Bend Records interview

Bend Records interview

15 March, 2008 | 1.24PM

• Section: Music News
• Written by: niclerner

When I arranged to meet the people from Bend Records, I couldn’t help thinking about net labels in general but in relation to their vinyl predecessors in particular.

While not familiar with the facts, among the many ways the internet changed the music industry, setting up a net-label (at least) became less of a risky undertaking.

I thought the fact these virtual imprints don’t involve a number of stages in their production line may enable their crews to concentrate all that effort in finding music of the highest caliber. 

So once I had them before me, I first asked them (other than the obvious purpose of a label):

What took a dj to set up one nowadays?

Agustin Festa (from now on AF): To me it’s something almost necessary.

I reckon there are two ways to grow as a dj.

One is, as I’ve heard Hernan (Cattaneo) say once, travelling around the world and boarding 250 planes in 365 days and the other is working as a producer and becoming known through your productions.

Those are two completely valid ways of progressing.

On the other hand, at least in what concerns me, doing it feels right coz I like doing it.

I mean, I created the label with Mercurio coz we were sort of tired of not receiving the money, of the fact that the contracts aren’t serious, and nowadays there’s plenty of them.

So is it mainly aimed at being on top of certain details that weren’t under your control when you were producing for someone else?

AF: Yes, and that’s a logical consequence of moving forward.

I don’t think I was capable of doing it a year and a half ago.

First, coz I didn’t feel I had the drive I have today to say, right, I’m gonna start this record and finish it.

A year ago it was very difficult for me to do something and feel it was complete and today I can sit down, start something and finish it.

That gave me the confidence to do this with Mercurio, my brother (Nicolás) and Facu as we are producers with a good portfolio of tracks, a variety of sounds and my brother and I are constantly dealing with that coz we’re are residents at Crobar Buenos Aires which is a club which requires a bit of everything.

What do you mean with “a bit of everything”? Not always the latest or a versatility style-wise?

AF: I mean it doesn’t have to be necessarily avant-garde.

And it’s not something I want to impose.

For instance two years ago I travelled to Europe with my brother and we really experienced that.

There’s no need to play the latest stuff.

Maybe it’s about finding the right balance between the new and the old?

Facu Cruz (from now on FC): See, that’s a privilege in a way coz at most clubs here punters wonna listen to the latest records and if you’re not playing the latest sound people just won’t move or they may trash your work on the local forums.

Here we have this thing in which people are looking out for the latest most unknown record or they won’t dance to it.

People end up not listening to the set as a whole coz they focus their attention on each individual track.

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Given the serious side of their venture speaks for its equally serious commercial prospects, the controversy over copyright seems like a must-go-through topic. So I ask them, Facu being only 21 and Agus 26:

Do you feel the internet became a more suitable trading method for copyrighted stuff like music, where back in the day neither artists nor labels felt glad to see their music on in such conditions of accessibility?

FC: The problem is that initially those artists & labels weren’t getting any share of coz neither the labels nor the stores had no presence on the internet whatsoever, now they are there to offer their music at its best quality, for a fairly decent price.

But wouldn’t you say though that it works as a live-work boost? Like you knew a given act is coming to your town and the fact that you can become easily familiar with their work could certainly edge you towards their gig over some other dj’s whose music you couldn’t get to know?

AF: But that was not that clear then and record companies didn’t really care about that.

FC: Nowadays labels have no choise other than being on the internet.

I mean, today internet is the main music accessing method, wheather it’s legal or ilegal.

So labels and stores are out there to make the most of that potential by having official outlets with all their arrays of products and possibilities.

And this is the reason all this new labels that keep springing up don’t even go through the CD format.

Not to mention vinyl.

Like in the case of our label, we’re talking about a South American imprint.

I don’t think there is a vinyl pressing plant anywhere near here.

Also a few years ago, if you had a label and if you didn’t put stuff out in vinyl you would’ve been missing a chunk of the market, now that doesn’t really happen.

AF: But If record companies manage to stamp out one way to access music ilegally, there’s gonna be a new one coming out in no time.

So an all-out drive towards total control seems rather pointless, I think it’d be much better to raise awareness among music consumers that the official outlets are more convenient.

Otherwise it ends up being detrimental to quality and music becomes more disposable.

Would raising awareness be the main challenge then?

FC: As a main challenge, personally, I would love to see a bunch of djs checking our label weekly to see what we put out coz they know that they can play most of out stuff, that kind of recognition, I’d like Bend to have that type of following and I wish to build a reputation and an identity based on that.

I think that’s the top goal for our label.

And would you think, as a heads of a record label, that the amount of music to be downloaded for free by a given artist on the internet is in any way related to their reputation?

