City, featuring Shamir. Check out the video for it below and stream it on other platforms here
✍️ Sahel Sounds added Malian singer/songwriter Namian Sidibé to their roster, whose self-titled debut “showcases another side of modern praise songs in an intimate, stripped down, acoustic session”. The first single from it Souna is out today and the vinyl will be available May 19th - pre order here.
✍️ Spartan welcomed Low Coast to the their family! It’s a new project from Jeff Caudill of Gameface that takes inspiration from the likes of Wilco, Gin Blossoms, and Death Cab For Cutie. Their debut album Existing The Dream is out May 26 and available to pre-order and debut single Hard To Believe is available to stream now.
SHOWS, TOURS + EVENTS
🚌 Laura Jane Grace (Polyvinyl Records) is joining Murder By Death (Tent Show Records) for the June 7-17 leg of their North American tour this summer TICKETS
🚌 Mega Bog (Mexican Summer) is doing some US and UK dates this summer, as well as playing Green Man Festival | TICKETS
🚌 Unwed Sailor (Spartan Records) is hitting the road this Spring in support of their new album Mute the Charm | TICKETS
That’s it for this one! Stay safe and we’ll catch you next week for more.
Adam & the IC Crew