Artist News Business News Gigs & Festivals Industry People Labels & Publishers Live Business One Liners Releases

CMU’s One Liners: Universal, AIM, [PIAS], more

By and | Published on Tuesday 12 April 2016

Universal Music

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• Universal Music Group has hired its first ever Chief Technology Officer, because having Digital in your job title is so very 2009. Gracenote’s Chief Strategy Officer Ty Roberts, who has also worked at Pixar and Apple in the past, is the guy taking the initials CTO over there at the mega major.

• The Association Of Independent Music has announced that long-time staffer Lara Baker has been promoted to the role of Marketing & Events Director. She will contribute to the organisation’s “strategic direction” in addition to continuing to oversee the indie label trade group’s events programme.

• Fans of AIM promotions news are in for a double treat today, because the organisation’s Matt Parnell has also been promoted to the role of Legal & Business Affairs Manager, reporting into the group’s Head Of Legal And Commercial Affairs Charlie Phillips.

• [PIAS] UK has a new MD in the form of Jason Rackham, formerly MD of [PIAS] Cooperative. In his new gig Rackham will oversee the indie music firm’s three core UK divisions: label services, Cooperative and the Play It Again Sam label. And if my laptop auto-corrects Rackham to Packham one more time, I’ll throw it out the window.

• Fans of [PIAS] UK promotions news are in for a double treat today, because Craig Penney has also been promoted to the role of Head Of [PIAS] Cooperative. Which is particularly good news because my laptop’s auto-correct makes no attempt to change the spelling of Penney’s name at all. Well done Craig.

• Fans of [PIAS] UK promotions news are in for a triple treat today because Geoff Muncey has just become GM of [PIAS] UK. In case you wondered, auto-correct thinks Muncey is a typo, but makes no attempt to fix it. And I can live with that.

• Invitation-only live industry event the International Festival Forum will take place again in London on 28-29 Sep. Full details here.

• MIA has released that video promoting clothes recycling we mentioned a while back. Watch it here, and then recycle all of your clothes. Maybe keep one t-shirt just in case.

• Will.i.am is back making music. Ah well. Here’s his new single, ‘Boys & Girls’, featuring Pia Mia.

• High Contrast has signed to 3Beat and released new single ‘Remind Me’, which you can hear here. He’s also confirmed that he will release a new album later this year.

• Mura Masa has released the video for new single ‘What If I Go?’ What if you go and watch it now?

• Lola Colt will release new album ‘Twist Through The Fire’ on 1 Jul. You can watch a teaser video here.

• A full-length live DVD of MJ Hibbett’s musical ‘Hey Hey 16k’ is out now. Purchase it here.

• Motern Media founder Matt Farley, best known for releasing more than 18,000 songs on Spotify, is changing strategy for his next release. New solo album ‘Motern Heartburn’ will be released on vinyl only. More details here.

• DJ Shadow will play Electric Brixton on 27 Jul, it has been announced. As already mentioned, his new album, ‘The Mountain Will Fall’, will be out a month earlier on 24 Jun.

• Rotting Christ and Inquisition will be heading out on a co-headlining tour of Europe later this year. Catch them in London on 7 Nov at Islington Assembly Hall, Dublin’s Voodoo Lounge on 8 Jun and Sound Control in Manchester on 9 Nov.

• Ash Koona will play his debut UK headline show at the ICA in London on 4 Jun. Details here.



READ MORE ABOUT: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |