By Victoria King
2011 marks the ten-year anniversary for Balanced Records, the Winnipeg-based mega-project. Starting off as an informal collective of local DJs as an outlet for just getting their stuff out there, Balanced now ranges from electronic to world, dubstep to R ’n’ B. Stylus enjoyed a great vegan lunch at Mondragon with manager Adam Hannibal and president Spencer Kuziw to talk about the past, the present and downloading.
Stylus: Right off the bat, the ten-year is now. What was the goal when you started off?
Adam Hannibal: Well, the ten-year mark is something we’re very proud of. Originally, we just wanted to put out music and we didn’t have any specific direction, just to release Winnipeg artists, promote parties and our own music. No one really had a background in the business side of music. Initially, the goal was just to get our music out there and see how it went. That was the first couple years. We only released local music. In the last five years we’ve broadened to reach a lot of artists from all over the world and from different genres. Now, we’re actively trying to get our music distributed and land as many deals as we can for our artists.
Stylus: As far as competition in opposing markets, how do you guys see yourselves measuring up to major labels in Canada and internationally?
AH: We’ve found a lot of partnerships with other labels that haven’t been so much competitive as much as ‘win-win’ situations. In electronic music there is a big remix culture, meaning that artists are getting together and collaborating to remix their music or vice versa. They might release some of our music and we’ll release some of theirs. It’s a healthy cooperative direction. Part of it might be that we are in Winnipeg and not necessarily in their ‘territory.’ Or, they might recognize that we are unique and so are they, so we may as well collaborate.
Spencer Kuziw: Agreed. We’re still releasing physical media and a lot of people come to us because they want to be released that way. Five years ago, for example, there were a lot of labels that Adam and I worked with where we might think, “Wow, that’s a crazy label. I can’t believe we’re dealing with them.” Yet now, I think releasing vinyl has definitely elevated our stature for sure – for example, our 7” vinyl Juno record. Those are still near the top of vinyl just because that’s something we’re doing that a lot of people haven’t done. It has certainly elevated our stature.Stylus: Why choose to stay in Winnipeg rather than shipping out to Toronto or Vancouver?
AH: We’ve always found a big advantage to being in Winnipeg because we stand out so much in the music scene. When we first got started, Toronto and Montreal were just so saturated that we probably wouldn’t get recognized as much. There are also creative advantages to living through our long winters and spending so much time in the studio. Our output is its own thing – it’s different from the kind of music you hear from those bigger cities. It keeps us unique culturally and musically.
SK: Winnipeg definitely adds to our sound, even the sound of artists that are not from Winnipeg. Aside from playing more gigs, that would probably be the one thing that we might get in a larger city that we don’t get in Winnipeg in this era with the internet. Ten years ago, that was not the case – when we were just doing it because we were 20 years old or 19 years old and couldn’t afford to leave. There are cities that we love and there’s probably a chance that we could move eventually. But Winnipeg is our home, and that’s probably our sound.
Stylus: What’s your opinion of downloading/ “music piracy” vs. going into an actual record store?
AH: I think piracy can be kind of a bittersweet thing. There are advantages for us as a relatively small label. It can have some promotional legs that we might not have in terms of outreach. I think it is more so affecting big labels in a big way. I don’t think it’s hindering us – its just spreading our artistry a bit. It’s just some extra promotion. I don’t think it’s a serious level where we have to worry about it.
SK: We give away a lot of music anyways.
AH: There are advantages to just giving away music. I do think the erosion of the “vinyl era” is a unfortunate because there was a real culture of going into record stores and buying records all over the world that’s been lost. I think its harder to stumble on music the way you use to at least. But, for us we take a multi-pronged approach – we are doing vinyl, we’re doing digital and just trying to tap as many of those different areas as we can.
SK: I guess the change for us is we’ve been able to let go of the CD which has been our mainstay for the first seven years of our business. With digital, you can do a two-song release and with vinyl you can do a two or four song release and that’s accepted. It has allowed us to be more prolific in that respect. I think that’s been a big thing for us with the digital revolution.
Stylus: As far as a Winnipeg/Balanced sound goes, how would you describe it?
AH: Our sounds are fairly complex ones. We promote ourselves as being a mixture of organic and electronic. We try to use a mixture of natural music sounds with more synthetic, technical, digital and urban sounds. Mood wise, it’s a mixture of chill with high-energy tension – we add a lot of tension. In the end it creates something pretty complex – something you may have to listen to a few times to wrap your head around.
SK: We are a collective and we’ve got great variety. When we have our meetings, we all have our agendas yet we all steer the sound and I think that’s what gives us our sound. We have five guys who all, at least for the most part, agree on what we think is crap as well as things we love. We all bring something to the label. As far as a Winnipeg sound, I don’t think Balanced sounds anything like anything else in Winnipeg or a “Winnipeg Sound.”
Balanced Records will be celebrating its anniversary party on Satruday, April 30, at Studios In The Exchange, 313 Pacific Avenue.