Matt Rowe of MusicTap recently interviewed Anji Bee for a feature on the newly revamped music site. Entitled, Quality Time With Anji Bee of Lovespirals and Chillcast, the piece goes into some depth about Anji’s thoughts on the current state of music while looking into the origins of her Chillcuts Digital label, the creation of her new The Chillcast with Anji Bee: 5 Years of Chillin’ compilation, and how she selects music for her weekly podcast, The Chillcast with Anji Bee. Matt has been a long time supporter of Anji’s band, Lovespirals. He featured the duo in 2006 with his MusicTap piece, Honey and Cool Jazz ‘n’ Rock: An Interview with Ryan Lum and Anji Bee of Lovespirals.
Anji Bee is one half of the ‘smooth as honey’ two-person band known as Lovespirals (with musician/producer, Ryan Lum). The latest incarnation of Lovespirals has released four full-length albums and five EPs under a shortened version of the band’s previous name, Love Spirals Downwards (with vocalist, Suzanne Perry). While the music of Lovespirals is every bit as cool as the band’s name sounds, Anji Bee divides up her busy time with several other projects that include working on a solo album, as well as The Chillcast, a weekly, one-hour podcast that explores music from many angles, and the twice monthly Chillcast Video. Anji Bee’s Chillcast began in March of 2006 and has since logged in many hours of introductions to bands that are stylish and timely. Recently, Anji released a compilation CD called Chillcast: 5 Years of Chillin’ With Anji Bee. In listening to the collected fourteen-track CD, I was struck with the diversity of the music made available on the disc. Not only was I interested in why these songs filtered through into her top selections, but I also became interested in her take on the future of music.
Anji, what prompted you to put together Chillcuts over five years ago?
After a decade of being signed to Projekt Records, Ryan and I wanted to try releasing music independently for a change. The whole reason our debut album, Windblown Kiss, was released on Projekt was simply that Ryan still owed an album on his contract (which is also why our band name is Lovespirals, rather than something unrelated to “Love Spirals Downwards”). But to get back to your question, I figured I had enough experience with online music distribution and promotion to handle a small record label, having done so much of that type of work for ‘Temporal‘ and ‘Windblown Kiss‘. I basically launched Chillcuts to release our 2nd album, ‘Free & Easy.’ Ryan’s experience in building the back-end of websites helped me to create expensive websites on the cheap, while my experience in the visual arts and background in social media and promotions helped to drive sales. Oddly enough, it seems this first release is our most popular, which may speak to how much effort we put into making Chillcuts succeed right out of the gate.
Anji, since you’ve been doing this for a while, I would have to say that you’ve heard just about every kind of music there is to hear. With the many variations of style out there (and that have come across your busy desk), do you have preferences?
Obviously I have a soft spot for chilled grooves with female vocals, as that comprises the bulk of the material featured on The Chillcast. I also love songs with what I would call “sensitive” male vocals, whether its electronica, indie pop, or rock. As you might guess from my work with Ryan, I am a sucker for a great guitar riff, too. I love blues and jazz, when its done right. I like it slow and sad, mainly, but not always. For me, the vibe is the main thing with music. I used to like aggressive, angry music when I was younger but now I prefer poignant, deep, soulful music. It can be downtempo, house, minimal tech, nufunk, nusoul, drum ‘n bass — or whatever — as long as it has that certain quality which resonates with me, which often tends towards what I would call yearning. I adore love songs, as you might imagine, and soul searching lyrics.
Music has gone through so many changes over the decades. Normally, this proves an isolating point for people who lived their teen years during any particular decade. Do you feel that this generation of music provides enough in styles to help those caught in a decade of preference?
First of all, what people need to realize is that there is a whole world of music that is not being played on the radio or TV. I get all the music I can handle and then some strictly from the Internet. And the variety of music available on the Internet is more vast that you can even imagine. Its truly staggering how much great music is out there when you start searching for it.
In decades past, big labels have pretty much supplied the music that we listened to. In essence, they were gate-keepers. But in looking back, there is some method to this control. Do you feel the massive flow of available music has stunted our tolerance to the point that we are unable to fully focus on bands like we did in the past under the label control?
To be fair, I’d say that people rarely fully focus on anything anymore. Its a cultural shift. We have computers in our hands at all times and multiple things going on at once. People don’t tend to sit in their room with an album in their hands, reading the lyrics as they listen to a record on a turntable. We’re listening to mp3s, watching videos, texting, playing a game, and updating our social media accounts all at once; you know what I mean? We want everything all the time and on-demand. But there’s still always hard core fans of bands and music. Like me, for example. I am really into the Swedish artist, Ernesto. Without the Internet, I wouldn’t even know he existed, or had access to his music, but with it, I’m able to pick up all of his releases via iTunes, Amazon, Juno — wherever they may be released — and now I can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, etc and never miss a single song. Heck, he just emailed me a song he mixed TODAY, while I was doing this interview. That’s the beauty of today’s international online music scene.
