Indie Label Community Come Together To Announce The Music Federation

London-based artist and music business development company, Killing Moon Group, have launched The Music Federation in partnership with Believe, as well as a number of domestic and international music companies due to come on board as members in the coming year.

The Music Federation has been created to provide a scalable services-based distribution, label and non-label services solution for members both great and small, stressing that “you do not need to know everything about running a label in order to have one”.

The scope of members include Metropolis, Fierce Panda, Export Quality Records, Native.fm, Elephant Music, Polarface, Annabel Allum, Wild Paths and many more TBA.

With a focus on holistic and robust artist and business development for the next generation of music industry stakeholders, and largely in response to the big-catalogue purchases of late predominantly taking place in the major label sector, The Music Federation is committed to pulling together a diverse range of skill sets unique to each of The Music Federation’s members.

This is to procure the best possible prospects and opportunities for the rightsholder, and present the only viable solution to the broken models of the existing distribution landscape by accounting to its members at release-level as a matter of course, which in turn allows the Federation to attach services.

Services provided by The Music Federation to its members include free-at-the-point-of-use recording studio services, promotional services (PR, radio, DSP playlist pitching), access to The Music Federation Advances (coming October 2021), free/discounted legal services with professional lawyers, merchandise facilities that are free at the point of use in respect to tour supply items, general training and expertise provided by Music Federation staff, video production services, access to artificial intelligence-based scouting, and more, to address what the Federation believes to be its membership’s most commonly encountered issues on a day-to-day basis.

The Music Federation also recognises that most of its membership do far more than just release records in order to generate revenue – to that end, the Federation will provide an array of non-label services to members which range from live (i.e. the Federation will create club shows, festival stages, and more) and artist management services, through to publishing, A&R management and mental health/well-being services which can be opted into on a project-by-project basis.

The Federation even offers full day-to-day running of the label business, for catalogue owners who still want to own their catalogue but don’t have the time to run the business, or new curators and entrants to the music industry at large.

The model allows The Music Federation to draw new entrants into the streaming economy - particularly agents, promoters, festivals and venues who have suffered massive financial losses owing to the pandemic - thus expanding on the very concept of what a modern record label is, and is capable of doing.

A focal point for inspiration in terms of The Music Federation comes from the fact that the three principal architects of the model - Killing Moon’s Achal Dhillon, Positive Subversion’s Siofra McComb, and Believe’s Ben Rimmer - all met as directors on the Board of The Association of Independent Music.

In operational terms, Killing Moon’s position and expertise in the live and artist management sectors becomes deployed along the entire membership of The Music Federation, with other third party services bringing the full menu of operations up to scratch.

In its mission statement to procure societal change, there is a rigid set of admission requirements into The Music Federation in order to enforce compliance with member labels with the very best spirit of the independent sector in terms of their business practice.

Following launch, admission for new members into the Federation will be via approval of the Federation Board.

“Virtually zero research and development into automated and transparent accounting at release-level within distributors has taken place to-date, and I think we all know why that is (or check out the Select Committee’s recommendations to government on the recent DCMS inquiry into streaming, if you really don’t),” said Achal Dhillon CEO, The Music Federation.

“The broken-record issues are not recent. What is recent, due to the pandemic, is having the time and lack of distractions to finally face up to the fact that the music industry works for a select few, and the rest of us are expected to wait politely for our turn to govern, whilst we are being robbed by those who already control everything.

“The Music Federation provides everything you could possibly need in terms of human resource and services to found, run and expand a music business - we’ll fund, distribute and market your releases, we can orchestrate tours for your artist, put together your merch business, allow you access to our advance-granting facility, kit you out with showcase festival stages – and none of it requires you to have money upfront, or catalogue to be necessarily involved.

“I see us as both being in the individual-potential business, and the holistic music business in its various monetised forms, at the same time and that really puts artist and business development on the same dining table for our members”