AF: I couldn’t help thinking so as an artist.

But initially nobody felt happy to see their work shared, right?

AF: Music’s evolving so fast these days.

What you see is that music goes at ten million miles an hour.

Back in the day, there was less music and djs stood out based on the quality of the records they had, therefore if you had them it was maybe because you had the chance to travel and you could have better records than your colleagues in your city.

Today that doesn’t happen.

Is it nowadays only reduced to the contacts then?

AF: Today it’s reduced to the contacts you have and to the edits you can make.

FC: Or to the much harder music digging job there is to be done.

I’m sure back in the day there were loads of records that were put out that weren’t that good but maybe there was a greater search for quality (by the labels).

Nowadays, since you don’t have to rely on a vinyl pressing plant, nor on a distributor, nor on the distribuitor of each individual country to distribute your music, there is a greater accessibility to putting stuff out and this results in a soaring multiplication of the supply which doesn’t necessarirly come along with a rise in quality.

Therefore on the one hand it’s good coz there is more music and on the other it’s twice as hard to find the good records but I reckon the balance is definitely possitive in the end of the day.

The fact that the market’s more competitive is positive.

Going back to what Agustín said about how now everyone has everything and the dj work relies partly on the edits you can make. Would you guys think that thanks to the internet the dj work is also developing and making room for some other skills like music production?

FC: The thing is that the equality internet yields is a bit of a double-edge sword, it puts music at the same click-away distance from everyone as much as it puts everyone at the same distance from ‘the industry’ coz the much greater accessibility to music results in the exponential growth in the number of djs.

So you have a MySpace page and Sasha has one, and people can access your page in the same way they access Sasha’s.

So with the rising number of djs and with the increasingly easier ways for artists to get their work to people, djs were bound to stand out by whether they produced or not or whether they ran a label or whether they promoted events.

AF: In my experience, I only began producing three years ago and I was 13 when I started out together with my brother (Nicolas) in 1995. And, sincerely, I’ve been lucky enough to have the chance to work with friends I could get a musical notion from.

See, I don’t have a musical education.

However I do know what will work and what won’t.

So, at the studio I focus a great deal of my attention on the effectiveness of the record, that the record works when I play it out.

On top of that, also I noticed that when I started making music for myself other people started asking me for those tracks, so that’s when I realised it could get to the next level, that these tracks could be released, that they could be springboard for something of a label.

I think however is that it’s not easy taking each step, becoming a producer, setting up a label.

While it’s true, like Facu says, that the tools to make and to release are more accessible it took me a whole year to set the label up.

Even though it’s a net label. It was a year of sending e-mails, of learning about our obligations and responsabilities, of reading through contracts, of getting the right bank account coz you’ll be receiving dollars, it’s not easy.

Coz after all that ordeal comes the task of making a good label, having good artists, respecting the releasing dates.

All this ‘respecting the artist’ thing is a matter of good organisation and is not always easy.

There’s four of us for a reason. Otherwise it would be run by one and that’d be it. I think it’s a question of proper organisation.

And going back to what you said about effectiveness, when you’re listening to a track sent by an unknown producer from another part of the world, do you guys think that effectiveness can sometimes be the opposite of quality?

FC: Yes, deffinitely

AF: Certainly, we were talking about it just yesterday, but I was talking as a producer, and not as a head of a label.

FC: Sometimes they concur, though.

When it comes to great quality tracks that are really effective on the dancefloor.

There are loads of producers who sign every track they make and whose tracks are for weeks among the top selling tracks on Beatport and maybe musically these tracks aren’t of the greatest quality, maybe their melodies are a bit lacking, however on the dancefloor the tracks work out just fine.

But this is something that’s been happening since the beginning of pop music.

There were bands like The Beatles who came up with three-chord tracks that were number one hits.

It’s been happening forever.

AF: I think, yes, quality can be opposite to effectiveness.

Now I’m talking as a label manager, right, I prefer to put out high quality records while not forgetting about effectiveness. 

Again with the right balance…

AF: Exactly, it’s gotta be found.

I think that’s the main thing.

And I think it’s the most difficult thing to achieve.

Nowadays, the first three releases we’re gonna put out, I think they are more effective than high quality.

FC: To me they have the right balance.

To me both Masque’s and Mercurios’s records are really balanced.

Truly, I think they are musically excellent and really effective on the dancefloor.

AF: It’s true, however, that you can steer clear away from effectiveness in favour of quality.

Actually yesterday we were discussing this while listening to a record in case we can release it, and there’s this mix, the Original one, that has more quality than effectiveness, unless an ever prevalent artist like Sasha or Hernan (Cattaneo) plays it.

