Approachable Members Of Your Local Community ink US deal, with a little help from a local grant

Graft, persistence and a long haul has paid off for Damien Platt and his act Approachable Members Of Your Local Community, which has signed an international record deal with AntiFragile, the NYC-based indie label.

A cooler-than-school four-piece from Melbourne, AMOYLC joins the AntiFragile roster for the world excluding Australia/New Zealand, where we still work independently distributing with Inertia, TIO can confirm.

It all might have worked out different were it not for some good fortune. Platt, founder of Palms Management, a Melbourne-based business which also guides the career of Tulliah and others, was rewarded for his efforts with the Music Passports grant from the Association of Artist Managers (AAM) and Creative Victoria.

Music Passport is an initiative that unlocks a fact finding and research mission to North America, tailored for emerging Victorian managers.

As a result of the grant, Platt embarked on a five-week trip to North America through June and made some handy connections in Los Angeles, New York and Toronto.

“Through the funding support of the grant I was able to meet with Tom and his team in NYC connect the dots and sign a deal,” he explains.

Prior to launching Palms Management in 2017, Platt served as product and marketing manager with Vicious Recordings and, before that, was a board member with The Push Inc.

AMOYLC, ‘Millennium Queen’:

AMOYLC weren’t coming in from the cold. The band got a break with their chilled 2017 tune ‘Millennium Queen,’ which charted at No. 13 on Spotify Australia’s Viral 50 and is approaching three-quarters of a million plays on the streaming platform.

In the U.S., they’ve enjoyed support from DSP editorials and a handful of taste-maker blogs with their 2018 debut EP If There’s Anything You Need, Please Don’t Hesitate To Contact Us, which earned a release through U.S. based vinyl-only label Vinyl Moon.

AMOYLC, ‘Only Friend’:

AntiFragile and its president Tom Sarig already have a solid relationship with the land Down Under, releasing recordings from the likes of Tia Gostelow, Hein Cooper, Dustin Tebbutt and Montaigne.

Sarig, a Grammy-winning senior A&R executive at various major labels, “saw the international vision we had for the band,” says Platt. AMOYLC proved a good fit.

“We’ve been zealous acolytes of the truly inspired excellent crop of young music acts coming from Australia since the rise of DSPs these last couple years, and Approachable Members Of Your Local Community is an absolute revelation and leading light for us,” Sarig tells TIO.

“Their depth of talent, from the songwriting to clever imaging are awe-inspiring, and we at AntiFragile Music could not be more thrilled to be working with Damien and his merry band of misfits. We want to win big with this wonderful act.”

AMOYLC, ‘On + On’:

With AntiFragile on board, the world opens up for AMOYLC, which is comprised of Joshua Blashki, Maxwell Korman, Samuel Korman and Michael Fisher. A new single, ‘On + On’, dropped last Friday, they’re currently on the road with Polish Club and they’re locked in to showcase for the industry this year at Bigsound.

Expect more AMOYLC releases before the year is out, and an EP is scheduled for the early part of 2020.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.