Why do you think we no longer have a group of multi-million selling artists in this day and age? Are we overfed a steady diet of music these days, so much so that we cannot possibly settle on many favorites? As a result, do we create, and recreate playlists of the moment with artists that we’ll enjoy today but never listen to again? Is there such a thing as too much available music?
Well the Djinni is definitely out of the bottle, as it were, and its definitely not going back in. The 70’s were a high point in popular music, where — for the most part — the best musicians and songwriters were being promoted to the masses and getting popular. These days its much more about looks, flash, and novelty. I personally don’t believe that the most talented artists are the ones being promoted and popularized. I would amend your analogy to say that we are overfed a steady diet of junk food music. It may be satisfying in the short run, but it will not ultimately sustain you.
In listening to your CD compilation, there are some excellent tracks. The funky “Try To Forget”, from your Lovespirals band, the Jazz/Dance of “Pretty Lies” (Ernesto & Marcus Z), the Jazz/Pop of your own “Put Some Music On”, the nostalgic Mr. Meeble track, “Raindrops (Soul Whirling Mix)”, and the entrancing “It’s In Her Kiss” by The Grooveblaster, are choice selections found on your set. I’d like to do a track by track with you to get your mindset on why you feel these songs represent a listening public.
Wow, now that is a tough question. In all honesty, when I compiled the tracks for 5 Years of Chillin’, I was selecting them based primarily around my personal interest and involvement with the artists. A number of the artists included have been featured on The Chillcast with one hour interview pieces, such as The Grooveblaster, MoShang, Sunburn in Cyprus, Science for Girls, and Karmacoda (Lovespirals, too, actually…) Many of the artists have worked on music with me, or done remixes of my band, Lovespirals, such as Adam Fielding, Mr. Meeble, 7 Day Visa, Chill Factor-5, MoShang, Sunburn in Cyprus, The Grooveblaster, and Karmacoda. I guess the only artists I haven’t worked with on the comp are Ernesto, Under, and Kilbey-Kennedy, looking back over the whole list… These are artists that I really believe in and support, and that I feel fairly represent the core of the “Chillcast” sound and aesthetic. My show tends towards the jazzy, soulful, funky, world-influenced, retro, electro-acoustic side of electronica. I play a lot of other stuff, its true, but historically, the bulk of the music would fit into one or more of those categories, so I thought I should keep my show sampler more or less limited to the most common denominators.
What do you look for in a band that sends music across your desk? Is there a prerequisite for determination as opposed to a ‘bathtub gin’ approach from someone just wanting to make a song? What do you listen for?
I got into this a little bit with an earlier question. The music needs to strike certain chords for me; I want to feel it in my gut. It could be a tear jerking lyric/vocal, or it could be a booty-shaking bassline/groove. It could be a gorgeous melody played on keyboard or guitar, or an amazing vocal harmony. It could simply be a really sweet string pad or a sitar hook — who knows? But I think there’s generally an element of authenticity in expression that I’m seeking. That’s what is wholly missing in the pop music industry. I want to feel what the artist was feeling when they were creating the song. I need to be drawn into that little world and feel immersed in it. Hearing a really sincere song is a bit like falling in love for me. Obviously not every song on the show can have that strong of an impact on me, but the more of them I can find and string together for a set, the better the show is. Apart from the overall vibe and content of the song, I’m also looking for a professional recording with solid performances and good production. I tend to stay away from songs that sound like unfinished demos.
What do you see for Rock music over the next ten years? Does it survive completely in your scenario? Do labels lose complete control, regain it, or share the stage as they do now?
Are you questioning whether or not the Rock genre will survive? If so, I think it will. It continues to evolve, and will surely continue evolving. Even though The Chillcast is focused on Electronica music, I do manage to sneak in Rock here and there, and still listen to and write rock music myself. As for whether or not major labels will be able to “control” music, well, all I can say is good luck to them. Though they continually try to take over independent music spaces online, I don’t think they will ever be able to completely squash us out of existence.
What needs to change as we move forward into an uncharted world of music?
From my perspective, I’d say what needs to change is the perception of music listeners. The major labels have been attempting to convince people that the only music of importance is the stuff that they push down our throats via their multi-media corporate conglomerates. They’d like everyone to believe that all independent music on the Internet is just crap created by half-assed noobs playing around with free software. But that is simply not the case at all. If you put some time into music discovery online, you’ll find a whole new world of incredible music just waiting for you!
Does the re-emergence of vinyl hold any import to you?
As a podcaster, not so much, as I deal in digital files. As a musician and music enthusiast, I find it interesting. I used to spend countless hours digging through vinyl and still have a rather large collection of records and a working deck to play them on set up in our music studio. I’ve always dreamed of Lovespirals releasing some vinyl, aside from the white label 12″s we did when we first started making music in 1999. Now that there is a growing interest in vinyl collecting again, the time might just be right to give it a try.