Gee Davy & Ruth Barlow talk AIM Independent Music Awards and growing visibility of indie artists | Labels

It’s the return of the AIM Independent Music Awards tonight (October 17), which once again returns to the Roundhouse in London’s Camden.

Independent music continues to make market share gains in the UK, although there remain issues for the sector including a recent licensing dispute with TikTok and ongoing concerns about preserving independence in an evolving music ecosystem. 

Barry Can’t Swim, CasIsDead, Jorja Smith and Sampha have two nominations each for this year’s AIM Independent Music Awards.

Meanwhile, Heavenly Recordings, Ninja Tune, Partisan, Sub Pop and Transgressive are up for Best Independent Label. 

This year’s shortlist for the prestigious Best Independent Album prize includes releases from Ninja Tune’s Actress, Barry Can’t Swim and Nabihah Iqbal, as well as Anohni (Rough Trade), Kim Gordon (Matador), and EGA Distro’s D-Block Europe and Skrapz. 

Independent acts have been making an impact since the nominations, including Fontaines DC’s album Romance (their single Starburster is up for Best Independent Track) and Ezra Collective, who went Top 10 with new album Dance, No One’s Watching. The jazz act are nominated for Best Independent Track with Ajala, along with a nod in the Best Independent Remix category.

Best Independent Record Store is a new category for 2024 – Drift, Honest Jon’s, Piccadilly, Rough Trade Bristol and Stranger Than Paradise Records are all in the running.

Performers at the Roundhouse ceremony include Sampha and OneDa.

Ahead of the awards, AIM interim CEO Gee Davy and AIM chair (and Beggars Group director of live licensing) Ruth Barlow look at the strength and diversity of the indie sector in this year’s nominees…

There’s a strong line-up in the nominations this year, are you excited about this year’s awards contenders?

Gee Davy: “We’ve got some real variety in this year’s list. We always do, to some extent, but it does feel like this year we’re really representing the whole breadth of the independent community – not just across labels and genres and self releases in the mix too, but also looking across the whole of the UK. So we’ve got Cornwall,  Leeds and Manchester, as well as Scotland, all represented there, so I’m really delighted by this year’s list.” 

Ruth Barlow: “It was really important for us to actually showcase the breadth of the community this year. It was very important for us to show the success – that’s where the awards came from in terms of its conception, to show the success, because we didn’t feel like our successes were being communicated at mainstream events.

“I’m particularly pleased with the nominations for the Best Independent Album this year, because I just think it’s outstanding. It’s not just the diversity of artists, but the breadth of genres – it’s rap, trap, electronic, jazz, alternative, R&B. There are genuinely a bunch of unique voices from right across the community. In an ideal world, we’d want the Independent Album category to have the same impact as what the Mercury Prize would normally be doing.”

The awards was set up to celebrate and champion the independent sector

Gee Davy

That Independent Albums list really underlines the fact that ‘indie’ music no longer means guitar bands, doesn’t it?

GD: “Yeah, absolutely. If we hadn’t shown it before, then that list certainly does. [Looking at the nominees], it’s phenomenal to see the reach and success of all these different genres, and the ability to be able to recognise them. The awards started 14 years ago, and I feel like it’s grown over the years to become a really high-profile event with really high production values. It’s really well respected for that, and it recognises the high cultural value of independent artists and businesses. For all of that, we would hope to have even more visibility than we have, but I think we’ve already gained really good visibility over the years. It just provides that moment where independent music can really shine, and can really be visible to others.” 

Does the Roundhouse work well for this event?

GD: “We’re really comfortable with the Roundhouse. It’s just fantastic to be able to host an awards ceremony in an actual music venue, it’s served us very well. They’ve been really good partners and hosts for us. I’m genuinely very proud of the high production values. I think this year’s going to be no different in that we’ve got, as usual, performances scattered through the ceremony. So we’ll have a number of artists who will be playing on that Roundhouse stage, and some of them almost certainly wouldn’t be playing on the Roundhouse stage quite yet but for the awards. We’re also delighted this year that we’ve got some really tangible offers from some sponsors to capitalise on that moment as well. So Amazon Music is offering studio time for the Breakthrough Artist, and in the past BBC Introducing and 6 Music have played the recordings of the performances on radio.” 

What are you hoping for in terms of the impact this time, can it help the artists involved?

GD: “I think it certainly helps the artists involved. The awards was set up to celebrate and champion the independent sector. Certainly, in announcing and putting out nominee announcements, and in getting those moments on radio and through digital partners, it all adds up to bring those artists to new audiences and increase their profile and visibility.”

I’m particularly pleased with the nominations for the Best Independent Album, it’s outstanding

Ruth Barlow

The credibility of the list is important too, isn’t it?

GD: “I absolutely agree. It’s always an interesting moment, because the [nominees] are selected by a panel of tastemakers who are independent of AIM. So there are people across radio, print titles, across online titles, and because they judge it themselves you never quite know what they’re going to return. It speaks of the kind of authenticity of success that you’re seeing in those lists. These aren’t just people that AIM is highlighting. This shows that there is a really widespread and diverse group of artists, recordings and releases that independent tastemakers think are hugely impactful and successful as well.” 

RB: “It’s a real celebration of the community as well. It’s an evening where you can sit shoulder to shoulder with your peers, which is not an opportunity that we get very often. With the exposure for the artists… Some of the nominations you’re sat there going, ‘I’ve never heard of them, they’re great’. So, you know, it’s almost like being at a record fair.”

Is it important to recognise the labels too?

GD: “With the AIM Awards, the winners in those categories are both the artist and the label behind them, or the team behind them. It really highlights the great artist-business partnerships that you see in the independent sector, and is a real benchmark of our sector and our community. I think that really shines through at the AIM Awards as well – it’s great partnerships leading to great success.”

Finally, with the Record Store category being added this year, how important is physical music for the indie sector?

GD: “Physical has always been pretty important to at least a subset of our membership, if not all. We really recognise and celebrate that as well. Linking Back to the AIM Independent Music Awards, we’ve long had physical [represented], we used to have the packaging category. We have now expanded that into Best Creative Campaign, which includes a physical music element to it. But this year we really are recognising further the importance of physical, and the importance of record stores as community hubs and centres for discovery of new music and new artists.”

PHOTO: Jennifer McCord