Album-Centric Streaming Service Cantilever Grosses Mass Financial Support From Labels
London-based alternative streaming platform Cantilever, launched in October of 2025, amasses financial support from mainstay independent labels as it expands in vision and capacity.
Amidst the streaming economics crisis, artists compelled to protest the dominating platforms that underpay contributors have opted for the lesser of, though far from faultless, two evils: Apple Music over Spotify. While this growing incompliance with Spotify’s modern model - one that hasn’t grown far past their roots in music pirating - could be a harbinger of a real shift, artists are currently punished with few options for efficient promotion or dissemination of their music off of the platforms for their moralistic obligations.
Cantilever, a startup by longtime music industry participant Aaron Skates, is taking form as an honorable and compelling response to a modern equilibrium that is skewed against musicians’ favor, both as entrepreneurs and artists. Grossing support fund of 250,000 British pounds from a group of independent labels - with standout investor names including Domino, Sub Pop, and Ninja Tune - Skates launched the first intentionally album-forward streaming application in October of 2025, and continues to receive support from media, artists, and labels alike. “This funding will allow us to make our first hires, improve the user experience and accelerate growth, with partners who have a genuine stake in the company’s success and know exactly who we’re trying to reach”, he shared in a statement.
For only five pounds per month, subscribers receive an ever-rotating flow of album spotlights from rising artists across a variety of independent scenes. Albums last for one month on the platform, with a new addition every few days - as one is added, another cycles off, and so forth. While this structure may seem limited at its current scale, it seeks to resolve two main issues: the singles-first style of modern music consumption over more focused consideration of an artist’s project, and a more concentrated royalty payout to featured artists while they are on the platform.
Furthermore, the compensation structure is user-centric - meaning artists will only be compensated based on the attention their individual profiles received, rather than Spotify’s pro-rata approach to payouts. “The pool is far less diluted,” Skates said in conversation with The Guardian. “We’re paying out a maximum of 30 artists for all subscriber revenue, versus the 100m tracks on Spotify.” According to their tentative payout model, if 10,000 people paid five pounds per month for Cantilever, each album would earn artists around 2,000-3000 pounds per cycle.
As a longtime music journalist, Skates also strives to broadcast artists’ stories beyond a brief profile blurb. To contextualize each act on the platform, each album comes bolstered with an exclusive set of media: for the typical artist, the content will constitute live videos, exclusive interviews, and profiles from music journalists. Free plans are available for those most interested in the app’s exclusive interview feature. While Skates has conceded that he doesn’t see the platform as an immediate replacement to one of the larger streaming platforms, the key objectives that Cantilever makes space for - community, curation, and fair pay - are, likely, counteractive enough to existing audience struggles in the current landscape of music consumption.
Cantilever is currently available for use on iOS and Android, with web-based versions coming soon.