Acutek

I'm a house & techno artist from the North of Scotland, working under the Alias, Acutek. Acutek has been on a musical journey for over an decade, constantly working to develop, grow and learn in the music industry. Since starting to DJ at the age of 15 my focus soon shifted to music production. My music production journey started at Soma Skool (SubSine Academy, Glasgow) being taught by Ableton certified trainer, Simon Stokes. After completing all available courses I started to release music commercially in 2017 with debut EP on Space City Recordings. I learned a lot with this release and taught me about how to approach promotion of a release. Going into my second EP with Biotech Recordings with all the knowledge I had gained about promotion previously, the release hit #1 top 100 hard techno releases on Beatport with support from the likes of Luigi Madonna and Cristian Varela. I started up my own club night in the local town to provide a platform for myself and local DJs to play. Since there wasn't anything else like this locally, the night was a success with a community vibe which everyone looks forward to. This has helped to develop my brand as an artist and also provide home for me to release music on. My latest EP with Unkown Territory was released late 2020 which hit #6 Peak Time/Driving and #2 Raw/Deep/Hypnotic Techno releases with 2 of the tracks breaking into individual chart tracks. The release also hit #31 globally across all genres. The promotion efforts used to get the music in front of new audiences include dubbing the music over engaging videos and running organic and advertising posts on social media. The advertising posts are aimed towards targeted audiences to ensure they show on the timelines of who is most likely to engage with the music. I'm part of the Toolroom Academy Alumni also after receiving support from Help Musicians UK and Creative Scotland to carry out the development courses to learn music production. I found that after completing the Online Production Certificate with Ben Remember and Creativity Unlocked with D.Ramirez, the quality of my music production increased. Since lockdown, I've been setting up my own record label which is due to launch Autumn 2021. This will digital downloads/streaming with a focus on streaming. This has always been a career goal of mine, keeping control of my master's while being in full control of promotion. To promote my latest release 'Missing' I have been using Hypeddit download gate/smart link options. Using all my knowledge gained over the years and lockdown after investigating several promotion techniques, I wanted to focus on the following method. Taking 4 different 30 second loops of the track, creating an ad set for each video with a targeted audience who likes Spotify + Music Download + a specific artist which I think followers would engage with. Each audience narrowed to ensure best targeting and only shown to people who are connected to WiFi for best results. For the smart link to stream I simply removed the music download from the targeting. With these 2 ad campaigns running in side by side, I find this very useful to reach new audiences. The links are set up to automatically follow me on Spotify and add the track to a user's library/playlist. For the creative of the adverts I've been using Adobe After Effects with moving 3D typography with Acutek & Missing as the text which works very well. Going down the self release route now, I can develop myself and an artist while growing a brand furthermore. I've always been a very goal driven and dedicated artist. Now that I'm in full control of my own music, I'm very excited to see the progress and growth made over the next few years.