If you haven’t heard of French imprint Kuskus, it might be because you’re like me, and you’re a sad old anorak that hangs around record shops, checks the spine of albums to see who they’re on, and could name you their favourite labels based on their physical collection. Kuskus are somewhat different – they sign young acts to a hybrid recording/publishing contract, and allow them to work on music for films/ads/corporates whilst building them up, experience and confidence-wise to get to the LP recording stage.
Whilst this may sound like anathema to those of us who believe music shouldn’t be sullied by using it to promote product; I guess now that LP sales yield NO MONEY to artists, and the majors will drop acts after (or even before) single 1, then this business model may show a way forward. If a band make a royalty from an ad, they can use that to buy new kit, or get a tour on the road that’ll get them in front of us, and hopefully yield more money, hopefully start a career. We’re down to our last few pioneering indies (Chemikal, Warp, Ninja, Hyperdub) that’ll sign, promote and grow an artist simply because they believe in them. While this was the norm 20 years ago, if we take Creation as an example – they could recoup the vast sums My Bloody Valentine spunked in the studio thru the sales of more commercial acts like Ride, Teenage Fanclub, and then McGee’s cash cow to end all cash cows, Oasis. Has anyone heard a peep out of Rawkus since their hugely-fanfared relaunch?
Whether we like it or not, the industry has changed so much that for new bands to launch and become the bands we pick up on and take to our hearts is harder than ever, given the lack of resources (read cold hard cash) to do it. Peely’s not here any more, and if we have to entrust talent-spotting to goons like Zane Lowe, then, to use a Scottish football-ism, then ‘the ba’s oan the slates’. (trans; ‘Our football has got stuck upon the roof of this building. Our game is effectively fucked.’) If we leave the last word to Bill Hicks – which we always should because he got it spot on every time – he did opine that ‘if you’re a struggling young actor, I’ll let it go’, in the skit where he fantasised about Jay Leno turning an Uzi on his own head after ‘$3 million to hawk Doritos? You don’t have enough money that you need to hawk snacks to bovine fucking America?’
And isn’t Jay Leno turning an Uzi on his own head a lovely image? ‘Blood sprinkler’.
One thing indisputable, is that by following this blueprint, Kuskus are chucking some fantastic new acts out there – Housse De Racket (who have turned down more lucrative offers from Universal and SonyBMG), Rhythm Droid, DJ Tonka and now You!. There’s been an acoustic cut of their first single ‘To Disappear’ knocking round t’internet for a wee while now, and it’s lovely. Classic melancholy electro-pop in the New Order mould, with a guitar line that won’t come out of your head for weeks, no matter how hard you try. A&R’d for the label by Jamie Harley (who directs videos for Memory Tapes, so his taste can’t be questioned), the studio cut is now on its way out, and you can watch the accompanying video just as soon as you’ve lost patience reading this. It’s lovely. And hopefully, the first of many….and you can hope that with more confidence than you could anything on a major.
