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. Continue reading “Balanced Records: Complex yet Simple”