Monday Music Meeting : Mushroom Group

A few weeks ago we introduced a new segment on Radio Today – our Monday Music Meeting. Check out the first edition here.

This is where I have a chat with a record rep about some of their key priorities at the moment.

Today I have another catchup with Myles Williams, National Publicity & Promotions Manager for the Mushroom Group to check out a couple of new songs plus get an update on two from last time.

Myles: The first priority I’d like to chat to you about is Phoenix with their new single ‘Entertainment’. It’s the lead single off their long awaited 5th album, Bankrupt! which is out April 19.

This is their first album in four years and is the follow up to their last album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix which sold gold here. It was also nominated for, and won, a Grammy.

This album was written in New York and France where the boys are from.

Entertainment is quite a different sound to their previous work. It’s very synth and drum driven with an oriental sound to it also.

It was the #1 most played song on triple j last week and has been in the top 20 most played songs for 2-3 weeks now. It’s currently on high rotation on triple j which is great.

It was also #3 in the top 10 singles to radio and #1 at alternative radio last week.

The song was also added to Radio 1 in the UK this week and is the first song of theirs to be added to the station which is very exciting. They’re also getting spins on XFM.

We recently took the Entertainment clip to television and in the first week we got Channel V Ripe Clip of the Week.

Phoenix are now going to spend the next few months touring in the US and Europe and will appear at a bunch of festivals including Coachella, T in the Park, Leeds Festival, Reading Festival and many more.

This is through our Liberator label which does all our international product and when we found out 2 weeks ago that we’d picked up this record it was very exciting, they are definitely one of my favourites.

Mark: let's check it out….

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Mark: what’s up next Myles ?

Myles: Bliss N’ Eso ‘House of Dreams’ which comes to us via the Illusive label.

Mark: the boys are back !!

Myles: the guys have spent the last 2 years between albums touring extensively in the US. Their last record, Running On Air, debuted at #1 on the ARIA and iTunes charts, was the highest selling Australian album of 2010 and sold 2 times platinum. The tour for the album was the highest selling local hip hop tour of all time.

Previous singles – Addicted sold platinum, Down By The River sold Gold, Reflections sold Gold and they received numerous j award nominations and Channel V noms for both Running On Air and Flying Colours.

Bliss N’ Eso have also had multiple ARIA and APRA award nominations for their last 2 records as well as winning an ARIA for Best Urban Release.

House of Dreams is their brand new single which we’re servicing to commercial radio this week. The boys have just started touring again and recently played the Breath of Life Festival in Tasmania and have been confirmed to headline the NAS Movement festival in April and will also headline the River Sessions Festival in Mackay in June.

The song has already been picked up by triple j who jumped on it straight away and put it on high rotation. It is also in the top 10 most played on the station. It is also currently in the top 40 on iTunes.

The new album is out in May and features some local and international artists including NAS, Seth Sentry, 360, Drapht and Daniel Merriweather.

Last week Illusive released a trailer for the new record ‘Circus In The Sky’. Check it out….

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A video has recently been shot for House of Dreams, which was filmed on Cockatoo Island and we’ll take that to TV in the next few weeks.

Mark: awesome stuff. Now you have a couple of updates for us on 2 other priorities for the Mushroom Group.

Myles: yeah, a bit of an update on British India ‘Summer Forgive Me’. Over the last couple of weeks we’ve had it move into high rotation on triple j and also had Triple M on the east coast move it across the board which is great. 96FM have also added it to nights and weekends in Perth and we’ve also had some strong regional adds.

It was recently the 9th most added song to radio,the 6th most played song on triple j, #1 most added to alternative radio in its first week of service, #2 most added by formats to contemporary rock. It was also recently #7 on the top 20 alternative radio airplay chart.

‘Summer Forgive Me’ is the second single off the album, Controller, which came out on Friday. The first single ‘I Can Make You Love Me’ is approaching Gold sales digitally and came in at #41 on triple j’s Hottest 100.

British India kicked off their Controller tour on Friday night and will perform shows in April and May in regional and metro locations nationally.

Mark: let’s have another listen to ‘Summer Forgive Me’, it’s a grower.

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Mark: when we spoke about Robert De Long a couple of weeks ago, his song ‘Global Concepts’ was being played at triple j, Nova Brisbane, Nova national nights and The Bump on the Today Network. How’s it going now ?

Myles: we’ve now also got Nova Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide playing it on high rotation and Nova Perth spotting it with the goal to move it across the board when they have the room.

We’ve also recently confirmed a Foxtel Comedy Channel promo which is currently on-air. It features all the Comedy Channel shows in a sync using ‘Global Concepts’, with American Dad actually singing the song, it’s awesome. Have a look…..

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On the back of these great ads, we’ve had a spike on the iTunes chart with the song now sitting in the top 40 and also top 40 on the ARIA singles chart last week.

Robert has just played a whole heap of shows at SXSW last week and had a lineup of people going around the corner to get into his gigs at various venues around Austin.

He has since picked up airplay on Radio 1 and has had Huw Stephens, Zane Lowe, Phil Taggart and Pete Tong all raving about the song on the BBC.

KCRW and KROQ are spinning the song heavily in the US too.

It just really seems to be kicking into overdrive now which is great.

Thanks to Myles for taking the time out to share these Mushroom Group priorities with us.