Where are you based?
Melbourne, Victoria Australia.
Where do you work? What do you do?
I work in Melbourne, and I co-own Cartel Management Australia along with my business partner Christina Rinaldi. We’ve been operating since 2015 and we are a full service artist / music business development agency.
We operate across 3 sectors Management, Creative & Corporate, which all tie directly into developing independent artists and other music based businesses (Festivals / Labels etc)
What are you listening to?
Oh man, tough question, I constantly switch up my listening habits based on my mood or what I am doing. I came up heavily in the electronic space so I am a sucker for really cool melodic house music, but I also am loving more left of centre lo-fi hip hop at the moment (helps productivity during work hours for sure). I am also really big into soundtracks, for example myself and my partner are re-watching a TV series called Suits, and I’ve been heavily influenced into listening to specific playlists associated with specific characters. For example the lead character of Suits is a guy called Harvey Specter, and all of the playlists I’m loving associated with him on streaming stores are really blues focussed which I am LOVING!!
“I constantly switch up my listening habits based on my mood or what I am doing. I came up heavily in the electronic space so I am a sucker for really cool melodic house music, but I also am loving more left of centre lo-fi hip hop at the moment”
How do you discover new music?
I am extremely lucky to be tapped into the local music scene in Australia, and am constantly being sent demos or actively hunting through catalogues for new artists I like. What’s really cool about what I do is I get the opportunity to discover music for a job. Other than that it’s generally on independent Spotify playlists.
As I said I’m so lucky with what I do, because it gives me access to new music constantly and the way it happens is constantly changing. Like early 2010’s blogs were a big discovery point for me.
That quickly moved into social media like facebook and instagram, where nowadays tiktok twitch and discord, are generally where most of the attention is / where the artists are focussing their attention to get It to audiences. Algorithms on these platforms are scarily good at exposing you to sounds / artists that you are likely to like. Also can’t forget about playlisting on whatever digital platforms people are listening on: YouTube & Spotify are it for me.
What formats do you usually listen to? LP, CD, Cassette, Digital, Streaming Services? Why?
Man O Man, I used to listen to albums on repeat to-and from school every morning on a walkman, then did the same on my iPod. The last time I listened to a physical CD would be YEARS AGO now, as convenience and ease of use lead me toward digital stores like Spotify.
We also have just gotten a record player, and am working on building up a collection at the moment.
Where do you do most of your music listening?
I’m always listening, I listen mostly passively when working in the office or exercising just through stock standard air pods headphones. When I ‘m listening specifically to aspects of a single and giving feedback to artists etc, I do use my Sennheiser HD-25’s which were my old DJing headphones back in the day. When I’m driving I’m more of a podcast guy now, so mainly when I’m working or exercising, also known to dabble in some arctic monkeys on vinyl while cooking.
How do you find and listen to pre-release music?
To be honest the only pre-released music I listen to is from artists I work with, through Dropbox / Google Drive or Private SoundCloud listening links. Other than that I kind of like the idea of waiting for release day to listen to something I’m waiting for.
What are your frustrations with listening to music digitally? Any benefits?
I think over-all listening stores are convenient for consuming music. To be honest, I think a general frustration is that there’s so much new music coming out all the time, it becomes hard to keep track.
Following that, digital stores don’t generally cater to listening to full bodys of work (Albums, EP’s etc). Even down to the pitching, artists can only submit one track of a larger project for editorial consideration which doesn’t really support full length releases.
I grew up listening to full albums on CD, and even downloading full albums onto iTunes, today is a lot different.
How do you keep track of everything you are listening to?
If I like it enough it goes into a personal playlist on spotify, but other than that I find it really hard to keep track of what I am listening to be honest. With the accessibility to music, there is so much coming in constantly it’s a bit overwhelming.
Do you tip other people off to new music? How?
Absolutely, I’m constantly sending links to Spotify artist profiles to my friends / partner.
Anything you want to “promote”?
Look into my management acts – iiiConic & Miller Roberts. I love working with these two acts, and the reason I work with them came originally from being fans of their work.
