2022 retrospective | News | TAMBOURHINOCEROS
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2022 retrospective

Jan 03, 2023
Our year end post of 2021 asked if anybody else felt the highs getting higher and lows getting lower — and boy that vibe grew way stronger in 2022!

It can honestly be hard to stay optimistic while the remnants of the pandemic still affects the music world in a massive way and with the recession, war in Europe, as well as a seemingly abundant amount of ecological and political uncertainties constantly lurking in the background. Add to that the struggles that came this year with running a company like ours; helping artists thrive not just commercially but also mentally in a seemingly ruthless performance-focused world, making tough decisions without being able to tell for sure if they’re the right ones (no crystal ball yet), treasured employees moving on to other adventures, getting robbed of hundreds of thousands of streams , being one of the few parties in the music industry that actually invest in new music, music media losing influence to unpredictable social media trends, things like Brexit (still) making it a lot harder for music to cross borders… the list goes on and on. 

Thankfully, our mission of giving our all to a small number of select artists, their music, our wonderful growing staff, our trusted partners, and most of all you — the music fans out there — give us more than enough joy and meaning to far outshine the obstacles we face along the way. 2022 was no exception to that rule. The biggest of thanks from us to you for spending some of your precious time with our output, checking out our releases, and reading ramblings like what we have here. It means the world to us.

Here’s some highlights from 2022 we’d like to share with you as a new year is knocking on the door:

Lucky Lo

2022 was a landmark year for Lucky Lo. Not only did she release her debut album, she astonishingly played 70 shows, got magazine covers, and showered our part of the world with her relentless positivity and musical genius. Seriously, the world is a better place with Lucky Lo in it. And with what we’ve heard so far of the music she’s got in store for us, there’s no doubt that the years to come will be exceptional and carry Lucky Lo’s message to the hearts of bigger crowds in new parts of the world

Kleo

In 2022, we also introduced you to Kleo — our latest signing — who released her debut EP I Love This Movie in November. Kleo has a way of conveying her message with a musical and lyrical clarity that we predict will connect with music lovers far and wide. Something that’s started already with media coverage from most parts of the western world and two songs going viral on Snapchat

Live music

School of X continued to tour on the back of his 2021 album Dancing Through The Void and gave some mind blowing performances on his headliners, at festivals and as support for royalty like Trentemøller and Eric Clapton.

We also really want to mention the first Tambourhinoceros Presents showcase that we threw in May 2022. What a night with so many friends and colleagues and most importantly astonishing shows from Kleo, Palace Winter, School of X, Lucky Lo, and Communions.

Diversity

One of the last things we did in 2021 was to join Keychange with a pledge of working towards that women or gender minority employees constitute 50% or more of our staff by 2028. That actually happened in 2022 already. We’ll do our best to keep it that way knowing that any changes in our small crew of 8 people can quickly skew things in any direction.

Sustainability

We’ve also started to monitor our carbon footprint (by way of Impala’s Carbon Calculator for the independent sector). In 2021 our number was 7.64 t CO2e, in 2022 9.21 t CO2e. This is very much due to it being possible to travel again which is sometimes necessary in order to do good work for our artists, but our focus on keeping our footprint to a minimum and choosing sustainable solutions where possible remains.

Also, a small update if you’re into the nitty gritty of the music industry

We’ve been pretty heavily involved in politics, advocacy and similar with one of our directors chairing the Danish organization for independent labels this past decade. We’ve decided that in 2023, we’ll allocate that energy to our artists and leave the spot open for someone else to pick up the mantle. This has been one of the aforementioned tough decisions as it's really been an incredibly meaningful journey that’s brought a lot of knowledge and experience with it. At the same time any obligation comes at a cost and it feels like the right time for us to really place all our bets on our artists. Hopefully that’ll also reflect back on the wider independent scene in a different but equally positive way. 

May 2023 be a fantastic year for everyone. Thanks for reading.