Decca co-presidents Laura Monks and Tom Lewis on their A&R strategy (and it’s not TikTok) | Labels

Jean J. Sanders

Decca’s co-presidents Laura Monks and Tom Lewis have told Audio 7 days that their A&R policy is described by finding artists who can make a connection regardless of their genre or area.

The label asserted its broad church qualifications with the modern signing of Do-it-yourself artist Ellie Dixon, a TikTok star with over 1.1 million followers.

“She’s an remarkable expertise,” Laura Monks advised Music Week. “She is of the new technology of artists wherever they will need to realize what we can do for them, and we relished a arduous dialogue system. She felt strongly that Decca was the ideal label for her and that we could provide and amplify all of her ideas. So considerably, the romance is incredible, and we like her as an artist.”

“Ellie will draw on our finest storytelling capabilities, in conditions of the way we produce audiences and communicate digitally,” extra Lewis. “The other matter I believe she will do is take us into new locations in phrases of confounding anticipations about what Decca is, and what it can be, which is usually a superior thing. She’ll extend us, but similarly, I hope that we’ll extend her, and it will be a symbiotic relationship. When we’re signing people, as lengthy as they maintain stretching us and mature our experience and expertise, then that enhances what we’re trying to realize. As a label, we want to get bigger and even bigger, and to turn into additional and far more effective, and far more influential.”

Earlier this calendar year, Decca also signed the Downton Abbey duo of Michelle Dockery and Michael Fox, whilst other hotly-tipped prospects involve Rhys Lewis and Jeremy Loops. Decca artists will also both of those open and shut the BBC Proms, with British-Italian tenor Freddie De Tommaso doing on the opening evening, and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and soprano Lise Davidsen currently being soloists on the previous night.

“We have almost everything from solo piano new music to blues to an digital album coming up,” claimed Monks. “Just about anything goes, as long as it can appeal to an viewers. Decca is really a team of labels: we have core Decca, then Mercury KX, which is a fashionable, modern classical label, but leaning in on electronica. We also have Decca Classics. It’s a smorgasbord of musical fantasticness.”

While the Universal label has a strong heritage in classical and jazz, the duo have advised Audio 7 days they will consider artists from throughout the musical spectrum if they can make the correct affect.

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We’re not just after a rapid smash and seize, we’re immediately after developing occupations

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Tom Lewis

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“We look for persons that make you go, ‘Wow, what did I just see? What did I just listen to?’ And we know that they can make a powerful link,” discussed Monks. “So no matter if that be with an on-line viewers, in the world’s biggest live performance halls, or in a little gig location down the highway in London, we just need to know that they can hook up with persons and deliver magic. But it has to have that ‘wow’ minute, with the inquisitive aspect of anything which is maybe just a minor bit offbeat.”

“It’s folks who just make us draw breath,” additional Lewis. “A amazing example of that is Jacob Collier, who is just jaw-dropping in conditions of the way he thinks, operates and galvanises audiences globally.”

Although Ellie Dixon rose to prominence on TikTok and Ludovico Einadui also built an influence on the system, Monks and Lewis say their signings are not driven by capitalising on latest tendencies.

“What role does TikTok play in our A&R method? Apparently, I really don’t feel quite significantly,” advised Lewis. “We’re not soon after a speedy smash and grab, we’re following setting up occupations. A great illustration of this is that we’ve been operating with Aurora for six or 7 several years, and she’s been building a world-wide platform. Very last yr, TikTok grew to become extremely vital for her. But it was complementing our current artist growth, it was not the sole basis.”

Monks extra that details on your own would not make the decision for the label to sign an artist.

“We do not signal based on figures, we sign based on expertise and eyesight,” she spelled out. “We indication artists that can problem us and sure, some of them may have online followings, or have had viral moments. But we are there to help them triumph, no matter whether it be them pondering about NFTs, or how they can best talk with their viewers. If we were being only signing for quantities, we would not be here now.”

Subscribers can read the full Decca interview below.

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