Artist News Business News Deals Digital Gigs & Festivals Labels & Publishers Legal Live Business Management & Funding One Liners Releases

One Liners: Bluedot, Red Light, MegaUpload, more

By Andy Malt and Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 7 April 2021

COVID-19 CANCELLATIONS & POSTPONEMENTS

Organisers of the Bluedot festival have announced that their 2021 edition in July will not go ahead because of continued uncertainties regarding COVID restrictions. The festival will return in July 2022. Like promoters of the Belladrum festival in Scotland, Bluedot organisers noted that the UK government’s refusal to set up a state-backed cancellation insurance scheme for large-scale events meant “the overwhelming risk and high upfront costs for us to hold Bluedot this year are sadly just too high”.

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DEALS

Warner/Chappell has extended its publishing deal with Saweetie. “The whole Warner Chappell team have become family over the years”, she says. “It’s amazing to look back at everything we’ve accomplished together, and I’m excited for this next chapter”.

TikTok has signed a multi-year licensing agreement with South Africa-based collecting societies SAMRO and CAPASSO, which respectively represent the performing rights and mechanical rights in their members’ songs. The deal actually covers 58 territories across Africa as a result of CAPASSO’s existing partnerships with 21 other collecting societies. “This is an exciting region for us with a huge pool of incredible talent, and we look forward to connecting them with our global audience”, says TikTok’s Jordan Lowy.

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APPOINTMENTS

Management firm Red Light Management has appointed Ceri Dixon – who previously worked at Rubyworks and before that Universal Music and Sony Music – as its Head Of Digital Partnerships, UK. She will, the management firm says, work with the company’s central services team in London alongside Lisa Ward and Laura Taylor, reporting into Red Light’s UK MD James Sandom.

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LEGAL

The civil lawsuits filed by the major labels and movie studios in the US against long-defunct file-transfer platform MegaUpload have again been paused. Originally filed in 2014, those lawsuits have been kept on hold multiple times, the logic being that the criminal action against MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom and his former colleagues should go through the motions before the civil cases. That criminal action requires American prosecutors to extradite Dotcom et al from New Zealand to the US, and the MegaUpload side has employed every possible tactic in a bid to delay extradition. The MegaUpload lawsuits are now officially stayed until October.

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RELEASES

St Vincent has released new single ‘The Melting Of The Sun’.

Sufjan Stevens has announced a new album ‘Covocations’. Set to be released in five volumes, the complete record features 49 tracks with a total duration of two and a half hours. The first volume, ‘Meditations’, is out tomorrow. From it, this is ‘Meditation V’.

Tommy Cash has released new single ‘Zuccenberg’. “This song is made in rage and frustration by the energy that has been boiling”, he says. “You can hear in it all the cancelled tours, shows, and the waiting! Postponing! Things shaded by the dumb ass virus. All my friends whose clubs got closed, jobs taken away. It has all in it. It represents all that boxed in energy, but at the same time it welcomes the future”. His new EP, ‘Moneysutra’, is out on Friday.

Texas have announced that they will release new album ‘Hi’ on 28 May. Here’s new single ‘Mr Haze’.

Murcof has released new single ‘Dividing Space’. His new album, ‘The Alias Sessions’, is out on 21 May.

Portico Quartet have released new single ‘Terrain II’. Their new album, ‘Terrain’, is out on 28 May.

Attawalpa has released new single ‘Please Take Care’. The song, he says, is “about being kind to yourself. It touches upon the endless pursuit of stable mental health, along with the acceptance that our demons and crutches are immobilising assholes. Written from a place of frustration, it’s about a few people / situations, including my own experiences during a period of reflection on feeling numb for most of my life”.

Pianist Rose Reibl has released her debut single ‘Over Salt Sea’. “When I first sat down to play the opening triplet motif, I was exploring that feeling of being able to breathe again”, she says. “I love water and the ocean and the song is also about the sound and motion of the sea; the invitation of a horizon”.

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GIGS & TOURS

Ghetts has announced that he will play a livestream show this Sunday at 8pm UK time. The performance will be available for free on his YouTube channel.

Check out our weekly Spotify playlist of new music featured in the CMU Daily – updated every Friday.