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Signs with Serandip Music Group
Stigmata, Sri Lanka’s veteran home-grown heavy metal band, announced on Saturday (10) that they are now signed with Serandip Music Group; Island Dream Records to be more exact – a subsidiary of the label that is dedicated to exploring world music and representing unique, more unorthodox artists and sounds. 
Speaking to Stigmata frontman Suresh De Silva, he shared that the agreement has been in the works for some time now, commenting that Serandip Records Co-Founder Sandun Nissanka was well aware of their work, particularly their work with Grammy-nominated producer Romesh Dodangoda, who was part of mixing and mastering the tracks for the entirety of their fifth album, a great honour for them as well.
Suresh said that Serandip is a music company that works on promoting artists and supporting them and their work on streaming platforms, and with the changing landscape of music consumption and the nature of how audiences interact with music, how they buy records and listen has all changed drastically. Artists no longer rely on traditional TV spots or radio play.
Celebrating their 21st year, Stigmata has been a near permanent fixture in the industry for a long time, and Suresh said that in the wake of this milestone, this change comes as a mammoth new move for them: “Technically we have been doing this for more than half our lives now, and we’ve endured hardships and faced the trials and tribulations. Especially considering the type of music that we play, in Sri Lanka it has not been easy, and the welcome has not been quick to come,” he said.
He added that they have always had their finger on the pulse with this evolving industry, ensuring their longevity, and so it is only part of the natural course of events to adapt and make changes where they reach a wider audience. With this new move, he said that they will be able to reach out to a massive untapped market, people who have not heard them, a metal band of Lankan origin, stating that Serandip as a label is intimately connected to a lot of these new platforms and streaming services, which will not only allow them to gain access to those new listeners but also assist in getting trending status on some of these platforms, allowing for the wider reach.
Suresh said that to his knowledge, it is known that there are about one million songs released every single week on streaming platforms and that that is indicative of the immense talent that exists, the endless variety of genres and subgenres, and taking this into consideration, “you need the right people investing in you to break out of that saturation”.
He said that it has all culminated in a celebration of over two decades of originality, adding that what they have is a niche audience and as such audiences often are, they have been loyal and dedicated, and while you may not have heard of Stigmata through the conventional grapevine in the recent past, they have been working hard. He said: “We have been blessed to have three generations of fans, we have grandads introducing their sons and daughters to our music, and those children to their own,” he said, and so they wish to honour that legacy by making moves that will only further their brand.
Suresh shared that their first big move with their new label would be to release their next single titled “Throw glass in a house of stone”, a powerful anthem which addresses the trails of overcoming addiction in this day and age, be it substance abuse, sex addiction, or workaholism.
“Throw glass in a house of stone” will be coming out on 25 April.
