I HAVE MOVED

Hey,

forgot to mention this a while ago, but this blog has moved to HERE come and have a look...

Been ages but heres why...

So, well its been over a year since my last blog post, well we have been pretty busy with things here at the office. In case you are interested, here are some of the projects we have been working on:

RECORD-PLAY MUSIC HUB

This is the first of its kind, its an online multi-genre database of music from indie labels. Our clients can go here and find a huge amount of excellent music for their media productions. We have around 3,500 tracks and around 70 labels involved (incl. Tirk, Stones Throw, Tru Thoughts, Sunday Best). So far we have had around 60 licenses (adidas, reebok, skoda, metrodome films).

Its been alot of work but its going well and seems to have some value amongst labels who want to generate revenue from their back catalogues as well as amongst our clients who often have limited budgets but dont want to compromise on music.

PROJECTS COMPLETED

its been a busy year, but here is a small overview of whats been going on....

adidas - music consultancy

We have been working on media for the World Cup 2010, mostly in composition. Approximately 10 soundtracks developed for adidas in the past 4 months, its been rather intense, but working out well.

Sourcing

- We have sorted out the soundtrack for the latest climbing film from Big Up Productions, called Progression, there will be a soundtrack available to download soon. Their films keep getting better!

- Rimmel have used Steven Crayns 'Another Cold Beer' again, this is the third time its been licensed, which is great news, thanks to JWT for that!

- We used the Music Hub to source and clear tracks for Metrodome films, Tube Lines, Reebok, adidas, constellation Group, footlocker and skoda... all good on that front.

NEW LABEL

I set up a label as well, its called TAPE, in conjunction with SPZ group, (you might have heard of Sarm studios, Perfect Song and ZTT, well they are all part of SPZ). I am running it with Aaron Horn and Jo Meava, and its going well, though has taken up a lot of time. Artists on the label include: Robots with Hearts, Theo Bard, Super Luckies and YoMundo, we have some more bands coming through....

NEW PEOPLE

The Music Hub is co-owned with my old friend Silja Hertel, who is responsible for managing client and artist relations, this, as you can imagine, keeps her very busy. She is excellent.

Dan Garber is now co-writing on Exposure, our music blog, he is doing a great job, he is also getting involved in some new business we have with the Independent

Telmo Dias, well, Telmo has been working more or less full time on the hub, exposure, TAPE and a big SEO overhaul that it would be rude not to give a nod to his unending coding / web development prowess that has certainly helped us grow.

We hope to expand a bit more but will see what happens as the recession loosens its grip here in the UK.

So, thats about it for now, next time interesting stuff happens, I'll make a bit more effort to write it down....

New Happenings

Some good stuff been happening here this summer:

Artist Development Programme:
We are going to co-release the new Animals On Wheels E.P together with A Future Without. It will be vinyl and download only.

Consultancy Work:
We have been helping Reebok with some sourcing and some music marketing consultancy, you can see some of our work here.

Supervision Work:
Bigupproductions have just finished their most recent film, Dosage 5, I supervised on the soundtrack and placed some tracks by artists including: A String, Emu, Jon Kennedy and Up, Bustle and Out.
The Age of Stupid is going from strength to strength, it had a parliamentary screening in London on the 21st July and it has been sweeping up awards, including Best Green Doc, and film most likely to get cinema release at Sunny Side of the Doc fest.

New Client

Over the past month we have been pretty busy, working with a new client called RAWRIP. RAWRIP a digital music sales platform that gives 100% royalty back to the artists. Now, if that wasn't enough, they also give the cost of sale to the artist as well.

We will be opening correspondence with labels to introduce them to the new model and encourage them to participate by placing their artists on the platform.

whats been happening?

Its been ages since my last post so here is an update on what's been going on:

Films











Franny Armstrong's lastest feature documentary is now completed, titled 'The Age of Stupid' its all about an archivist looking back at the past to when run-away climate change kicked in. Its hard hitting and emotional stuff. I worked on supervision of music but mostly this was a clearance job. You can see a mini preview on the right.

Commercial











adidas Techfit. Together with our composers we produced the music for the adidas techfit website. All very futuristic and clever.

Other

Campaign Music Essays















I wrote an essay for Campaign Magazine all about brands integrating music into their marketing and communications activities, it came out alright so that was a relief! If you are interested in seeing it then drop me a message and i will send it over.

ps sorry about the rubbish photo.

Artist Development Programme



We have launched a programme designed to support new musicians. There will be an award worth 20k available once every 6 months. So, for any new musicians its well worth checking out www.record-play.net/artistprogramme and submitting your demos.

adidas + samsung MIcoach

Some new sourcing work, this project has just gone live. Its a commercial for a training device and mobile phone collaboration between adidas and samsung, called MiCoach.

Here is the spot. It features 3 tracks we sourced, by Busy P, Electrocute and Moonbabies.

adidas originals

big great good news.

We have just been contracted as music consultants for adidas orginals. And to celebrate we completed our first job for them. working together with 5th floor productions (music producers) we worked on the Handbags For Feet site.

check out the site here

Joe Frazier - when the smoke clears

just about to start on a new film supervision job, this time its about boxing legend, Smokin' Joe Frazier. Its going to be pretty tough clearance since the tracks are all big old soul classics.

