Remote Control partners with Omnian Music Group

In a deal finalised at last month’s CMJ in New York, Melbourne-based Remote Control Records and Brooklyn’s Omnian Music Group have formalised a new partnership. It is one that is going to see more exciting US underground music released in this country, and more exposure for hip Australian acts in the world’s largest music market.

Omnian will release and distribute in America the Australian acts on Remote Control’s Dot Dash imprint. These include Methyl Ethel, Pearls, Sunbeam Sound Machine, Client Liaison, Sui Zhen, Banoffee, Teeth & Tongue, Milwaukee Banks, Velociraptor and Jeremy Neale.

In a reciprocal arrangement, Remote Control will release albums in Australia from the Omnian Music Group label collective which includes Captured Tracks, 2MR, Sinderlyn and Honor Press. Omnian Music Group releases will continue to be distributed in Australia by Rocket.

Harvey Saward, who set up Remote Control Records in 2001 with Steve Cross, said of the partnership, “We are very choosy at Remote Control in regards to who we work with. So choosy in fact that we haven’t taken on a new international label in over 10 years. With the consistent flow of quality music that comes to us via the Beggars Group of labels we just don’t see the need.

“However the minute I mentioned we’d met with Captured Tracks there was a chorus of ‘I love that label!’ from my work colleagues. From that point we just could not say no.

“It was particularly pleasing that the Captured Tracks folk were keen to distribute our local label Dot Dash via Omnian. We’ve put a lot of effort into building the roster in the last few years.

“We are great believers in Australian music and it’s been exciting to see several Australian artists sign to overseas labels in recent years and start to forge successful international careers.

“However, for every great Australian band that attracts the interest of an overseas label there’ll be another 10 that miss out. We really believe that a strong sustainable Australian music scene needs some local labels that can have a presence and compete internationally. It’s just baby steps for Dot Dash in the US at this point but it’s so great to have Omnian’s support in getting things rolling.”

Remote Control’s acts include Adele, The National, Radiohead, The xx, Courtney Barnett, Queens Of The Stone Age, FKA twigs, Jungle and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.

Behind Omnian Music Group is one time record store worker Mike Sniper, who set up Captured Tracks in 2008 from the $15,000 he made from selling his entire rare power-pop records collection on eBay.” Captured Tracks released everything from dream-pop acts Wild Nothing and Beach Fossils to art-noiseniks The Soft Moon and Perfect Pussy, to Dum Dum Girls, Thee Oh Sees, Woods and Mac DeMarco.

He formed Omnian in June 2014, inspired by England’s Beggars Group, the label conglomerate that includes 4AD, Matador Records, Rough Trade Records and XL Recordings.

Aside from wanting to expand his music appreciation (“You kind of get sick of the same shit. If somebody is playing the same shit for eight hours, you just want to blow your brains out”, he told Slug Magazine), its aim was to create an all-services company to help facilitate the needs of small aesthetically different but spiritually similar labels, including New Zealand’s Flying Nun Records, Seattle’s Couple Skate and New York’s Squirrel Thing.

Among new labels set up by Omnian were reissue labels Manufactured Recordings and Body Double to air neglected albums from bygone eras, and Sinderlyn Records to focus on more contemporary acts through singles and EPs with plans to set up its own recording studio. Fantasy Memory is for avant-garde releases and 2MR for electronic tracks.