Northlane, Russell Morris, Montaigne Among New Community Music Signings (EXCLUSIVE)

Community Music has signed some big names, including ARIA Hall of Fame artist Russell Morris, and ARIA Award-winning acts, Northlane and Montaigne, The Music Network can exclusively reveal.

The music distribution and artist services company, owned by UNIFIED Music Group, has signed the artists for publishing and sync, alongside local names including ATHANASIA, Azure, Velvet Bloom, Queenie, and LT.

To celebrate the news, The Music Network sat down with Community Music’s General Manager of Publishing & Sync, Rachel Kelly, who is also celebrating her one year anniversary with the business. 

The Music Network: Can you reflect on your one-year anniversary? The biggest challenges, wins and the changes that have come in that time?

Rachel Kelly: Across a year of countless milestones, the biggest win has been successfully processing our first royalties run for artists in the Community Music platform. This has fundamentally transformed how we report to clients and the insights they now have across their catalogues.

The past year’s greatest challenge also became one of our greatest achievements: building a platform capable of handling legacy publishing contracts alongside the new and improved ways we’re doing things at Community Music. It took many hands across the team, and this was important work to lay the foundations we need to continue to grow.

Will Cuming (LANKS), our Head of Product and Engineering, has built the Community platform from the ground up through the eyes of an artist and songwriter first. It looks vastly different to how we were working a year ago. Montaigne has even released the perfect theme song for this first year — “Keep Going!”

Tell us about the new artists joining Community and what that means for them and the industry.

We’re so honoured to be able to reveal that world-class talent like Montaigne, Northlane, Russell Morris, Queenie, ATHANASIA, Azure, LT, Velvet Bloom and Jay Santilli have joined Community Music for Publisher Services globally.

We are looking at different measures of success for each artist, and taking a proactive approach to build more sustainable income streams as they each move into the next phases of their career.

Montaigne is now self-managed and self-produced and releasing music independently. I’ve had their album, it’s hard to be a fish, on high rotation alongside Ninajirachi’s I Love My Computer. It debuted in the top 10 on the ARIA chart and received an Australian Music Prize nomination. They’re also composing music for game trailers, producing music for other artists and writing joyful pop. Past collaborations include “1955” with Hilltop Hoods and “Always Be You” with David Byrne. We’re exploring opportunities and brand partnerships with like-minded creatives that align with their personal values.

Russell Morris is an Australian icon who was inducted into the Hall of Fame, collected two ARIA Awards, received a Medal of the Order of Australia and just wrapped up touring after six decades. We have 300+ timeless songs to work with, spanning the big hits like “Wings of an Eagle” and “Sweet Sweet Love”, alongside the ARIA award-winning Sharkmouth (2012) and Red Dirt, Red Heart (2015). 

Queenie is releasing her sophomore album, Pleasance, in 2026, which will be distributed by Community Music, following the incredible debut album Moult. The album received two AIR Nominations — Breakthrough Artist and Best Independent Blues & Roots Album — followed by an APRA nomination for the peer-voted Song of the Year for “Not Divine” (2025). After seeing her live, one fan sums it up perfectly: “Give Queenie the keys to everything.”

Northlane have extended their longstanding relationship with UNIFIED via Community. More than a decade into their career, they continue to stand at the forefront of heavy music globally, with a highly influential and singular sound that shifts the genre’s landscape with every release. With over 500 million streams, the band has built a legacy defined by innovation. Their signature fusion of metal and electronic elements has consistently shattered boundaries.

For the artists we’re working with, and the broader industry, it’s always great news when there’s another player in the market. I see this as a vote of confidence — we have so much homegrown talent that stands confidently on the global stage. For other publishers and labels, this means another partner for co-writes and collaborations.

UNIFIED is making a conscious effort to move away from major mergers. Why is that, and how does it enhance independence?

We’re consciously moving away from the concept of copyright ownership and providing a more service-based approach to music publishing and distribution, powered by the Community Music platform. As we’ve been hosting Community Live events in the past year, I’ve noticed that we’re organically building a community of like-minded creatives, while playing a vital role as a multinational independent within the broader music community.

We recently asked our clients what it’s been like being an independent artist and working with Community Music. Each response was wonderfully unique, but they share a common thread. It means being in the driver’s seat without giving up creative control or ownership of copyright, but having a global team to open new doors. We call this enhancing independence.

Can you talk more about Community’s 2027 north star — building sustainable careers through data-driven growth globally?

Our founder and CEO, Jaddan Comerford, recently shared his north star for 2026, and this speaks to our focus as we’re building out the roster for Community’s Publisher Services and Sync. We’re backing local, acting global, with consistency being the strategy.

Powered by the Community Music platform, we’ll be seeing more insights that will enable making informed decisions, which I’m a firm believer in. There are a few parallels with being an independent artist and a fast-moving independent distributor powered by tech. It means being able to respond to shifts, changes and opportunities quickly. Ultimately, we’re on a mission to build more sustainable careers — and now we have the tools to build with.

Could you share some of your sync wins across TV, film and games?

We’ve had a few sync wins, but the one I have to mention is the most epic. ERRA — “Crawl Backwards Out of Heaven” has been used in a trailer for Warframe: SIRIUS: Jade Shadows: Constellations. We worked closely with the team at Digital Extremes. Since the trailer was released on April 25th, it has clocked 2.2 million views, and we’ve seen a 600% increase in streams globally. Above all, the band is so grateful for the opportunity.

What do you think we’ll be talking about at your two-year anniversary?

I’d love to be talking about the artists, songwriters and producers that we’re currently in conversations with about joining Community, with more sync wins in other territories. Right now, the roster looks as eclectic as my secondhand vinyl collection — we have genres spanning heavy rock to indie pop, blues and roots, country, neo-soul and, of course, alt-poprock-daydream.

On the distribution roster, Community Music is immensely proud to distribute Ocean Alley’s album Love Balloon, which debuted at No. 1 and has been floating at the top of the ARIA Australian Album Charts for the past 32 weeks. Lara Buchanan’s Gold quickly garnered 1 million streams in a month, and The Rions’ debut album, Everything Every Single Day, rocketed straight to No. 1. We’re also working with our friends at Mushroom on Casey Barnes’ next album through Community, with the dulcet tones of Pete Murray joining on the most recent single “Time to Burn.” Casey and Pete have been mates for 20 years, so this one is really special.