Introducing "Ladybird Records"

Born in the buzzing Strawberry Fields of Liverpool, Ladybird Records is a new bespoke record label, tenaciously focussed on amplifying the voice and message of artists. OUR aim is to leave an indelible dot wherever our talent lands.

Okay, THIS one has truly been a long time in the making and I’m finally ready and very excited to share “Ladybird Records” with you. 

A new bespoke label born in Liverpool which represents, defines and brands not only my own musical catalogue but also helps other artists who may be little on the world stage but have a bold message to share through their music. 

Working under an umbrella to deliver label services to artists both on or off the roster, Ladybird is a vehicle that is completely attuned to the creator’s needs and vision. We don’t just distribute music, handle metadata and merchandise - we also deliver bespoke campaigns to promote and market music effectively. 

With a background in advertising and design, working on most global brands we all love (and likely hate), it seemed inevitable my path would lead to this label. Outside of my career, I’d attempt to navigate the choppy shores of the music industry through trial and error as an artist myself - and that’s where I learnt to become self-sufficient in all areas of music creation, video-making and promotion! I was eager to retain my creative vision and not waste any more time waiting for a team to arrive and do the dirty work for me! 

Over time I discovered that most labels and companies in this industry face the same obstacles we do as artists, and certainly the same uncertainty. The only difference is they neatly package and manage our IP for us - taking a slice of the cake for handling your goods. With a landscapes that’s constantly changing, comes new opportunity and new business models. And I guess this is what made most sense to me - knowing that we are our own brand and we are also the product. That’s an incredible starting place and opportunity to make something real, authentic and human. 

Little but bold @ladybirdrecords

Another 16th November

Today we share the moon, Mum.

So, sorrow and I took a short stroll.

Pulled along as a puckered thread, she tugged me to the quieter, more innocuous spaces of my deepest revery.

Ivory as the speckled china holding my cup of liquid comfort; as ivory as your soft woollen jumper that hangs heavily over my shoulders - I’m enmeshed and warming; and that's the closest I can get to a hug from you.

The air is always bitter by November, and today is your birthday.

There’s no rolling tears to wipe the slate clean,

just the rolling thunder of a quiet, patient grief.

My stoicism now seems to stand someplace between steel and air;

and I guess, sometimes, I just can’t allow myself to “go there”.

So all I do, is I lean into the menial small details of this silent day.

I make space to remember you, as I bat my usual distractions away.

I gaze at the ivory bristles, the feathered plants that sit atop my empty table,

and I try align myself as closely as I can to you in that photograph...

To where you stood, full moon in the pinch of your fingertips,

surrounded by the feathered barley, wearing our woolen ivory.

And it’s here I desperately attempt to wedge myself into your moment;

to make it match with my own, somehow.

But still - no rolling tears, just the patience of love; passing like charging horses,

curling and hanging like a white curtain of clouds, folding over a forlorn sky.

Why look to grey, when I could tug at any hint of warmth?

Off-white is one step closer to the barley-corn that surrounded you that mid-summers night.

To the full moon we could call ours tonight, so beautifully bright.

I may be braced for winter, but I know, one day, it’ll be alright.

Saturation of the night

Throwback + musing. I keep thinking, and remembering, how poetry is the place I find most peace ~ while music appears to be this thing I continually butt heads with. A lifetime sentence I’m too stubborn to bail on. Admittedly, it left a dent the other week. It’s a shapeshifting entity that morphs whenever you think you’ve got your limbs around it. Dreams held by air, while you get all wear and tear, and it has you sinking like a ship. I could get a grip ~ but I can’t put it down; all that love in the book always struggles to meet its better end. And to keep on hoping is to play-pretend. But I can’t stop, even if I wanted to. A way of being so embedded in my bones. That’s why poetry is peace ~ and music is some other beast. That beautiful and frustrating thing; the target of too much attention. All from first arrival, and I’m sure, until final destination. Maybe best to say, it spends all of its time shaping me…

I’m in an odd space, anyway. It’s coming up to mum’s birthday and I think about all she did in her life and where it all went. The book she poured every ounce of herself into sits quietly within the waiting room of my stuffy little harddrive, keeping me held in a purgatory that I push to different parts of my mind, like food on a plate I can't stomach to contemplate. And when I stop focussing on my own world for a while, it winks; but I can’t smile). It reminds me of the enormity of everything and nothing all at once, and it keeps me riddling around what “meaning” really means. What we inject into what matters, while “meaningless” surrounds - preying quietly like a yawning black hole. What are we without our goal? When all that is left is memory, within the vaults of an organ? All we have is a measly choice to make our own meaning. To make room for the timelessness of much deeper feeling. That love that lasts long after loved ones have passed. The love that loyally waits for us within a song. That’s all we have - outside the mundanities of just existing. That black cloth can try cover the sky but the will of stars will never stop. Even in darkness, they turn up bright with promises of hope. Even if they we can’t yet see it in its undiluted, saturating glory.

🌌