Other Music
In 2006, I was recruited by venerated independent NYC record store Other Music to help strengthen their sales focus beyond their “indie rock” bread-and-butter and curate a deeper selection of jazz, international pop/rock/folk, and avant-garde recordings as Sales Manager and Product Buyer. For many years, I became the shop’s unofficial “face,” giving interviews and dishing pull quotes for myriad articles and books about record stores and the resurgence of physical media sales in the digital age. It was a strange but altogether fun period in my professional life.
During my nine-year tenure at OM, I also served as a Lead Copywriter and Editor of the shop’s weekly email update, which highlighted notable and superlative new products for our 35,000 subscribers. My work at Other Music opened many doors as a professional writer, propelling me toward future projects writing album liner notes for distinguished record labels and features for an influential UK music magazine.
Shintaro Sakamoto's debut solo album How To Live With A Phantom was the inaugural release on Other Music's in-house record label, and remains the best-selling title in the label's catalogue. It not only introduced his music to tens of thousands of new listeners, but also helped to kickstart a revived interest in a distinct style of Japanese music known as "city pop" in the English-speaking world. Sakamoto's music has proved influential to the likes of megastars like Harry Styles, Pharrell Williams (who would later collaborate with Sakamoto himself on a future single release), and indie darlings like Mac Demarco and Phoebe Bridgers.
Press release for Let's Dance Raw, the second album by famed Japanese singer-songwriter Shintaro Sakamoto, whose first two albums received North American release and distribution via the shop's Other Music Recording Co record label.
This is one of my "desert island records" and an album that, prior to the conveniences of digital streaming, was near impossible to find in the physical world. I happened to find a wholesaler in Florida with a cache of copies, and placed an order for 30 copies (essentially a full-count box). The wholesaler mistakenly (or perhaps not?) shipped us 300 instead and, stuck with this unreturnable surplus, I set out to sell them all by summer's end. I managed to pull it off in just under one month, perhaps one of the best examples of how essential consumer trust and sincere enthusiasm can be to help move units when you have the right voice behind the campaign.
If I had to choose one album to best encapsulate my role at Other Music with regard to taste, curation, education, and sheer enjoyment of sound, David Byrne's Rei Momo couldn't be a more perfect choice. It's a relatively-unknown title in his catalogue, and the one which best demonstrates his love of rhythm, storytelling, and global consciousness outside of the bubble of the English-speaking Western world. It's also the album that perhaps most strongly helped shape my own passions and worldview as an artist and cultural educator.
An example of my approach toward making the work of avant-garde composers more palatable to unfamiliar listeners, demonstrating that experimental music can be as seductive and sensual as it is complex and cerebral.