Warner Music Australia has announced it is relaunching Mushroom Records as an imprint to release music from new Australian and New Zealand signings.
As previously reported, Warner acquired Mushroom from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp last year when its then MD Michael Parisi joined the major record company as A&R President. The new Mushroom Records will initially release music by some of the artists acquired in that takeover - including Eskimo Joe, hip hop acts Scribe and Butterfingers, and singer Chloe Lattanzi, the daughter of Olivia Newton-John. The imprint is also expected to start signing new talent.
The revamped Mushroom Records is the third incarnation of the legendary Australian independent. Originally founded by Michael Gudinski in the early seventies, it became known as Festival Mushroom Records in 1998 after Murdoch took complete ownership and merged it with his other label Festival Records.
It was unclear what would happen to the label after Warner acquired it last year. When Warner took ownership of the London spin off of Mushroom the label name was essentially dropped, with its roster swallowed by its East West division (which has subsequently been rebranded Atlantic Records, of course). But Parisi this week confirmed the plans to relaunch the Mushroom name in Australia, telling Billboard: "Mushroom has a strong respected brand name internationally".
Of course the use of the Mushroom brand by Warner, and previously News Corp, is slightly confusing given that original founder Gudinski's current group of music companies (which is nothing to do with Warner or News Corp) still goes under the parent name of the Mushroom Music Group.