Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

Everything But The Girl reclaim Warner albums, ally with Chrysalis 

By | Published on Wednesday 19 July 2017

Chrysalis Records

Chrysalis Records has announced an alliance with Everything But The Girl which will see the indie distribute and promote eight of the duo’s albums.

The deal follows the latest off-loading of catalogue by Warner Music via its agreement with indie-label repping IMPALA and Merlin. When Warner acquired most of the EMI assets Universal Music was forced to sell by competition regulators after its purchase of the EMI record company in 2012, the mini-major committed to return a certain value of catalogue to the independent sector in return for IMPALA not opposing its EMI deal in Europe.

There have been a flurry of catalogue sales resulting from that commitment in the last couple of years, including the one a year ago that led to the restoration of Chrysalis Records as an active independent record company. This particular acquisition of Warner catalogue was led by Buzzin Fly – the label of EBTG member Ben Watt – which then allied with Chrysalis to manage the reclaimed recordings.

Says Watt: “The Warner divestment offered Tracey and I a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own the lion’s share of our back catalogue. With our prime focus these days on new respective solo projects, Chrysalis is the perfect collaborator to help curate ten years of early joint work we are both still very proud of”.

The CCO of the new Chrysalis label is record producer Robin Millar, who worked with EBTG at the start of their career. Welcoming the new deal, he told reporters: “Having produced Ben and Tracey’s first two albums, it’s so good to be working with them again. They have made so much truly beautiful music and continue to do so”.



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