Another Planet Music is a record company comprising a recording catalogue and song catalogue, containing recordings and songs from a history in the music business going back over 35 years. We have a front line record label, APM Records, focussed on releasing new material by Blues and Roots music artists. The Another Planet Music label releases back catalogue recordings and reissues.
Transistor Music houses our publishing back catalogue catalogue and Glovebox Songs our new writers.
A digital distribution business runs alongside and looks after the catalogue releases of Rollercoaster Records, Tic Toc Music, Karon Productions, Shel Talmy Productions, as well as APM’s own back catalogue.
APM is part of the editorial team on Blues in Britain Magazine.
Founder Mark Stratford started in the business with a grounding at the sharp end working in the Our Price Records chain during the mid 1980s, before moving into distribution with first Making Waves and then Rough Trade. The first record label, RPM Records, was started in 1991 reissuing mostly licenced in recordings from the 1950s/60s/70s and continued to run until it’s final release (the 610th ) came out in 2020. During this time Another Planet Music was set up as a separate company with a primary function as a production house, handling sound mastering and artwork design, also catalogue marketing services for many record companies including BMG Rights, Cherry Red, Windsong, EMI, Universal, President, PIAS.
The company was repositioned as a record company in 2019 when APM acquired the Dave Edmunds latter day recordings which Mark Stratford had worked on producing six years earlier. These were added to the Jesse Hector recordings and songs from across Jesse’s career, picked up through working with Jesse since 2003. This included co-producing a documentary film about Jesse with director Caroline Catz, the DVD of which was APM’s first own product.
Back in 2007 APM had acquired Transistor Music, a small publishing catalogue which had been started with the songs of Steve Fellows (Comsat Angels) and Paul Foad / Lesley Woods (Au Pairs) in 1994. Transistor briefly ran a record label during the early 2000s releasing records by The Heavy Blinkers, The Eighteenth Day Of May, Jim Reid (JAMC), Martin Harley Band. Following the APM take over Transistor Music was re-focussed solely on song publishing, signing writers and their works including John Howard, Andy Ellison, Anton Barbeau, Jesse Hector, Brian Crane, Tom Hartman, Stephen Brayne, Ian North. All of whom APM has worked with ever since. Most recently Transistor Music has picked up the rights to catalogue songs by Mick Cox, Frank Collins (Kokomo), Roger James, Harry Roberts(aka Robertson).
A co-owned live music promotion company, Glovebox Live, ran from 2015-2020 promoting over 100 live shows with mostly Blues, Folk, Americana, Soul-Funk artists. Highlights included promoting shows with Elles Bailey, Smoove & Turrell, The Stone Foundation, Tom Robinson, William The Conqueror, Grace Petrie, Jeremy & The Harlequins, Raghu Dixit, C Duncan, Big Boy Bloater, Danny & The Champions of The World, Son Of Dave, Chris Wood. The company spun off a fledgling song publishing arm which signed the Blues/Americana singer-songwriters Sean Taylor and Niall Kelly, and provided a release outlet for three albums by Niall Kelly. As the world events of 2020 put a halt to the live music company APM took over the song publishing and Glovebox Songs is now part of the APM stable since when it has signed Mississippi MacDonald and Oliver Darling.
In 2021 we started a new label, APM Records, initially as a release outlet for writers and since developing into it’s own entity with new recordings aimed at the Roots music markets, released digitally and on physical formats. Initially signing Mississippi MacDonald and Oliver Darling for singles and albums. Additionally we launched a catalogue label to release some of the owned recordings on CD, most recently The Aerovons, Kokomo, Mick Cox Band, with digital only releases from The Hammersmith Gorillas, Gordon Beck Quartet, Ian North. For both labels APM signed a physical format distribution deal with ACE Records.