Tiny Steps

The labels that support ORCA come together to back music start-up Cantilever.

Today marks the start of Indie Week, the benchmark conference for the independent music sector organised by A2IM, the US trade association. The event is not only an obvious coming together of the community from the United States, but also a gathering of the independent sector from all over the world. Credit to the association for putting on such a great event year after year.

Events like Indie Week allow independents to pause and take stock of the landscape they inhabit, to discuss the opportunities and challenges they encounter and to envision the different futures they want to see for the music and artists that they champion. It’s therefore fitting that today the labels that support the Organization for Recorded Culture and Arts announce their backing of new music streaming start-up, Cantilever.

Cantilever is a curated music streaming platform built around the idea that musical art needs attention, depth and thought, even in the digital sphere. The service features a tightly curated selection of exceptional albums with rich editorial context (liner notes, interviews, artist commentary), which makes it as much a music magazine you can listen to, as it does a streaming service.

The backing for Cantilever includes investment totalling £250,000 from twenty investors made up of independent labels, as well as individual investors from those labels. The idea came about in a discussion between ORCA’s supporters about their vision for a musical environment that fits their values. You can read more about the investment on the ORCA website.

City Slang founder Christof Elinghaus, one of the first supporters of ORCA, best articulates the reasons for this collaborative support package.

“Independent labels have very few true partners left in the ecosystem. The platforms that make our music available follow their own agenda, which doesn’t always align with the interests of our community. When we came across Cantilever, we were thrilled to find a concept that 100% aligns with our values and is driven by heavy curation, fairness and enthusiasm for our artists’ music. That is something that all of us are truly happy to support. Still, our investment in Cantilever can only be seen as a tiny step towards a fair, artist-and-label centric streaming ecosystem. We still have many more steps to go.”

Among other albums, right now Cantilever features Outtanational by Pigeon, I’m New Here by Gil Scott Heron, Somewhere Good by Tara Clerkin Trio and the eponymous debut release from Mark William Lewis. Check it out here.