UNIFIED Music Group has continued its dedication to the advancement, promotion, and growth of Australian music, not only launching the full artist services ecosystem and platform Community Music, but also pledging $10M to support the development of local artists in building long-term, global careers.
Described as being built for both artists and managers, Community Music is powered by custom-built tech and aims to add a global edge to this local focus thanks to its positioning as a global distribution alternative.
Alongside allowing artists to exercise and enhance their independence and choice in terms of music distribution and amplification, Community also grants artists access to its ‘Community Centre’, a custom-built information hub for music release management.
Already, the Community roster is an impressive one, boasting the likes of established names such as Ocean Alley, ISHAN, and Sarah Saint James, alongside newer names like Maddy Jane, Azure Ryder, The Stamps, and Mulga Bore Hard Rock. Meanwhile, Community will also provide services to labels such as Domestic La La and UNFD.
The Community team is also an incredibly talented one, with the tech side of things spearheaded by Product Development Manager Will Cuming, who – in addition to working in the world of tech as a Director of Zantipi and as an artist manager – also makes music under the name LANKS.
The global Community team is rounded out by Francesca Caldara, the LA-based Vice President of UNIFIED Recorded Music, and Melbourne-based Dan Nascimento, who will take on the role of General Manager.
For such a positive impact that an undertaking like Community Music can have upon the local industry, one would assume that it’s been years in the making, with countless hours spent planning its launch. As Jaddan Comerford, UNIFIED Music Group’s Founder and CEO – explains, Community was an unexpected result of continual evolution within the company.
“I sometimes talk about Community as this sort of organic evolution that was a bit of an unofficial joint venture between our management company and our record label,” he explains. “While more and more of our artists wanted to self-release, because of the fact that we had the label services in house, some of the managers essentially started working with the label team.
“Community was born almost accidentally, which is kind of like how a lot of things have happened at UNIFIED, where there’s demand and where there’s opportunity to better support our artists.”
As Comerford notes, Community’s existence provides a seamless way for independent artists to release their music in a digital way, ultimately providing the chance to place “creative control back in the hands of Australia’s music community”. Alongside this, the extra services Community provides include marketing, support to digital service providers, strategic support, and even financing.
As he explains, it essentially “allows artists to release music in a way that supports them to be the artist that they want to be”.
In fact, independence and autonomy has been one of the most vital components of UNIFIED’s existence, with the Australian-owned independent music company viewing the launch of Community as a way for artists to further its in-house tag-line and “enhance your independence”.
“We really believe in entrepreneurship and innovation, and I think it’s important to give that opportunity to artists to be able to control their business, to have that support to build their business, and to allow them to essentially have that ownership over what they do so they can in a way be their own entrepreneur as well,” Comerford explains.
“UNIFIED has always been about investing in artists, it’s always been about building careers,” he adds. “We’ve been proud to work with a number of artists over decades in some cases, so trying to continue to invest in that next generation while still also supporting artists that have been with the company for a long time is very important.”
This week’s launch sees the arrival of both the Community Music brand and the technology which powers it. As with many music companies, UNIFIED has found itself becoming immersed more and more within the world of tech; a necessity facilitated by the flow of the music industry and the requirements of artists.
“We’re still first and foremost a music company, but we’ve identified – and it’s a pretty obvious identification – that technology is such an important part to how we support our artists and their growth,” Comerford notes. “Being able to build an efficient system that allows us to release music in a seamless way was a really important part of Community.”
This tech was previewed just last week when it was announced that UNIFIED had entered a partnership with US-based B2B music distribution group FUGA (owned by Downtown).
In a statement, FUGA said that it’s providing “strategic marketing support, access to its global technology platform, physical distribution, and neighbouring rights services” to UNIFIED’s labels, while Francesca Caldara added that the partnership supports their “ambitious growth plans.”
Effectively, the partnership boils down to ensuring that the wealth of music released by artists working with Community are actually able to be heard on a global scale, and not just relegated to a small portion of DSPs.
“We’ve built our own technology to power the majority of our business in terms of Community, but what FUGA does, they are essentially our technology link between us and all the various DSPs in the world,” Comerford explains.
“Obviously we know Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Tidal, and Deezer, and we could kind of go on all day,” he adds. “There are literally hundreds of DSPs in all countries around the world, so having a partner like FUGA, that has that technology feed into all those platforms, means that all the music that we release by Community will be available in every store in the world.”
Arguably, however, one of the biggest takeaways from the launch of Community is the news that UNIFIED have also pledged $10M in order to help continue the growth of the careers that these artists have. Put simply, UNIFIED is putting their money where their mouth is and making a commitment to the future of Aussie music.
“It’s one thing to provide the services and the support, but very few things happen in this business without someone having to spend money,” Comerford notes. “Being able to make funding available to artists to do what they need to do was important.
“Building that into the Community model means that whether it’s recording or touring or manufacturing vital merchandise, having a mechanism so artists can get access to funding when they need it is a key part to how we’re going to make this business successful.”
The $10M will be provided in a manner that ensures the artists working with Community are able to achieve their goals as needed. Provided over the next three years, Comerford says that there’s no hard-and-fast way in which the money will be spent, rather it will be available to ensure the continued growth of local music.
“It’s essentially a fund that we’re seeding to make that commitment that we are going to spend that money,” he says. “It’s not necessarily like we’re going to spend this much per month or we’re going to spend this much per quarter, it’s just more from our business perspective, allocating that commitment to the business.
“We might spend it really quickly, we might spend it really slowly – we don’t know,” he adds. ”It’s not necessarily that we’re just going to be handing the money out to anyone for anything. It’s going to be very strategic. It’s going to be aligned with what the artists are trying to achieve, but ultimately it will be there to grow artists and hopefully support this next generation.”
With Community Music arriving as such a vital addition to the Australian music scene, and UNIFIED’s monetary pledge undoubtedly being a boon for artists from an industry side of things, the question of what else can be done to continue to assist the local music industry comes to mind.
Of course, it’s not an easy question to answer, and not a burden which should fall solely upon the fans, but as Comerford suggests, the solution may just come down to simply just supporting it, however we can.
“We need to listen to Aussie music,, we need to go to shows, we need to buy merch and we need to buy vinyl, within our means, of course,” he explains. “We need to support Australian music as much as we can, but I think we also need to celebrate it.
“I think that it’s easy to reflect on the challenges that our industry, but you look at the kind of impact that bands like RÜFÜS DU SOL have had on a global scale, not to mention names like Tame Impala, Vance Joy, and Courtney Barnett ,and so many others, and they just continue to impress me with how many Australian artists are succeeding here and and around the world.
“I think we continue to have a vibrant scene by people supporting it and being proud of that music,” he adds. “And it’s not just new music, it’s things like Cold Chisel’s 50th anniversary tour, and all this great stuff that is happening. I think that we need to just celebrate it, to listen to it, and to tell your friends to listen to it.”
