05/01/2026
At Ballantyne HQ, 2025 has been a year of resistance, driven by a steadfast determination to get things right, to filter the noise, to think about who we are, and what we stand for, listening, debating, making mistakes and adjustments, and working and sharing as a team.
Julia Baker joined the team, as a Music PR officer, just under a year ago, based in Lisbon. With based out of Barcelona extending campaigns into the social worlds for our clients, we’ve grown and in doing so unintentionally created an Iberian triangle of Brits abroad.
Our modus operandi is governed by the shape of stories and meaning drawn from our globally minded artists, their projects, scenes and communities. We must, and do, treasure the responsibility stowed upon us to take someone’s intimate act of music creation and present it to the world, to the journalists, radio presenters, producers and growing ecosystem of digital music influencers. And it’s thanks to their efforts and praise, music finds the desired audience, and finds its place in a fan’s hearts and hips, and maybe just maybe, if we’ve done our job right, realigning someone’s cultural tongue.
I suppose no other group manifest so uniquely the manoeuvres of music-as- life like Madalitso Band, a modest male duo from Malawi whose incredible trajectory has flown them from humble and hungry street musicians performing handmade banjos in Lilongwe to a live BBC 2 Glastonbury TV performance infront of millions. Against the mainstream grain, Malawian folk music was beamed and performed into the lounges and concert halls across the UK and beyond.
They had a belter.
In other news, grim atrocities took place and continue to take place in Gaza and Sudan, and with a pitiful political lack of will, 2025 has required resistance and balance, from the personal to the professional. Anti-war, anti-genocidal music community cohesion provides hope. Dance music artist ‘boycotts’ of Superstruct festivals were a thing, and mass mobility for raising money and awareness via concerts small and large has showed a pretty solid sense of ‘artists banding together’. Questions over unjust business modelling hover, as streaming platforms call the shots and AI continues to cause a weird combination of antipathy, anxiety and excitement for a sectorial fate-unknown.
We’ve worked with approximately 40 albums through 2025 amongst our live music and festival PR. Stand out moments include our work with new Brazilian national treasure Liniker who won multiple Latin Grammys, the 10 year anniversary for Swiss cohorts Bongo Joe, outfit Jupiter & Okwess’ return to action and Latin jazz generally making moves.
Here’s a Spotify compilation and look back at some of our favourite music we repped.
Feliz Año,
Duncan
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4fS5fxnRrSEWFusTs5jOfy?si=qZnQd6ngTTKqozxiC8ZGLA&nd=1&dlsi=ed6185e22d744056