Going to be cool though and am excited by the prospect. Its being produced by these guys:

http://www.riverhorse.tv

New Projects Completed (nearly)

For anyone interested, I've just finished a handful of projects including:

adidas
Sourcing music for adidas - Niqo will be featured on the Stella website

Burberry
Sourcing music for burberry - looks like The Late Greats will be on the New Thomas Burberry website

Microsoft
Sourcing music for microsoft - looks like the Olympus Mons will be included in the soundtrack for a new commerical.

My soul is sold, but at least the three aforementioned bands will be keeping me company!

music consultancy, adidas, burberry, microsoft.

NEW ARTIST EXPOSURE

I've just kicked off a new idea called 'new artist exposure', its name pretty much gives the concept away. Every week I pick an artist whose sound i think could really sit well in a film, tv or commercial soundtrack and then email information and the track (which is hosted on our site) out to the record-play mailing list.

I hear a lot of good music when sourcing for the projects worked on and this is a way of helping the musicians exposure their music for potential cash generating projects.

www.record-play.net/exposure

King Lines, Soundtrack Supervision

King Lines, the new epic Climbing Documentary film from BigUPproductions has finally landed. I had been holding out to see it for ages and it seemed that almost everyone else in the world had. Finally, after Royal Mail decided I was worthy, they provided.

Special thanks to all the artists who permitted us to license their music. It looks like theres going to be an official soundtrack release and theres a possibility of the film getting a TV release later in the year.

Artists included:
Broken Sound Collective, Bussetti, Cinematic Orchestra, Custom Blue, King Seven, Late Greats, Macaco, Oblong, The French Quarter, Throwing Snow, Up Bustle and Out, We Are Wolves, Will It Snow.

New Music I've been enjoying

I have been spending more time than I normally would lately just browsing around blogs and websites looking for new music, in so doing i have found some really excellent stuff. Heres three of my favourites so far:













Tom McKean and the Emporers - unsigned - Blues

This is my hot tip for the winter, amazing bluesy/tom waits/nick cave-esque singing and songwriting. Unsigned as yet, causing a bit of a stir and big gigs coming up. Think bluesy ballads with guitars, organs, clarinet.

their myspace page













Flying Lotus - warp records - electronic/hiphop

Warp's latest signing, rumour has it that Ninjatune have missed a big trick that sat on their doorstep... anyway, Flying lotus is a californian producer whose gritty dubby sound should be listened to on big loud speakers.

backpack cavalier.mp3














The Whitest Boy Alive - Modular - indie

The (relatively new) departure from Erland Oye (kings of convenience). Self released in Berlin over a year ago and recently picked up by Modular. This is a track taken from the forthcoming re-release.

Burning.mp3

Music in Film Workshop for 'Young People'

Last saturday i had the pleasure of spending a few hours talking to kids (well, only one showed up :-> (it was half term and all), about music in film. The workshop was organised by a Company called Mouth That Roars, based just beside the office here in shoreditch, and was designed to inform kids who are making films about ways of using music effectively in their productions.

The whole thing was very successful and i like to think that Francis is now very well informed. Hopefully the next workshop will be better attended!

In-store music

Sorting out music for instore is no joke. Have just finished the first stage of producing the playlists for a new group of sports injury treatment centres round london called Pure Sports Med.

They need music all day in a couple of different zones. None of the music can be too heavy, too offensive or too niche. Anyway, its taken ages but i am pleased to say its sounding good. An interesting project but very labour intensive.

Record-play music consultancy: sourcing for instore music

New film music supervision

So after a little to-ing and fro-ing, I have just begun work on the clearance of the music for the new film from the makers of McLibel.

This film is called Crude and it charts the story of the impact of climate change and particularly the oil industry on 5 individuals from 5 countries. Its a pretty advanced soundtrack, slightly nervous but hope to clear everything soon...

record-play Music Supervision: Crude the Movie

podcasts

We produced two training podcasts for adidas/women and they are now available to download.

So, basically they provide guidance on stretching and training. The techniques and advice were provided, for the first, by the world pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva and for the second, by Ana Ivanovic, serbian tennis player.

the music for both came from the electro acoustic label 'A future without' and mixed by Benge/expanding records.

download them from this page and get fit.

image: Yelena, yesterday, about to win again.

record-play music consultancy: adidas

adidas Impossible is Nothing. Reggie Bush

One of the last in the series of adidas Impossible is Nothing campaign tv ads has just begun to air in the states. This one features American Football hero Reggie Bush.

Record-play consulted on and sourced the music for the soundtrack, which is a song called Self Servin' by Paddy Casey.

Here, see for yourself.



record-play music consultancy: adidas

Record-play sponsors Shark Award Prize

Have just spent the weekend rubbing shoulders and patting backs at the Sharks advertising awards ceremony in kinsale.

Record-play sponsored the award for the Best Use of Music in an International Advertising Campaign. It was a very well attended class, the winner being Ballygowan Water, with a cover of Lets Dance, by Paula Flynn

We also composed the stings and idents for the awards. will upload here or to the showreel soon.

record-play music consultancy: composition for events

thomas burberry

Congratulations are due to The Idle Lovers for their track being chosen for the winter/fall website for Burberry's line of super cool clobber Thomas Burberry.

The brand liked the bands style and this is the second track they have used from the band.... making my life very easy. You can hear A Very Fine line on the companies site.

record-play music consultants: burberry

adidas.com/football

just finished sourcing and clearing the track for the new adidas.com/football website.

You can have a listen here. Its a nice little flash intro with lots of energy, so we needed some decent beats and lots of dynamism.

record-play music consultancy: adidas