Illustration: Dave Bowers
One of the Things in A24’s Online Store is not like the oters. SPEND A Browsing Moment The Indie Studio’s Wares and You’ll Notice the Word Soundtrack in nearly all of the Item descriptions. Butn you’ll Spot a True Outlier: an album Named Only Mark William LewisWith Cover Art Depicting A Hunched, Vampiric Figure, Perched Like A Bird Against The Colorless London Skyline.
The image is undenibly cinematic, which is why the thumbnail look so at home nestled to vinyl soundtracks for Midsommar and Bring her back. But it is a surprisisated understated placement for an album that it is a signup a significant new chapter for a24: Lewis is the first artist the company has signed to nascent record Label, a24 music, whic unilly haen a vehicle scores.
A24 is Entering the Music Business in Earness – and This Mysterious, Brooding Brit is Its Patient Zero. ITIA A SURPRISIS IF IF INEVITABLE DEVELOPMENT FOR A Company Whose Expansionist Impulses have made it far more than a movie studio in recent years. And it is a peculiar honor bestowed uppon lewis, a singer-stagwriter in his early 30s with a gruff voice and a knack for Writing Gloomily Impressionist swathed in reverb and urban malaise. A Product of South London’s Thriving Diy Schene, he grew up on a steady diet of poetry and magical-realist literature and sounds a bit like the genre-bending artist King Krule’s Harmonica-Wielding Cousin.
But lewis isn’t much of a cinephile, and composing film scores was never his plan (though he’s open to it). In fact, in june, the Musician Told The Face that he “hadn’t heard of a24” before the company approached Him. Be i meet lewis at a24’s Manhattan Offices in Mid-July, he Clarifies: He’s a horror fan-particularly horror “that’s Kinda slightly kitsch”-and loves some a24 movies, Citting Robert Folk-Horror Breakout The witch nor a favorite.
As for the signing, “it was good timing,” he says, sipping boxed water in a24’s library, a high-shelved room that houses the studio’s handsome Hardcover Screenplay Books As well as the norreds of unrelated volumes on cinema. “We’re Kinda Both Defining Our Thing. I’m Still Defining My Thing, and they’re Obiviously a New Label, so they Definting what they have thing, and it likes a good matchup in that regard.”
SINCE ITS Founding in 2012, A24 Has HAD SUCCESS Supporting Filmmakers Still Definking Their Thing. The Studio has Occupied a Rarefied Space, Inspiring Fierce Loyalty From Independent-Film devotees. IT’S INCREASINGLY PERCEIVED AN AN ARBITER OF CUTTING-EDGE HOLLYWOOD COOL. IT’S a unicorn in an embaled entertainment industry, a studio that both flush with cash, thanks in part to a Recent $ 75 million VC Finance Round with a $ 3.5 Billion Valusion, and unafraid to take creation risk.
Though the Company Has Finished and Distributed Critically Hailed Best Picture Winners Like Moonlight and Everything ever all at Onceits cultural cachet is arguably more tied to an edgier, sensitability dinner-Such as gold aster’s art-horror nightmares or the safdie brothers’ High-anxiety Uncut gemsFilms that inspired viewers to eather become obsessive fans or walk out of the cinema in disgust. Those Movies Came Equipped with Audacious, Skene-Stealing Scores-Such as Colin Stetson’s Hres, Groaning Hereditary score and OneOhtrix Point Never’s Queasy Uncut gems Accompaniment – Which, Like Mary Other A24 Soundtracks, Received Spleashy Vinyl Releases and Considerable ACCLAIM.
So it is not a surprise that the studio beuld Venture deeper into the music industry proper, especally not after year’s I saw the tv glow Soundtrack, A Glorified Mixtape of Indie Names-to-Know Curated in the Style of the Hippest ’90s Soundtracks.
In a Recent Essay Appearing in the Publication Dirt, Writer Nicholas russell argued that a24 has beCome not just a movie studio but a savvy, multidisciplinary tastemker. Despite detractors who see it as “a zeitgeist-chasing machine,” Russell Wrote, “Everyone Seems to Be Chasing What A24 Has Become Synonymous with: Brand Loyalty.”
“They’ve been trying to, if not expand, then Gain footholds in different areas of media,” Russell Told me. “They have a contract with Apple TV+. They Were Doing Stuff with HBO for a while. They have this way of trying to ‘diversify their portfolio’ in a way that doesn’t kep say beholden to strictly. different audiences as Possible. ”
A24 Has, for Years Now, Harbored Environmental Beyond Filmmking. Its television Division has yielded hit Shows like Euphoria and The curseThe Latter Co-Created by Benny Safdie and Comedian Nathan Fielder. The Company Also Struck a Distribution Deal Last Year for Its Screenplay Books, Lavish Tomes Immortalizing A24’s Most SuccessFul Scripts, Which Are Now Avoidable in Bookstores ARUND. And The Studio Has Purchased, and Soon Will Reopenan off broadway theater in the west villa, granting it a spot in the world of theater and live comedy.
