Beyond the Niche: How Shoulder Tone Records is Building the Future of Handpan Music
- Tim Sanchez
- 15 hours ago
- 6 min read
First announced in November of 2024, Shoulder Tone Records is a newly founded record label focused exclusively on Handpan artists. The label was founded by Valerio Menon, a handpan maker, tuner, and player based in Thun, Switzerland. Not even one year into its existence, Shoulder Tone Records already has an exciting list of artists and upcoming releases so we reached out to Valerio to learn more about the story of Shoulder Tone.
Tim: You’ve been a professional handpan builder and tuner for close to a decade now, tell us about your journey from handpan player to builder.
Valerio: I always answer this question very willingly since after a decade, I still have wonderful memories of that period. From 2012 to 2015 I only made records and tours, it was my main job. In the summer of 2015, I was on tour in France and I told my tour manager (Ore' Scaffidi, maker of Koan Handpan) that I was a bit tired of touring Europe all the time, and that maybe I should take a break. Also, because I’ve never been a big name, I needed to really play a lot to make a living. He said that if I wanted, he could teach me how to make instruments, which is a much more sedentary and stable job. I said yes and two months later I sold my first instrument. That famous break I had to take has been going on for almost 10 years now... since I never did a concert again and ever since October 2015 building instruments has been my main job.
Tim: You’re a bit of a pioneer as one of the first handpan-focused record labels, what are some of the challenges of setting up and running a record label?
Valerio: It's something I've always wanted to do but I've never found the ideal partner. As soon as "K" (Alfredo Cappello) asked me to create a record label with him, I immediately said yes as he has thirty years of experience in the field of music publishing and he teaches music business at the university of Milan. I have known him for years and he is truly a capable and reliable person.
There are many difficulties. The first is that people almost never have any idea of what a label does. For example, as soon as it was known that Valerio Menon had founded a record label many people thought it was a recording studio. Of course I don't blame them, in the world of streaming, the role of a label has become less clear compared to 20 years ago so people are absolutely right to be confused. The other big difficulty is selling a music (handpan music), that is absolutely not known at all - at a mainstream level. Precisely because up until now the labels have not taken care of it. On Spotify the name “Handpan” is still missing. If you want to describe your music the closest thing is “Steelpan” or “Ambient”, which as you well know are different worlds from Handpan music.
Sure, people like Hang Massive and Gioli & Assia get millions of streams (both of them do amazing live performances as well by the way) and there are also several Spotify Playlists with over 20K followers. But those who listen to them often have no idea about the scene and the culture behind it and in some cases, they don’t even know what the instrument being played is. This is not a problem at all since the public enjoys listening and the artists enjoy an audience, but it’s one of the reasons why almost all Handpan artists are still self-produced and concerts and events dedicated to handpan rarely attract more than 300 people. There is often superficial listening that does not translate into true participation. This translates into a truly enormous gap between reality and the virtual.
One of the roles of the label is to bring this cultural movement to the surface and make listening to Handpan music more conscious. I know it sounds like a very severe thing, but I think it is a necessary step if you want to take the scene to another level.
For example, I love the work that Warp Records did for electronic music, they managed to bring out a very underground scene that is still very popular today. They made the listener more aware and participatory, a big gain for both the audience and the artist. The same goes for Sub Pop with Grunge and for Blue Note Records for Jazz Music. I realize that I am talking about giants and that I am nobody, but if there is an end goal, then that is exactly what I have tried to describe to you.
Tim: Why did you choose to name the label Shoulder Tone Records?
Valerio: It came to me right away. In my head the name had to be directly related to the instrument to give a strong identity to the label. Shoulder Tone simply sounded much better than Dimple, or Fifth and Octave!
Tim: Had you ever considered starting your own label before?
Valerio: I've been interested in the record industry for a long time. Already as a kid, at 15 or 16, I went to visit the offices of independent labels close to my city and had them explain to me (in a rather obsessive way I must admit) how they worked. The idea of Shoulder Tone was born when I saw that the handpan scene was growing in terms of people, concerts, and popularity, but it was not growing in the world of the recording industry. This scene has given me everything for the past 13 years. It literally changed my life for the better so I felt the need to return the favor and create something that would truly be useful to everyone.
Tim: What does Shoulder Tone Records provide for handpan artists signed to your label?
Valerio: We offer different services, some artistic, and others more technical. We have a distribution contract with The Orchard (Sony Music) for all our releases that guarantees the artist 360-degree assistance on any technical problem. For example, Content ID dispute and claim errors. Furthermore, this distribution has a much more organized structure than independent distributors regarding sync licensing and provides a professional pitching. In short, with The Orchard there is real and strategic human support.
We also have a music publishing office that takes care of managing, protecting, and monetizing the rights of musical works as well as looking for sync or in general tries to sell the artist's music to cinemas, advertising, theaters, etc. Furthermore, we have quite a good system of playlists and mailing lists that we try to improve constantly which guarantee the artist a certain visibility. We are not talking about huge numbers, but if we look at the figures, they are still bigger than those of 90% of self-produced handpan artists. This means that all the months spent building this promotional network have been worth something. What I'm working on is to direct this promotional network outside the Handpan scene, to give artists the opportunity to reach a new audience.
Tim: Do you have any upcoming singles or albums you’d like to tell us about?
Valerio: Mike Mascioli's album "Soul Mileage" has just been released. 18 tracks of very innovative Handpan music, with various influences, from rock to rap. It's a really large work.
On April 22nd the new solo single by Jeremy Nattagh will be released, I'm very curious about how it will be received and it will also be a good test for the label to understand if we are able to work with big artists like him.
Tatsunori Hara's first album will be released at the end of May, there is a fair amount of expectation from the public about this album, I heard the master this morning and I can tell you that it will live up to expectations.
Liron Meyuhasa's new album will be released at the beginning of June and will also be printed on vinyl, it is a completely improvised and a decidedly experimental album.
All the artists will be on tour this summer, all the dates are published on our channels.
Apart from this, we have several other releases scheduled between now and the end of the year, but it's better not to give too many spoilers!
For more information about Shoulder Tone Records:
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