This week, almost the entirety of the independent music community descended upon New York City for A2IM’s annual Indie Week conference, which kicked off Monday night (June 9) with the Libera Awards, celebrating the best of independent music in the past year. Held at Manhattan’s Gotham Hall, the awards, presented by Merlin, honored records, songs, artists and labels across a slew of genres, with performances by Top Shelf Records’ Ekko Astral, Secretly Canadian’s serpentwithfeet and Oh Boy Records’ Swamp Dogg and a posthumous lifetime achievement award for !K7 founder Horst Weidenmüller.
But the biggest winner of the evening was Mexican Summer artist Jessica Pratt, who took home record of the year for her album Here In the Pitch, as well as best folk record and best singer-songwriter record. For Mexican Summer — which itself also won label of the year (6-14 employees) — it was a big achievement, one forged in the partnership they made with Pratt ahead of her 2019 album Quiet Signs. And those achievements help Mexican Summer’s co-founder, co-president and director of A&R Keith Abrahamsson earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Abrahamsson talks about the making of Pratt’s award-winning album, the different marketing tactics the label took this time around, his approach to A&R and what comes next. “We’ve got a lot on the horizon — new music from Cate Le Bon, Sessa, Connan Mockasin, L’Rain, Zsela, Iceage, Robert Lester Folsom and more,” Abrahamsson says. “The rest of ‘25 and ‘26 will be incredibly busy!”
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06/10/2025This week, Mexican Summer artist Jessica Pratt won three awards, including record of the year, at the 2025 Libera Awards. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
I had been a huge fan of Jessica’s music when we first started discussing working together several years ago. My goal was to give her a creative environment that had freedom and flexibility, and most importantly, trust in her artistic vision over everything else. Logistically, we were able to offer her access to our studio and connect her with her now long time collaborator, Al Carlson, our in-house producer at Gary’s Electric. We also took this same approach to the creative buildout and overall marketing of the record, making sure that her exacting artistic vision was always the priority and never compromised.
This is the second record you’ve done with Jessica. What was different this time around for you guys?
Jessica is a perfectionist and it took a moment — years! — to hone the sound on this one. More than anything, I would say that was one of the main differences time — granted, there was also a pandemic thrown in there. She wrote and recorded this album between Los Angeles and New York again, again working with Al Carlson in and out of our studio. This time around, there was a goal to carefully and subtly expand the sonic palette. Achieving this required a lot of experimentation and for Jessica to bring in new instrumental elements and players. I don’t want to give too much of a peek behind the curtain, though!
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06/10/2025It was also her first album in five years, a lifetime in today’s music era. How did you guys work to present this album to her fans in a new way?
As soon as we heard Here in the Pitch, we knew we had a future classic on our hands, truly, so we were banking on the idea that Jessica’s fans would feel it was more than worth the wait. It certainly helped that in the five years leading up to HITP, the mythology around JP and her music only seemed to grow — we saw a couple of key syncs, Troye Sivan sampled “Back, Baby,” etc. — and… absence makes the heart grow fonder. In presenting the record and its first single, “Life Is,” we created a suite of creative assets that supported Jessica’s vision and carefully rebooted her socials, mailing list, etc., teasing out the moment the past five years had been building to and letting JP speak directly to her fans. We ran a tight ship logistics-wise, but really the strength of the launch was rooted in the brilliance of the song.
Mexican Summer also won label of the year (6-14 employees) at the Libera Awards. How have you guys worked to set yourselves apart and succeed these days?
As a label, we definitely take a “head and heart” approach — working from our gut when it comes to identifying our partners and developing the music and creative, but also closely following the data to help inform our campaign strategy. Overall, we’re blessed to work with incredible talent on the artist side, and really amazing and knowledgeable people and partners on the label side. Our ethos always has been and always will be artist-first.
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06/11/2025You started the label in 2009, a tough time economically both in general and specifically for the music business, and have kept things running through the industry’s streaming resurgence and the volume tsunami of content that has unleashed. How have you kept the label going and flourishing through the years?
I started the label with my business partner, Andres Santo Domingo, off the back of our previous label, Kemado. Mexican Summer was able to start without many expectations — it actually began as a record club — and carefully scaled as our releases and label footprint grew. And importantly, as there have been industry shifts with formats, content, etc., we’ve tried to approach scale in a realistic way without pressuring our artists, but arming them with options and best practices to reach new and existing fans.
What’s your approach to A&R, and how has that changed through your career?
The writing is always what it comes down to for me, and whether or not I’m compelled to revisit something multiple times. Discovery is still what motivates me the most; the thrill of hearing a song for the first time that really cuts deep never seems to get old.
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