London-based indie label and music industry diversity champions Killing Moon Records release their annual New Moons charity compilation playlist, New Moons XV.

Using their platform to showcase Killing Moon’s talent for finding and highlighting some of the best new music out there, the release will present highly-talented acts from the Killing Moon label and management roster as well as some of their hottest new finds. With 100% of the funds being donated to Black Lives Matter, the release represents Killing Moon’s moral ethos and unending battle for greater equality, diversity and inclusion within the music industry.

Previous playlist covers have featured influential global figures of their time including Donald Trump, Naomi Osaka and Jeremy Corbyn whose faces have all graced the cover of the iconic mix in all their glory. This year however, the cover art, beautifully painted by Ellie Cox, features none other than Killing Moon’s Project Manager and Head of Live, Sam Hong who also kindly donated his original track ‘Identity Crisis‘ into the mix under the pseudonym, Hongza.

Joining Hongza on the list are a range of acts across various genres, from RnB to bedroom pop and rock. This year’s lineup includes Desperate Journalist, Maud, The Dead Freights, Snake Eyes, Annabel Allum, Nikhil Beats plus, many more.

Check out Killing Moon XV here:

SAM HONG – Killing Moon Records Project Manager and Head of Live on ‘NEW MOONS XV’

Black Lives Matter is often seen as quite a controversial and political cause/movement… what was the rationale for choosing BLM as your charity organisation of choice?

We decided to go with BLM as our charity choice because it’s an important cause to us at KM and myself. We wanted to reflect on what happened in 2020 and continue to spread the word and raise money for the cause.

Diversity, equality and inclusion are all very important to the Killing Moon label, how do you/the label go about ensuring diversity, equality and inclusion in your workspaces and clientele?

At the company we’re trying to make our signings, releases, live shows and staffing gender & ethnic balanced. We’re also standing up to racism if that’s micro aggressions or full on racist comments

 Are there any consistent themes or topics covered within the music in the playlist? – if so, why those?

Unfortunately there aren’t much musical theme’s due to the timeframe we had to curate this in. I think the main objective of this was to create a playlist with amazing artists that support the charity. I would like make sure the next charity compilation does have a musical theme though 

You personally contributed your own track ‘Identity Crisis’ to the mix… why this track in particular?

This track is about the racism I’ve encountered growing up as a Vietnamese man in the UK and how it contributed to me not liking my skin colour when I was a teenager,  because I was an outcast and bullied for it. I chose this song because it I know a lot of POC’s go through this too and I wanted to message to be heard 

Lastly, what is a change that you’d like to see happen within the music industry over the next few years? 

I would like to see more POC’s in senior positions in the music industry and more ethnic balanced line ups. 

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