Jazz + EDM Month: Anomalie
To continue Jazz+EDM month, we interview Anomalie
Your style is incredibly unique and rich, who are your biggest influences musically?
Thank you! Quincy Jones is my all-time hero, and some of my biggest influences are Herbie Hancock, Dave Grusin, George Gershwin, D’Angelo, Roy Hargrove, J Dilla and Skrillex
I’ve read that you are classically trained, what moved you to incorporate Jazz and Electronic genres into your music?
I did start with classical but I was much more interested in RnB, funk, hip hop and electronic music once I discovered those genres! Synths in particular really became a passion!
What do you hope your fans will take away from music?
Whatever they want! I always love hearing stories about how a certain song is associated with an event, person or important moment in their life!
What comes first in your creative process, the melodic and harmonic content or the beat?
It varies from song to song, but whatever happens, I try to prioritize a clear melody, even if there’s a lot of movement under it!
What’s your process when you’re composing chords progressions or improvising on the keyboard/piano?
Basically calling upon whatever I’ve learned/transcribed previously. Improv is instinctive, but you’re basically exploring your own language by calling upon concepts you’ve already assimilated
What kind of synths do you use in your music? Are they digital or analog? If they are analog, how is your process of recording and editing those synths? If they are digital… can you share your secrets?
I was much more in the box before but have progressively integrated more hardware synths in my process in the last 2 years. My approach is the same in both cases, I try to come up with cool sounds frequently to have a few solid options when it’s time to compose and not spend hours tweaking the sound when that’s not the focus (but I’ll still do it when the goal is not to come up with an idea quickly with as few obstacles as possible)
Do you have any advice for achieving such a clean sounding production?
It’s much easier to achieve a clean mix when you have less conflicting elements, which I always end up struggling because I add too many synth layers :’) So I usually end up removing some are heavily tweaking a few to make space for the important ones
Your cover art is amazing, what was the inspiration behind them?
Shoutout to Alec Donkin and Ali Hassanein, they did the artwork for the first and second EP respectively! They each have their own unique style but the theme in both cases, both for the artwork and the music, is my hometown, Montreal!
What’s some advice you’d give to musicians trying to blend genres together?
Listen to a lot of music, vary your listening habits and create often
Is there anything you’re working on now that you can share with us?
Yes I am in the middle of the process of working on my first full length album, which will feature vocalists and instrumentalists alike!
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