New Signings & Team-Ups: Three deals for King Parrot; Mariah Carey back at Sony; N1 Records to sign four acts; Jay Z’s bid for Aspiro accepted

Three record deals for King Parrot

Currently on tour through Europe and the US, Melbourne’ grind thrashers King Parrot have signed three record deals – Housecore Records for North America, Agonia Records for Europe, and EVP Recordings for Australia. Their May-due album was recorded by former Pantera singer Philip Anselmo at his Nodferatu’s Lair studio in New Orleans.

Fresh Bloods

Sydney’s Bloods set up their US dates (some with The Preatures) by signing with Chicago’s Minty Fresh Records. Their new home includes Mike Scott, Veruca Salt, Cardigans and Orange Peels. They release debut album Work It Out (cassette versions on red acrylic) soon. The US tour ends mid-April.

Mansionair hits with Glassnote

Sydney trio Mansionair signed to Glassnote Records for North America, UK and Europe. They join a roster that includes Mumford & Sons, CHVRCHES, The Temper Trap and Phoenix. The band this week follow five performances at SXSW in Austin, Texas, with two New York club dates. Mansionair’s debut single Hold Me Down got 2 million SoundCloud plays and 8 million YouTube views, while their recent first headline Oz tour was a sell-out.

Two additions to Halcyon Drive team

Melbourne duo Halcyon Drive expanded business partners, taking on Chelsea Sinnott of Sydney’s Upstairs Music for management, and Dan Sant of Harbour Agency as their booking agent. The Cruel Kids EP is currently out.

Adelaide’s N1 Records to sign four acts

The Northern Sound System in Adelaide brings back its artist development program N1 Records for a third year. Thanks to ArtsSA and The City of Playford. N1Records will sign four SA acts giving them g project management, mentoring and financial support. Their best known alumni is TKay Maidza. Applications close Friday May 15 at northernsoundsystem.com.

Future Classic stage at TomorrowWorld

Australia’s Future Classic has its own stage at Atlanta, Georgia’s TomorrowWorld Festival. It is held 25-27 September. The acts playing on the stage are not announced as yet, but first round of tickets has already gone.

Mariah Carey back at Sony Music

Fifteen years after leaving the label, Mariah Carey is back at Sony Music Entertainment Australia. She signed to Sony imprint Epic and is apparently planning a remake of her greatest hits. The return to Epic sees Carey reunite with Sony CEO Doug Morris. In 2003, Morris wooed her to Island Def Jam.

Big Rig releasing Canberra’s Juliet Ward

Adelaide’s Big Rig Records is releasing Jesasamine, the new album by Canberra singer songwriter Juliet Ward. She fronted 1980s band The Lighthouse Keepers (who broke up midway through a European tour) and the darker Widdershins. The album includes contributions from her brother Baterz and her musician father Martin who co-wrote the title track.

Sony/ATV extends Kasabian deal

Sony/ATV Music Publishing extended its long term worldwide deal with Kasabian and its main songwriter Sergio Pizzorno. It covers the band’s past and future material, as well as Pizzorno’s writing for external projects.

Remote Control acquires Hælos, Steve Gunn…

Remote Control Records has acquired London electro pop-soul trio Hælos and Brooklyn based guitarist / songwriter Steve Gunn for Australia and New Zealand through its tie-up with he Matador label.

Hælos’ debut single Dust caused a stir on British radio and blogs, allowing them to sell out their London club debut. A new single Earth Not Above is causing a similar buzz in the UK.

Gunn’s releases Paradise Of Bachelors and Three Lobed Recordings brought him global kudos, with last year’s Way Out Weather album making it onto the best of lists on publications as MOJO, The Wall Street Journal, Grantland, NPR Music and Pitchfork. Gunn was a member of Kurt Vile's Violators.

…and Holly Herndon

Remote Control Records will release the works of new alt-electronic performer Holly Herndon, through a deal with 4AD. Her album Platform is out on May 16. Born in Tennessee, but reared on music abroad, Herndon broke out from her formative years in Berlin's minimal techno scene to repatriate to San Francisco, where she currently lives and studies as a doctoral candidate at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).

Status Quo get down, down, again with Coles

After seemingly dispensing with the services of Status Quo mid-2014 in their ads, the British boogie rock veterans are back in Coles’ latest campaign. Toting those huge red hand guitars, they are spruiking garlic bread.

