Secretly Group has acquired a 50% stake in Merge Records, the influential indie label that released classic albums by the likes of Neutral Milk Hotel, Spoon, the Magnetic Fields, and Arcade Fire. The partnership extends Merge’s longtime distribution deal with Secretly, bringing the label under an umbrella that includes its four core labels, Dead Oceans, Jagjaguwar, Saddest Factory, and Secretly Canadian.
Talks around the partnership began when Merge co-founder Laura Ballance decided to step down from her role as co-president and leave the music business, according to a press release. Her fellow co-founder—and Superchunk bandmate—Mac McCaughan remains label president and head of A&R, and other senior Merge staff will stay in place, a press release notes.
Ballance wrote of her exit, “It was never my goal to start a record label when I was 21 and run it for the rest of my life. I have been doing this for 36 years now. Life is short. There are other things I have always wanted to do: make more art, travel for fun, volunteer more, write a book and lots of other things that being so entrenched in running a business does not allow me to do. Merge Records started as a literal bedroom label, in my bedroom, and lived there for a few years before we were able to give it some space of its own. It has always been a labor of love. I am going to miss it and all the people and bands tremendously.”
McCaughan added, “I have known many of the people in the Secretly world for decades, and I know that they share Merge’s dedication to artists and getting their music into the hands of as many people as possible.”
Superchunk’s new album, Songs in the Key of Yikes, out August 22, will be the first Merge record to be distributed worldwide by Secretly, according to the press release.
