New funding is music to the industry’s ears

The second round of Creative Wales’s Music Revenue Fund 2 will open next Monday [Monday, June 24]. The focus of this round is to help music businesses with: campaigns for new releases; promoting live music; producing music for background or incidental use in the media; and Welsh-language music.

Rural label The Road Records were recipients of the previous round of revenue funding. The funding enabled the label to release an EP from Welsh cross-genre folk duo Samana.

Samana / The Road Records are Franklin Mockett and Rebecca Rose who, in 2019, transformed their rural smallholding in Carmarthenshire into an artistic production house and label, whilst running a nature recovery programme in the valley to offer a sanctuary for artistic practice born from the wild.

Franklin said:

“Creative Wales’ Revenue Music Fund massively helped us to release the EP ‘Dharma’ in 2023 EP. Since its release, it has gained such global attention that we expanded it into a full length, eponymous album - cited by mojo magazine, record collector and KLOF magazine as an outstanding work, attaining 4/5 reviews and above across the board. 

“Our band and label have gathered huge amounts of interest since then and we are hitting the road this month with our sold-out immersive and magical ‘In Tune With The Infinite’ summer tour; an all artist-curated event, played in the round, that we are taking to a small number of unique spaces around the UK.”

Minister for Creative Industries, Sarah Murphy, said:

“Today is a day to celebrate our thriving music scene. For a small nation we can boast superb venues, festivals, promoters, studios and record labels. Across the globe people listen to Welsh stars – from established acts like the Manic Street Preachers or Funeral for a Friend to up-and-coming grassroots talent like Adwaith and Mace the Great.

“I’m committed to making sure talent across the industry – in Welsh and English – is nurtured, supported and developed. So I urge businesses to apply for this funding and build on Wales’ reputation as a great place to make music.”

From Monday music businesses will be able to apply for between £20k and £40k to spend on projects which would benefit from support, due to financial constraints. 

Projects could include: live music promotion; release campaigns for new EPs / albums; additional studio time; or session musicians for example.

The funding covers the full spectrum of contemporary popular music genres (electronic; hip-hop; indie and alternative; metal and punk; pop; rock; etc). It doesn’t cover genres with existing support in place such as classical or jazz music.