Lion Music is a production company

Production company

A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...

 and record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

 founded in 1989

1989 in music

This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1989.-Events:*January 14 – Paul McCartney releases Снова в СССР exclusively in the USSR...

 by composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and artist Lars Eric Mattsson

Lars Eric Mattsson

Lars-Eric Mattsson is a guitarist, song writer and producer living on the Åland Islands, Finland.-General information:A guitarist of the classic metal/hard rock school Lars was first discovered by Mike Varney in 1985...

.

History

Lion Music was founded in 1989 by Lars Eric Mattsson as a production company to handle production and licensing for his records in Europe, the United States, and Asia, where a number of deals were signed. After some serious problems with certain labels in the early 90s, Mattsson took a few years off and concentrated on the building of his own studio, as well as a number of other things.

The first releases were Vision's "Till the End of Time" (1997), reissues of Mattsson’s "No Surrender", Vision’s debut album (1998), and Mattsson's solo album Obsession (1998).

In January 2000 Lion Music released Alex Masi

Alex Masi

Alex Masi is an Italian guitarist.He was born in Venice, and studied at the Conservatory of Music in Verona. He formed the heavy rock band Dark Lord in 1984 and recorded two EPs with them...

's In the Name of Bach and Matsson's Another Dimension.

Branching out

Since this period, Lion Music has operated as a record label with regular releases and seen its roster of artists grow considerably, and they offer varied musical genres and styles. They are now considered a leading force within progressive

Progressive metal

Progressive metal is a subgenre of heavy metal originating in the United Kingdom and North America in the late 1980s...

 and power metal

Power metal

Power metal is a style of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional metal with speed metal, often within symphonic context. The term refers to two different but related styles: the first pioneered and largely practiced in North America with a harder sound similar to speed metal, and a...

 circles as well being closely associated with instrumental and virtuoso

Virtuoso

A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...

 musician releases. Lion Music has also branched out into other genres such AOR/Melodic hard rock

Hard rock

Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...

, Fusion and classic hard rock.

Lion Music has released several tribute album

Tribute album

A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...

s to Jason Becker

Jason Becker

Jason Eli Becker is an American virtuoso neo-classical metal guitarist and composer. At the age of 16, he became part of the Mike Varney-produced duo Cacophony with his friend Marty Friedman. They released Speed Metal Symphony in 1987 and Go Off! in 1988...

, Shawn Lane

Shawn Lane

Shawn Lane was an American musician. Although piano was his first instrument, he quickly became a noted player in underground guitar circles and joined Black Oak Arkansas when he was just fourteen years old....

, Ritchie Blackmore

Ritchie Blackmore

Richard Hugh "Ritchie" Blackmore is an English guitarist and songwriter, who was known as one of the first guitarists to fuse Classical music elements with rock. He fronted his own band Rainbow after leaving Deep Purple where he was unhappy because his favourite musical style wasn't adequately...

, Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

, Uli Jon Roth, and Gary Moore

Gary Moore

Robert William Gary Moore , better known simply as Gary Moore, was a Northern Irish musician from Belfast, best recognised as a blues rock guitarist and singer....

. Lion Music's current release schedule sees an average of 3 to 4 new albums each month.

Lion Music announced that due to ongoing piracy they would stop signing new artists until the problem has been resolved..