Why We Need to Support Local Music in 2014

Wrapping up an exciting year for Nylon Studios, I’m definitely looking forward to the year ahead. We have had the opportunity to work on some stellar local and international campaigns in both our New York and Sydney based studios. 

With my recent move back to Sydney, after being based in New York for five years, I’m particularly motivated to collaborate with local like-minded creatives and to discover new avenues to produce more bespoke music. We are experiencing greater connections with local edit and post houses, and in building this bond, we can offer clients with a full package of post and sound to meet their changing needs.

I believe now is also the time to invest back into the local music industry. This year we were excited to announce the launch of our purpose built recording room, with the aim to support upcoming independent Australian musicians. A part of this investment is not only creating the right recording space but also housing the type of equipment that produces the best albums in the world. 

Nowadays music has become steadily more digitized and synthetic. Whilst we embrace new technology it’s no substitute for the quality and creative synergy that is born out of musicians collaborating in a space especially built to create music.

The set up of a Sydney-based recording space has actually been a long-term dream of mine, and my time spent in New York exposed me to the kind of prospects that bespoke, grassroots artist development can achieve. Whilst the path can be more challenging the results are definitely more rewarding.

Locally in adland, there seems to be a shift in the style of work being produced; we are seeing less big branding commercials and more strategic campaigns, with TV and content created to maximise both traditional and non traditional advertising avenues. In 2014, we would love to work on more campaigns that explore the creative boundaries of content creation.

A good example of this is the recent work we did for Al Gore’s ‘What I Love Project’, voiced by actress Demi Moore. We were selected by production company B-Reel in Los Angeles to compose a track for the commercial, which works in tandem with the online campaign cantered on educating people on how they can help save what they love on planet earth. It was a gorgeous interactive piece of work that we are very proud of.

With optimism creeping back into the US, we are seeing some positive results in both budgets and volume of work. There continues to be fallout from the ongoing downsizing of the traditional music business. This means increased competition from record companies trying to get synch licenses on ads. However, we've found that by specialising in bespoke music production and really focusing on having an in-house team of the best composers we're able to do well in our niche.

We would also love the opportunity to work on more feature film scores. Our composer Michael Yezerski had great success this year with Aussie surf drama Drift and he is being nominated for an Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) award for Best Original Score in a Feature Film. 

In 2014, we aim to continue to support in-house talent. Our composer Blair Joscelyne also stars in, writes, and creates the soundtracks for his Mighty Car Mods Youtube series, and composer Guy Brown has become a star with his band Mammals (which also features Nathaniel Joyce from Nylon). James Martell has also started working in the Sydney office bringing his expert sound design skills to both the film and advertising industries. 

Needless to say, we hope that next year brings with it as much energy and as many rewarding creative outlets as 2013 has kindly drummed up. It’s been an explosive ride so watch out 2014!