Central Station Records’ Archie Magliulo talks new label Soul Modern, Wilsonn signing and ‘pushing the boundaries’

The team behind Central Station Records is getting some soul into your life.

Soul Modern officially launches today with Wilsonn its first signing, and the Sydney R&B singer’s ‘Standing Floors’ the label’s first release.

The new label is guided by seasoned A&R Archie Magliulo, whose worked on Starley’s four-times platinum hit ‘Call On Me’.

Wilsonn came to the attention of labels and culture vultures with his 2017 mixtape titled ‘Idiocentric’, which he followed up the next year with the debut single ‘Even If I Know’. As a songwriter and producer, Wilsonn has collaborated with several artists including Mau5trap signing Attlas (aka Canadian producer Jeff Hartford) for ‘Batch,’ which enjoyed plaudits from Billboard.

On ‘Standing Floors,’ Wilsonn teamed up with Christian Rich, the Grammy-nominated duo who’ve produced and co-written tunes with Childish Gambino, Drake, Earl Sweatshirt, Lizzo and Kanye West.

Based in Sydney, Soul Modern has an MO to “cultivate a hub for emerging and rising talent from Australia and abroad within the soul sphere,” and it’s on the lookout for “emerging artists” in the genre.

For Magliulo, a long-time talent spotter and A&R professional at Central Station Records, the iconic Australia dance music label, leaping into soul and R&B music is a good move at the right time.

TIO caught up for a chat.

Listen to Wilsonn’s ‘Standing Floors’:

TIO: Soul and R&B is a huge market in the United States. Do you get a sense that the Australian business is growing for the genre?
Archie Magliulo: Yes, for quite some time there has been a strong sense for this genre becoming more ingrained in our day-to-day streaming and live music scenes. Melbourne and Sydney especially have some really exciting artists that I’m especially loving, so no doubt this trend will continue to grow across our region.

Why launch into the soul/R&B genres now? Are there any trends or market shifts which have indicated now is a great time?
Personally this sound and genre has always been a huge inspiration to me from a very early age. I kicked off my musical obsession as a hip-hop DJ and to this day I’m still playing everything from soul, funk, R&B and disco throughout all my DJ sets each week.

As part of this fascination, I also have a huge record collection that spans across these many genres and decades that is my pride and joy. Naturally this sound and genre was something that I felt needed it’s own platform within the umbrella label, that is Central Station Records.

As a label, Central Station has always catered for this sound over the many decades, signing artists like New Zealand DJ / Producer, P Money, who was behind the huge cult hit ‘Not Many’ from Scribe. Aside from local talent being a focus over the years, the label has also signed and worked with the likes of GrandMaster Flash & Melle Mel, The Jungle Brothers, DJ Yoda, Norman Jay and even Chali 2na, who was famously behind Jurassic 5 and Ozomatli.

In the last few years especially, with the rise of streaming services, it’s clear both music platform curators and punters alike, are clearly focused on supporting emerging local talent and concentrating on what’s happening abroad within this genre.

Wilsonn

What sets apart Aussie R&B from other markets?
A combination of the songwriting and production for the most part. Australia has always been a scene that is well known for creating it’s own sound within a sound.

Australia has so many amazing singer/songwriters and producers, so I can only predict we’ll continue pushing the boundaries and gaining more attention towards the region.

Wilsonn is your first signing. What’s your take on him, how did you discover him and how did you bring Christian Rich into this picture?
Wilsonn is an artist I’ve known throughout the songwriting circles for the past few years, having seen his own self releases come to light back in 2018, we’ve been exploring on working towards a project for the last little while together.

Knowing the likes of Touch Sensitive and MXXWLL have been part of his creative process whilst piecing together these next few EPs, I felt like there was a good opportunity to kick things off with Wilsonn as our first release here at Soul Modern.

‘Standing Floors’ is the first single we are dropping from the slew of forthcoming works, and is co-produced and written together with Christian Rich, who is well known for his work with Childish Gambino, Drake, Earl Sweatshirt, Lizzo and Kanye.

The meeting of Christian Rich came about when Wilsonn was in L.A for a writing trip with Kristian Attard. Christian Rich’s publisher had interest for the pair of them to team up with Christian Rich at their studio, and this is where ‘Standing Floors’ was finished off in a matter of hours.

Finally, Hiatus Kaiyote are a standout in the neo-soul genre, winning Grammys and earning respect from Prince. Is the big dream to sell back to the U.S. market?
Yes, I think it’s such a proud moment for Australia to see acts like Hiatus Kaiyote create such a strong footprint outside of their home soil. I feel like this success always carves the way for more acts to follow in their footsteps, I’d love nothing more than one of our home grown acts to be one of those acts.

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