New Signings & Team-Ups: Feb 9

Create/Control down with South Africa’s Jeremy Loops

Create/Control signed South guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Loops (pictured), releasing his debut album Trading Change on February 26. Loops is put in the same category as John Butler and Xavier Rudd, not least because he’s also an environmental activist, heading up Greenpop, which plants trees at under-greened schools and spearheads reforestation events. After university, Loops went on a soul searching journey for two years, working on yachts that sailed the world, whilst he developed his sound down in his cabin.

In South Africa Loops has had a fast rise. Achievements include a gold record, a MTV Africa win for best pop and alternative act, an iTunes chart topper, 4 million plays on Spotify and 1 million YouTube views. He’s toured North America and currently on his biggest European run.

Two People at Liberation

Mushroom Group imprint Liberation Music took on Two People, made up of former Snakadaktal synth player/ singer Phoebe Cockburn and guitarist Joseph Clough. First track Fading sees a heavier leaning on electronics with a guitar and bass loop.

Village Sounds expands with Oh Pep!

Village Sounds signed Melbourne indie-folk duo Oh Pep! for Australian bookings. After they play SXSW in Texas, they return for seven shows, from March 11 at Port Fairy Folk Festival to April 15 at Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory.

Their single The Race received US airplay. Their CMJ appearance in New York saw KCRW naming them one of the “11 artists that won the Fest” and Jon Pareles of The New York Times including them in his list of “CMJ keepers”. NPR All Songs Considered hailed them as the “newest and most promising voice of Americana.”

Hopeless sharps up The Ready Set

Australia’s Hopeless Records/ Unified have snapped up S electro-pop act The Ready Set. Their new album I Will Be Nothing Without Your Love will be released here on April 8. Indiana-born Jordan Witzigreuter began writing songs in his mid-teens and was thrust into the spotlight at 20. Debut album I’m Alive, I’m Dreaming yielded the platinum single Love Like Woe. It was followed by Feel Good Now (2011) with the hit song Young Forever, while the last one, The Bad & The Better came out in 2014.

Braithwaite’s Horses rides more sports appeal

Daryl Braithwaite’s The Horses has a following among Victoria’s sports industry. He traditionally sings it at Cox Plate racing day. The Hawthorn AFL team adopted it as an unofficial theme song, belting it out in the club rooms after wins. Now the ditty, written by Rickie Lee Jones and Steely Dan’s Walter Becker, is emerging as unofficial theme for the Melbourne Victory soccer team.

The team takes song requests from followers on match days. The South End group of fans initially got it played “just to see if we could get thousands of people singing Daryl Braithwaite for no particular reason at all.” Other followers took it up with gusto, and Horses is now being played in its games after the official club song Victory The Brave.

New World Artists adds Tyne-James Organ

New World Artists has added 20-year old Wollongong singer songwriter Tyne-James Organ, to be repped by Edwin Tehrani. Emerging with the band Blueberry Circuit, Organ developed a substantial YouTube following and last year toured with his hero, UK singer songwriter Lewis Watson, which peaked with 600 people at the Melbourne show singing along to his songs. No wonder then that he reacts, “Wow. I’ve been so blown away by the response” to club shows coming up in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney March 11 to 13.

Reservoir gathers a-ha global publishing

UK company Reservoir will globally represent Norway’s a-ha, covering their six albums including last year’s Cast In Steel. The deal was done through Reservoir’s MD Annette Barrett who signed the trio to Warner/Chappell in the 1990s. The band hit #1 in Australia and the US with the 7-million selling Take On Me (1985), sold 80 million albums, and toured Australia a number of times. In 2012, Morten Harket, Magne Furuholmen and Pål Waaktaar-Savoy were appointed Kings of the First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav for their contributions to Norwegian music.

WAM goldfields compilation digs up major sponsors

Perth-based WAM (West Australian Music)’s new compilation Sounds Of The Goldfields has the support of Celebrate WA, BHP Billiton, Brookfield Rail, Regional Development Australia Goldfields Esperance and The City of Kalgoorlie Boulder.

Nine tracks will be recorded over a three-week period from March 9. Artists selected from 45 applications are Sheridon Jackman (Laverton); Not Without My Band (w/ Ange Leech, Kalgoorlie & Michelle Meehan, Laverton); The Brownley Gospel Singers (Kalgoorlie), Kado Muir (Leonora), Darren Forster (The China Blue Experiment, Kalgoorlie), Tiahn Dillon (Kalgoorlie), The Desert All Stars (Tjuntjuntjarra Community), Ruben Wills (Kambalda), Marcus Maguire (Kalgoorlie) and the winner of the 2015 Kalgoorlie Boulder Youth Open Mic competition, Jennifer Renee (Kalgoorlie).

The album will be launched mid-year in Kalgoorlie and the acts have the chance to perform in front of a live audience over the WA Day long weekend.

Fader brightens to Caroline distro network

New York-based indie Fader Label has struck a new physical and digital partnership with Capitol Music Group’s independent services and distribution division Caroline. First cab off the rank is hip hop artist Saul Williams’ fifth studio album MartyrLoserKing.

Stoney Roads pathway for electronic acts

Stoney Roads is looking for Australian or New Zealand producers making electronic music on the regular, with original unsigned tracks. Check out http://stoneyroads.com. Stoney Roads has been unearthing local grassroots acts for years, with its free annual Volume compilation series unearthing the likes of Wave Racer, Cosmo’s Midnight, L D R U, Yahtzel, Set Mo, FEKI, Acaddamy, Sweetland + Mazde, LissA and Piecey.

Tumblr / Laneway kicks in

Content from the current Laneway shows are being posted up by fans after the integrating of Tumblr’s GIF maker into the festival app. Meantime, official content go up on Laneway’s Tumblr page including onstage, backstage interviews and the video camera 360 selfie. Timblr Australia’s head of consumer marketing & PR Jocelin Abbey says it is a natural fit. “Laneway has a knack of picking the right artists, just as they break. This attracts passionate festival-goers who are as fanatical as we are about upcoming musicians, art and trends.”

More than half of Tumblr’s 4.6 million Aussie users aged 18-34. The partnership shows how easy it is for local creators to find audiences for their content, with 200 million blogs on Tumblr globally, publishing 80 million posts per day.

UMPG extends EuropaCorp deal

Universal Music Publishing Group will continue to represent EuropaCorp Music Publishing around the world (outside France) until 2020. It is a division of Paris-based movie and TV studio EuropaCorp, founded by filmmaker and producer Luc Besson (The Big Blue, La Femme Nikita, Léon, The Professional, The Fifth Element). It has 1500 musical works including soundtracks and as works from artists such as Archive, Massive Attack and composer Alexandre Desplat.

Cancer survivor Chelsea Stutchbury donates proceeds

Bundaberg, Queensland-based singer songwriter Chelsea Stutchbury is donating 100% proceeds from her new single Vincristine to the Queensland Institute of Medical Research for cancer research. The song is named after a chemotherapy drug, which weakened the 18-year-old’s voice while she was undergoing six rounds of treatment for lymphoma. The song, about her fear if she would get her voice back, was co-written with The Voice Australia Musical Director Scott Aplin.

Since her treatment, she has entered the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and her voice has started to recover its strength.