Caroline Australia snares SG Lewis

Caroline Australia will release locally the works of UK buzz act SG Lewis, the 20-year old clubland producer and songwriting from Reading. Lewis came to the attention of the PMR label (through which Caroline gets the act) when he remixed Jessie Ware’s single You & I (Forever).

Odesza launch own label

Seattle EMD duo Odesza, who just clocked up their 20th #1 on Hype Machine, have set up their own Foreign Family Collective, an outlet for musicians and visual artists curated by the pair. Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight already proved their A&R skills with the NO.SLEEP mixtape and party series. Their In Return album is out now on POD through Inertia. First release on FFC is R&B/electronic pop track Fiend from Troy Samuela and Monsoonsiren.

Wiggles extend agency deal to 2019

The Wiggles extended their 20-year relationship with sponsorship agency FIT Sponsorship Marketing to 2019. FIT MD Bruce McKaskill said, “The Wiggles are a unique brand and organisation. They create and produce their own material, own and control all their IP and have significant channels to market. This is incredibly attractive to partners interested in young families. No other Australian entertainment brand can get near them.”

Kiwi voices added to animal cruelty

A number of Kiwi celebs joined the #BeCrueltyFree for New Zealand to ban cruel animal testing for cosmetics such as mascara and shampoo. Among those lobbying politicians are singer / activist Tiki Taane, singer Flip Grater, MC Tali, singer songwriter Rosadub and Wellington band Brockaflower.

Jay Z's bid for Swedish streaming company accepted

Jay Z's $56.2 million bid for Swedish streaming company Aspiro has been accepted, according to a report in Swedish news outlet E24. It specalises in high-fidelity digital audio, operating two small streaming brands WiMP and Tidal which only have a few hundred thousand users. As Google and Apple make moves to challenge Spotify's dominance through exclusive content, other players see high-resolution audio as a way to coax subscribers.

Matt Johnson joins Kobalt Music Publishing

British band The The founder Matt Johnson has joined Kobalt Music Publishing (KMP) under a new global publishing admin deal. It covers all future compositions including a new The The album and his highly praised score to the Hyena movie. It also includes Johnson’s previous soundtrack work for indie films Tony and Moonbug out on Johnson’s label Cinéola.

The Film Crowd launched by Sydney Film Festival

The Sydney Film Festival launched its new philanthropic initiative The Film Crowd at a function at the Undeground Arts Space in Kings Cross attended by 150.Writer, actor and director Brendan Cowell, contemporary video artist Shaun Gladwell and Festival Director Nashen Moodley handled the speeches. For $350 (of which $300 is deductible), film fans get invitations to Moodley’s pic of films, invites to the Filmmaker Party and other events, and a 10% discount on the purchase of a Festival Flexipass.

Optus links with Netflix, also bidding for iiNet?

Australia’s second largest telco Singtel Optus is offering a free six month subscriptions to Netflix with bundles of mobile or fixed-line internet packages. At the same time, Optus is hotly rumoured to be mounting a counter-bid to Sydney based ISP TPG Telcom’s offer of $1.4 billion for Perth-based iiNet. But it might be involved in an investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which is doing the same for the TPG bid. TPG owns 6.25% of iiNet, which has about 975,000 customers. If successful, TPG would overtake Optus to become the second largest Australian telco with a combined subscribers base of 1.7 million, just behind Telstra.

Hulsbosch to rebrand ABC Kids

Branding agency Hulsbosch will create the new identity for the ABC Kids brand, operated by ABC Commercial and ABC Television. Its brief is to create a new cohesive identity for broadcast and retail to operate in a number of environments and future technology innovations.

PayPalcuts ties with Kim Dotcom's Mega

PayPalhas stopped process payments for the 15 million subscribers of Kim Dotcom’s controversial cloud-based service Mega. Set up in 2013 using encryption technology after Dotcom was forced to close the file-sharing Megaupload, Mega continues to dog accusations it is complicit in piracy. Dotcom insists it’s a legal business, and that PayPlan was pressurized by Visa and Mastercard, in collusion with the film industry. Mega is providing two months’ free use for subscribers until it finds a new payment solution.