NEW SIGNINGS & NEW MUSIC
LISTEN TO ’S ‘NEW MUSIC’ AGENCY PLAYLIST HERE
works with agency partners to compile a monthly playlist of new music, much of it released by the new additions to their rosters. Among the tracks on May’s playlist are submissions from ATC Live, CAA, ICM Partners, ITB, Mother Artists, Paradigm, Primary Talent, UTA, and WME.
LIRAZ AGENT
André Marmot Earth Agency
© Ronen Fadida
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(IL)
IMANBEK AGENTS Paul McQueen
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Primary Talent; Simon Clarkson & Paul Gongaware ICM Partners
iq-mag.net
(KZ)
or Liraz’s second album, Zan (‘Women’ in Farsi), she collaborated online with composers and musicians from Iran, meaning everything had to be secretive to avoid the gaze of Tehran’s mullahs and secret police. Her family, Iranian Jews, moved to Tel Aviv in the 1970s, but Liraz always believed her culture to be Iranian. After moving to the US to act in several movies, she found a huge Iranian community in LA. “There are a million Iranians there, so many I started to call it ‘Tehrangeles,’” she says. “I heard this music from before the revolution and I started to collect it. Some was by women who didn’t stop singing after the revolution, as they were supposed to do. I heard the courage in their voices. That made me realise I didn’t want to act, I wanted to sing.” In 2018, Liraz released Naz, writing and singing in Farsi. When the album was done, she knew she wanted to take things even deeper – to work with Iranian musicians and let her music resonate further. As a result, Zan is underground music in the very best sense: true political pop with names withheld for safety. Clandestine collaborations that mix traditional Persian instruments, club beats and call-to-action melodies.
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aving miraculously broken all possible music charts with his multi-platinum Roses remix, Imanbek Zeikenov (from Aksu in Kazakhstan) despite being just 20 has already changed the history of EDM by becoming the first Eastern European musician to enter the top 5 of the Billboard HOT 100. SAINt JHN’s single, Roses, remixed by Imanbek, was originally an unofficial upload to YouTube before he was signed by Russian label Effective Records in 2019. However, Imanbek won a Grammy for the remix. Roses has clocked up more than one billion streams on Spotify and topped charts around the world, making Imanbek one of the most popular musical collaborators on the planet, with projects alongside the likes of Usher, Tory Lanez, Sean Paul, and DJs Marshmello, Don Diablo, Afrojack, Martin Jansen, VIZE, Zara Larsson, Trevor Daniel, Goodboys, Fetty Wap and more, while superstar J Balvin also joined the Roses remix bandwagon with his Latino Gang version.
