Music

Babe Rainbow

Chuck Ansbacher & Amil Niazi | Tuesday 8 November, 2011 23:48

There’s a new phrase that has rapidly become a fact of life in the for anyone trying to “make it” in music: if you don’t like doing self promotion, don’t become a musician. To some, self-promo is a necessary evil. To others, namely Vancouver’s Cameron Reed (aka Babe Rainbow), it’s a built in feature. While his music itself has managed to impress enough people to get him signed to the prestigious Warp Records and land him a European tour, what may be more impressive about Reed’s music is his ability to get the right people to listen to it—to stand out in a massive ocean of so called “bedroom producers” and internet-era electronic artists. Reed has an incredible ability to blend the modern concepts of musician, artist, internet personality and PR mastermind into one seamless entity. He is the blueprint for any artist trying to make a name for themselves.

You’re just a guy who makes music on a computer. How has what you’ve produced been able to stand out in the ocean of electronic music constantly being dumped on the internet?

Well, people have been making music on computers long before I started and there are a lot more people making music on their computer that get a lot more attention online than I do. So to answer your question, I suppose a combination of luck and a sound that requires the listener to think about what they’re hearing. It makes you feel something. It is not music made for passive listening. A lot of people just try to write a “good song,” something you can dance to or something to singalong to. I don’t really care for that as much as the listener connecting with the music. I don’t want people to obsess over a snare sound, I want them to experience something deeper than what’s immediately in front of them. I also don’t make much that’s fit for commercials, or road trips, or to bang in the club. Often that’s the way that the listener subconsciously engages with music. They like it because it’s familiar. And more often than not they connect to it’s commercial potential: A soundtrack during the lovers’ first kiss in a rom-com. The hotel commercial where a husband connects with his child over Skype while on a business trip. People have an immediate “Can you just imagine this song in a movie, commercial, etc?” The places that my music take the listener certainly aren’t scenes from a rom-com and I can’t imagine my music selling an iPad. I think that forces the listener to pay attention, they don’t immediately know what they are experiencing.

Can you describe your music in words that make sense to normal people who aren’t trying to use music journalism as an avenue to get laid?

It’s ambient music that’s not ambient because there are drums. Those drums are heavily influenced by hip hop production. But it’s pretty ambient. It’s dark, ambient hip-hop. Does that make sense?

Will the title of your autobiography be “Personal Brandbow, How I Used Twitter to Land a Record Deal, Ask Me How”?

I do love Twitter, but mostly for the jokes.

What the fuck is a “bedroom producer”?

It’s a term that’s thrown around a lot by music journalists to describe a bunch of new producers who have gotten some attention over the last few years. I suppose it’s every producer that doesn’t have a fortune to spend on a studio before they start producing. Which is probably every producer.

Do you find the term to be derisive? Especially since it has been largely coined by “bedroom writers”?

Yeah, it’s kind of offensive because it slightly classist. All producers start as bedroom or living room or kitchen producers. No one just suddenly has a studio to start working on music. And if they do they are either rich or have way more patience than those who just want to produce. I’m slowly building a proper studio for myself, and it’s in my bedroom. So, there’s that.

Which URL shortener would you recommend for up and coming bedroom producers?

Bed.rm

What the fuck is “Witch House”?

I think you mean “Which House” and if so, that’s not really a sentence. It is also a term used to describe a handful of electronic producers, myself included, that are making slightly darker, moodier music. None of them are making house music which makes the term kind of ridiculous.

What do you wear when you’re doing music?

Shoes and zebra-stripped Zubaz.

You’re a well know serial monogamist, yet your music is so lonely. What are you hiding from your girlfriends?

My loneliness. My inability to make real human connections. The fact that I believe life is meaningless. Girlfriends don’t want to know that you don’t really care about anything.

Babe Rainbow plays Release in New Cross 16th November and 24th November with Oneohtrix Point Never and Helm att St Giles In The Fields Church

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