IDOL Inks Global Marketing and Distribution Deal with Indie Powerhouse City Slang

• Partnership covers digital distribution, digital marketing strategy, international coordination and worldwide audience development 

• IDOL to service new Caribou album ‘Honey’ (4th Oct) and repertoire from Efterklang, Faux Real, Lambrini Girls and Los Bitchos, as well as Calexico, Lambchop and Tindersticks

Independent distributor IDOL, which provides world-leading artist and label services to its curated roster, has agreed a global partnership with renowned independent music imprint City Slang.

IDOL will handle digital distribution, digital marketing and audience development for City Slang’s frontline and catalogue releases worldwide, seeking to ambitiously develop the roster’s digital footprint. 

The Berlin-based indie label will benefit from a digital marketing strategy supercharged via IDOL’s specialist audience development teams and executed via IDOL’s extensive global network. IDOL will also apply analytical expertise, using state-of-the-art tools to monitor playlist additions and catalogue consumption.

As part of the deal, IDOL will service Caribou’s upcoming album, ‘Honey’, due out on 4th October, as well as music from Efterklang, Faux Real, Jessica Pratt, Lambrini Girls, Los Bitchos and SPRINTS, and classic acts Calexico, Tindersticks and Lambchop.

With both companies focused on the long-term development of highly selective rosters, the partnership is a logical step to deliver commercial as well as creative success for City Slang’s artists. 

Pascal Bittard, Founder and President of IDOL said: “IDOL is delighted to partner with City Slang, a label that has not only built such a critically acclaimed roster over the years, but has continued to evolve and innovate, and is now one of the global standard-bearers of indie pop. We look forward to working closely together to apply our expertise, services and tools to building the careers of its many exceptional artists.”

Christof Ellinghaus, Founder of City Slang added: “IDOL’s audience development and marketing prowess is truly impressive, making this partnership the logical next step for City Slang. We look forward to working together to optimise our international campaigns and deliver the best results for our artists.” 

IDOL’s agreement with City Slang follows further growth of its international roster, having signed Japanese imprint Schole Records, as well as US labels including TOKiMONSTA’s Young Art Records, Le Plan Recordings and Old Soul Music in the last twelve months. The company also recently integrated royalties accounting software from Details and Eddy to automate the export of monthly royalty data from Labelcamp. 

About IDOL

IDOL is a digital distributor that provides world-leading service to some of the most prestigious names in independent music. Its diverse roster, built around the highest standards of artistic curation, includes Erased Tapes, Fire Records, Glitterbeat, Gondwana, Kitsuné, Local Action, Soundway, SRD, Ubisoft, and Bandai Namco, while it also works directly with artists including Erick The Architect, La Femme, L’Impératrice, and Ibrahim Maalouf. 

IDOL was founded in 2006 by Pascal Bittard as one of the first fully digital aggregators, with “independence is a strength” as its core belief. Its offering combines unbeatable label management and marketing services with a focus on long-term catalogue development – a combination that consistently achieves better results for its clients.

IDOL operates its own digital distribution platform, Labelcamp, which offers state-of-the-art supply chain management tools and analytics dashboards to its distributed partners. Labelcamp is also available as a SaaS product for third-party labels and distributors, and is used by the likes of [PIAS], Because, Concord and Ditto.  

The company has offices in Paris, London, Berlin and Johannesburg, and a presence in New York, LA and Nashville.

About City Slang 

Born in 1990 and raised on American indie rock music, the Berlin-based independent record label City Slang represents a diverse roster of artists from around the world. Its musicians are united by creativity and passion and exhibit a wide-ranging, distinctive exploration of genres.

During the 90s, the City Slang imprint, founded by Christof Ellinghaus, offered a European home to a number of influential indie bands from across the Atlantic. Releases included Yo La Tengo, Sebadoh, Cell, The Flaming Lips, and Hole, to name a few. The records released through City Slang have helped shape and embellish the last three decades of alternative music. 

Thirty years later, with offices in Berlin, New York, Paris and London, City Slang has far outgrown the borders of the European continent. The label’s roster now encompasses everything from imaginative twists on dance music (Caribou, Gold Panda, Boy Harsher, Waleed, Coma, Sinkane, Junior Boys, Roosevelt), to inventive instrumental productions (Hauschka, Grandbrothers), multiple forms of ingenious songwriting (José Gonzaléz, Son Lux, KAINA, McKinley Dixon, Anna B Savage), genre-bending masterpieces (Noga Erez, Zouj, Sen Morimoto, Lambchop) and, of course, the kind of raucous guitars with which it first launched (Los Bitchos, King Hannah, Pom Pom Squad, Sprints, Nada Surf, Calexico).