The Ministry of Sound and Hed Kandi are coming to the US. Just the thought of what are arguably the two largest electronic/dance music brands bringing their releases directly to the States has had me excited for month. Ministry of Sound and their sublabel, Hed Kandi, have set up their own US headquarters, headed by Global Underground mastermind Andy Horsfield. Ministry of Sound has tried a US excursion before without much success. In the capable hands of Andy, who pretty much created the DJ-as-artist branding concept, watch for MOS to usher in a new wave of international electronic music to the States.
DJ Ron Slomowicz: So Global Underground is starting a deal with the Ministry of
Sound for America – tell us about it.
Andy Horsfield: Yes, I've been speaking to the guys at Ministry for a
while, probably about six months or so, and they asked me to set an
operation up here for them in the States, not just the Ministry of
Sound but also their club labels, like Hed Kandi. Had it been a label
that was very similar to what Global Underground does, I think I would
have had reservations about doing it, musically. Because Hed Kandi and
the Ministry of Sound are so far away from what we do at Global, I
found it a very, very easy thing for us to do. So at the beginning of
this year we started looking for offices, hiring staff and setting our
first releases up. The first digital release in America was Ida Corr
"Let Me Think About It" which was released May 20th. The first
physical release through the Ministry of Sound is going to be
Clubbers' Guide which is June 17th. The first ever Hed Kandi American
release, there will be a chance it's going to drop on July first. So
yes, it's pretty hectic.
RS: Is Ministry of Sound for the U.S. going to focus on album
compilations, artist albums, or singles? What's the main focus going
to be?
Andy Horsfield: The focus for the Ministry is just to put great music
out. The whole thing about the Ministry of Sound is they love dance
music, it's what they do. They don't really dabble too much in other
genres, they're very dance-focused. So our mission here in the States
is just to put great music out. Obviously Ministry of Sound is very
much a compilation brand, but we do have singles, we have this Ida
Corr vs Fedde Le Grand track that's huge. It's been on the Billboard
Radio Chart for twenty-five weeks now. That's due to come out on June
3rd here in the States. So we have very, very strong dance singles as
well as compilations. Eventually we'll be doing artist albums as well,
just so we can release the kind of music we want to put out.