THE LOST AND FOUND
A music promotion collective that breaks borders.
What do we do?
The Lost and Found is an independent, non-profit recording and research project that aims to help recording artists break out of the geographic tagging systems that keep their music ‘trapped’ in their countries of origin, and help them penetrate global streaming markets. The project is run by American composer/graduate researcher Adrian Montclaire in affiliation with the Sibelius Academy of UniArts Helsinki.
What problem do we solve?
Recording artists from smaller countries usually have a very hard time breaking into global markets without an external push. This is partly because streaming platforms’ discovery algorithms heavily prioritize GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION when deciding who should see what music. Spotify in particular prefers to show listeners music from their own countries.
The Lost and Found helps break the geographic boundary.
How does it work?
The Lost and Found is registered as an American artist on all digital streaming platforms. We curate several promoted playlists, and have a small but dedicated (and growing) community of real listeners across the world. By releasing tracks in collaboration with The Lost and Found, YOUR artist data gets linked to the data of The Lost and Found, its playlists, and its listeners, thereby showing the algorithms that people outside your own country enjoy your music—and in turn, the Lost and Found and its other listeners get linked to YOU, which boosts the reach of all the other artists in the network.You can read more about the theories behind why we think this will work in the following articles: LINK, LINK, LINK.Collaborating artists don't pay anything for this service, and retain full rights to their compositions.
Who works with us?
We work with artists that already have distributors and IPI numbers (assigned to you by your performing rights organization or CMO). As a very new project, we are starting with folk and new age musicians, but we will eventually expand the range of genres we work with.And if you're looking for a list of SPECIFIC artists we work with—it's nobody yet! Somehow you've found this page before we have gone public. Well done! But check back here VERY soon.
WANT TO WORK WITH US?
Drop us a line and tell us what you do! We are currently seeking folk, bardcore, ambient, early music, and new age artists to collaborate with. We're happy to talk to you regardless of what you make, though.