Would that change its perception?

I would think so, yes.

Ok, now moving onto something else. Would you think that there’s a sound that’s inseparable from the tools of a moment in time?

AF: I see that in the way tracks are mixed, especially.

Now producers make these heavily compressed and processed chunks of sound that are sound all the same.

FC: I think there’s people who abuse certain devises or tricks of certain programmes.

And at some point this affects predictability.

You just know what’s gonna happen.

There are cliches in this year’s and last year’s music.

There are thousands.

Not that there’s anything wrong with them but they just fall in an evergrowing bag that makes it difficult for quality stuff to stand out.

AF: You definitely keep finding the same sounds in most tracks.

And would that affect your judgment if you receive yet another track with that same sound?

FC: Not at all.

Again, if it works and if it’s good, that’s enough.

AF: Or maybe it was indeed yet another track with that same sound but that sound’s used intelligently.

When I started producing I used to go to Mercurio for advise and he tried to give me some guidelines he always told me that it didn’t matter what you produce with nor what you use, what matteres is to make something intellingent with that. I think that’s somethin crucial.

You can work with Reason, who’s got its critic-base, or you can work with Qbase and VSTIs, or you can work with Live like most people nowadays, but what matters is how intelligently you use it. I think that’s the key.

If I give you the same ten records to you and the same ten records to him we’re all gonna come up with something different.

I reckon judging by the means could be misleading.

Let’s talk about long and short term goals.

AF: Miami.

It may take a great effort but it’s an investment after all.

It happened to me and my brother last year.

We did a tour around Europe and we played at The Gallery in London, in Hungary, Barcelona and all that fuels you with contacts that through internet, you know, we’re all the best producers who play at the best local clubs but it’s the face to face thing what counts in the end of the day, when you go up to people and say I’m Agustín Festa and I run Beat Records with Facu Cruz, Mercurio and my brother Nicolás.

I think only then you start having some credibility among other people.

FC: Nothing beats the face-to-face kind of effect you can have on someone.

AF: These guys receive hundreds of links a day.

Anyone says no through internet, also.

Nobody would say no in person. I think it’s like that famous saying “you reap what you sow.”

So you go there, you give people you cd, and then maybe next time they do recognise your name on the e-mail and they do take the time to download your track and check your label and so you explain to them how the product is conceived.

So that’s on the short term.

Start getting the name around.

Now, do you know of similar labels that were set up whose experiences you can take as good or as bad examples?

FC: I know about some people who started several labels with varying results.

For example, some people who set up labels began disregarding quality by releasing only their friends’ stuff.

Or by not listening to player after player on MySpace in search for the most distant talent.

On top of that friends-only policy I also see that some labels restrict their output around a certain sound a bit too much to the point it just looses interest.

I think the fact that the label’s composed of the four of us, who come from similar but at the same time very different backgrounds, will help us stay away from stangnation and keep a degree of freshness in our sound.

AF: That’s central.

People forget that the advantage of a net label is not only in the way music goes from the label to the people but also in the way people bring music to the label.

So, once again, just like that much needed A&R homework, the venture’s gonna start payign off as a result of what we invest in it, like our possibility to go the WMC and check out what’s working in which context.

What’s the sound like in Miami, and in New York after that.

It’s a job. It’s an enterprise and the enterprise lives on that.

On putting time in.

Would you think finding the balance between versatility and specialization is a hard thing to achieve?

AF: I think it’s a matter of splitting hairs as thoroughly as possible.

Coz if you’re versatile enough you can aim to be played by house djs, tech-house djs, progressive djs and minimal djs.

On the other hand if you’re too versatile it could discourage someone who comes back to see what your’re about to release, coz they may feel lost, and they’ll never ckeck you out again.

FC: I think versatility nowadays is a bit of an obligation.

Looking at majors, I think there’s a great degree of versatility at the moment of releasing.

I’m thinking about Get Physical, Renaissance, Toolroom, these are records that embodied this versatility.

How do you picture the time of rotation in terms the sound of the moment?

FC: I think we gotta leave it clear from the beginning.

We gotta put openess forward from the start.

Like yesterday for example, we got together to listen to some music.

We listened to some minimal records, some deep records, some electro stuff and some progressive too.

And we said yes to some and no to others but personally I feel the main thing the ones we chose had in common was their quality.

And that was above the style of the tracks.

Which producers both local and foreign would you say people’s gotta look out for?

FC: Baudelaire, Alan Rios, Nicholas van Orton, Victoria R and Masque.

AF: And all the others that will be our guests at Bend Sessions on www.danceradio.gr. Moonface will be going first.

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