Rockstar Games and CircoLoco Are Starting a Record Label

Rolling Stone

Video game devel­op­er Rock­star Games and Ibiza club cul­ture icon Cir­coLo­co announced Mon­day the launch of new inde­pen­dent record label Cir­coLo­co Records.

Cir­coLo­co Records will release its first project, the com­pi­la­tion album Mon­day Dreamin’, in July, and will tease the album with indi­vid­ual week­ly EP drops start­ing June 4^th. The project will fea­ture new music from 20 artists hand­picked by Cir­coLo­co and Rock­star that reflect CircoLoco’s his­to­ry, the two com­pa­nies say. Artists on the album, all of whom have played sets for CircoLoco’s par­ties in the past, include Luciano, Seth Trox­ler, Lost Souls of Sat­urn and Toki­mon­s­ta along with sev­er­al oth­er acts.

Nei­ther Rock­star nor Cir­coLo­co are direct­ly music com­pa­nies, but both have been immersed in, and defined by, music cul­ture since their found­ing. For 20 years, Cir­coLo­co has been influ­en­tial in the dance music scene through its par­ties in Ibiza with sets from many DJs like Luciano and Tale of Us, while music has been a keen focus across all of Rockstar’s mas­sive­ly pop­u­lar fran­chis­es includ­ing Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemp­tion.

“Both Cir­coLo­co and Rock­star have a real pas­sion for music, so it felt very nat­ur­al to come togeth­er and for Rock­star to take this step with us,” CircoLoco’s Nick Benedet­ti says. ​“This first release will rep­re­sent 22 years his­to­ry of Cir­coLo­co as a long­stand­ing brand in elec­tron­ic music. But for the future, we want to cre­ate new col­lab­o­ra­tions and crossovers and scout for tal­ent to give a plat­form and extend reach for new artists.”

A label part­ner­ship between a pop­u­lar club pro­mot­er and video game devel­op­er presents clear oppor­tu­ni­ties to push new music, whether through live events or expan­sive dig­i­tal oppor­tu­ni­ties. While Cir­coLo­co and Rock­star haven’t ruled out such expe­ri­ences in the longer term, they say the label will remain sep­a­rate from the two com­pa­nies’ busi­ness­es for now.

CircoLoco’s influ­ence comes from the more tra­di­tion­al par­ty scene, but Rockstar’s was born amid the dig­i­tal era. Artists includ­ing Frank Ocean and Julian Casablan­cas have their own radio sta­tions in GTA Online’s in-game radio fea­ture, and Rock­star launched a vir­tu­al night­club in the game last year fea­tur­ing sets from DJs such as Moody­mann and Palms Trax. Else­where, artists includ­ing Willie Nel­son, Josh Homme and D’Angelo record­ed music for Red Dead Redemp­tion 2’s sound­track in 2018. Rock­star Games founder Sam Houser start­ed his career at BMG before going into video games.

“This came from a pas­sion for music, and it brings an oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to come togeth­er and join forces to push music,” Rock­star Games’s direc­tor of music Ivan Pavlovich tells Rolling Stone. ​“Music’s been part of our DNA since day one. Sam [Houser] grew up on dance music, a lot of us who work at the com­pa­ny grew up on dance music, it’s a way to come togeth­er with our friends and sup­port this scene, these artists and all this music.”

Source: https://​www​.rolling​stone​.com/​p​r​o​/​n​e​w​s​/​r​o​c​k​s​t​a​r​-​g​a​m​e​s​-​c​i​r​c​o​l​o​c​o​-​a​n​n​o​u​n​c​e​-​r​e​c​o​r​d​-​l​a​b​e​l​-​1​1​7​3793/