So Why Not Music? Can the studio replicate that brand loyalty in the music space? And is lewis the vehicle to make it work? A Possible obstacle is that the business of indie Music has been thoroughly homogenized by the tyranny of algorithms, which prioritizes all that is streamlined and family. Most Artists Who Sound Like Mark William Lewis Earn the Bulk of their Incoming Not From But From Touring and (Fittingly Enough) SOMETIMES Film and TV Scoring. In her book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect PlaylistJournalist Liz Pelli Recounts How the Spotify Economy Has Reshaped Indie Labels; As one label executive told Pelli, “to be sustainable, you have to put out records that are going to get apeat listens in coffee shops.”
IT’S UNCLEAR HOW THAT MAKING DIRECTIVE JIBE WITH THE AESTETIC OF A24, A STUDIO THAT CULTIVATES ENOUGH MYSTQUE TO PERSUADE Audiences to Go See Movies as ASTERS ASTER’S Eddington Or as Haunted and Strange As I saw the tv glow. (Movies, in Other Words, Not Meant to Play on Coffee-Shop Televisions.)
A24’s Hit Movies Can Live or Die at the Box Office, but they May Find an Afterlife on Streaming Services. Indie Labels are at the mercy of streaming platforms, and new releasses often fade quickly if they don’t land a Lucky playlisting slot or fluke tik boost. IT’S A DEPRESSSING SHIFT FROM Indie-Rock’s blog-Era Early-AUGHTS BOOM.
And what are the stakes here for a24, a company that probably isN’t counning on Lewis’s new album to make as Much Money, Say, Last Year’s Civilian? That is, of Course, probably fine. A24 routinely loes Money on non-mainsstream film releasa (Like Eddington and its Divios Predecessor, Beau is afraid), and it may be fine with loking money on idiosyncratic musical releasses, too, if it serves the autheurist branding the company to project as it also releses chinese blockbusters. In any case, the studio seames to be recruiting some seasoned industry personnel to help with the music side of things. Ben Gaffin, an Artist Manager and Former Director of A&R at 4AD (WHO, Among Other Achievements, Brought the Syntth-Pop Future Future Islands to 4AD), Is Now Working With A24’s Label.
While the Company is Pretty Tight-Lipped About Its Long-Term Plass in Music, and A24 Executives have a policy of not speaking to the press on the record, it did aggree to make some of the Questions in an interview-provided that no particular a24 emploe be quoted by name. During this interview with an Emploee Involved with the Label, the Company Confirmed That is Both recruitment staff for its Music Division and Scouting Potential Signings. “For us, everything that is really about the creaters that we work with – the filmmakers, the composers, the musicians,” A24 Music Says. “THIS IS REALLY JUST The NEXT ITERATION OF THAT. ITS JUST EXPANDING ON WORKING WITH CREAORS IN A NEW LANE.” So Why Sign Lewis, an idiosyncratic artist with no obvious mainstream appeal? “We Feel Like Mark is Doing Something Really Different, and His Music Sounds Both Timeless and Very Timely,” A24 Music Explains.
That strategy has worked for film, where a robust audience tends to embrace (and debate) the offbeat films it releasses. But there may be a universe of FIVEING Letterboxd Dorks Ready to Uplift a Weirdo Like Lewis on the Charts. SO A LINGERING QUESTION REMAINS: WHAT MIGHT Lewis Represent to an Audience That Knows Little About Music But Love A24 Movies? The Company Could have signed a bigger, splashier name to herald it shift into music, but to my mind, signing this mystery man Mirrors preference for ahortenting under its banner of merely recruiting essentbuts. That’s the approach the studio has typically used in filmmaking. It Remains to be seen if it can work in music.
Lewis Had Already Recorded HIS New Album. When the Record Arriva, on September 12, It Will Mark a Milestone for Both a24 and the artist Himself. Though it is not his debut record, he decide to keep it self-Titled-a way of announcing himself to the World, Saying, “This is My Sound.”
A24’s Record Deal was Clearly favable Enough to pique the artist’s interest, THOUGH IT MUM ABOUT THE TERMS OF THE DEAL – THAT THE LABEL HAS BEEN INCREDIBUL HELPFUL ABOUT “FACILITATING MY VITION” AND SUGGESTING TO WORK TO WORK WORK WITHOUT ONLY. And, Signing, His Ambitions About Reaching A Large Audience Have “Automatically Gone Up With the Way they Speak About it.”
Besides, Lewis’s Music is Evocative, Moodily Compelling, and Accompanked by a Distinct Visual Palette. COULD HIS SONDS SOUNDRACK MOVIES? Definitely. Will they? WHO KNOWS. But like the Most Interesting A24-Affiliated Filmmakers, His Work Mille you into a World of Its Own Teling You Exactly What It Means.