Tame Impala’s Management Spinning Top Launches Label With Warner

Spinning Top, the management company behind Tame Impala and a number of its sister acts, have announced a new label today in partnership with Warner's ADA Australia.

Spinning Top Records will be distributed in Australia through ADA [Alternative Distribution Alliance], which considers itself an 'independent' division of the major label.

The first release under the deal will be the re-release of Mink Mussel Creek's rare Mink Mussel Manticore album, which was only previously available as a USB wristband given out at shows.

The band's line-up for the 2011 album featured Tame Impala frontman and songwriter Kevin Parker on drums with Pond and ex-Tame Impala member Nick Allbrook on vocals. To be released Friday 16 May as a download, it will appear as a double vinyl in June. 13-minute track They Dated Steadily is available for free from the label's website.

The company has an existing in-house label that has released material from their artists in a number of different formats (such as the Mink Mussel wristbands), but the ADA deal formalises their offering and provides a platform for wider distribution.

Spinning Top owner Jodie Regan said, “There is a huge amount of important music in our self-contained world and, although Tame Impala and Pond have benefited from conventional labels, we have got a little frustrated with the rather tired strictures of the corporate world.

"The new label will do this and let fans decide what they love and when they love it. We love that we are free to do whatever releases we fancy, and that the ADA structure will allow us that independence.”

Following Mink Mussel Manticore, Spinning Top Records will release albums by Gum and Shiny Joe Ryan in June with records and certain vinyl re-releases by Felicity Groom (who they'd previously partnered with Inertia for), Nicholas Allbrook, Allbrook/Avery and Peter Bibby to follow.

ADA Australia's head Ben Ralph said, “ADA is developing rapidly in Australia, and globally, and presents a real alternative for independently minded creative people. No one epitomises these characteristics better than Jodie and the Spinning Top team and artists.”

Around the world ADA also distribute labels such as Domino, Sub Pop, Epitaph and Melbourne's Unified (outside of Australia and New Zealand).

“It also lets us make our music available globally,” said Regan, “which is important given how widely and carefully we've built our footprint, and how lovingly we care for our fans. Perth may be the most geographically remote city in some ways, but Spinning Top can bring the world to us.”