denis biblioni gets paid the moment you buy his music on Catalog.
"I'm at the spot right now. I have a spare engine and some wrenches."
Ani Bharadwaj, fka weird inside, pka denis biblioni, is trekking the mystical woods of an underrated American state. (New Jersey.) (Yes, you read that right.) (No, I'm not from there.) The self-taught artist and digital wizard also has a knack for car mechanics. An extra Audi AAN five-cylinder, perched like a boombox on his shoulder, doubles as an impromptu photoshoot prop amidst the beech and oak trees. (Ani later tells us, as if admitting a secret, that he used this same component to make a song: "Turns out inline engines are oddly melodic. They kind of sound like a power chord when you hold them at the same RPM.")
These old stomping grounds are all but walkable on denis, etched into its poetic, lofi folk fabric. The album, Ani's first as denis biblioni, trades earlier pursuits of meticulous sound design for earnest lyrics ("What's my goal / Where did the time go?") and ageless melody. If Bon Iver, Bon Iver converted the wilderness into ambient and cryptic verbiage, denis gives voice to both the boulder blocking a stream's progress and the water finding paths to glide forward.
We spoke with Denis for a Catalog Selects mini-interview about New Jersey adventures, LA lessons, stolen bikes, the cost-of-living crisis, craft, and more. Thanks for reading, watching, listening, supporting :)
Siber: denis, to me, feels like if a river could sing. Are there specific places, nooks of nature, that you associate with the EP?
Denis: I grew up biking around Central New Jersey, roaming in the woods and creeks near home, and those are huge influences for the way denis sounds. 65°F weather, humid air, wet grass, and every possible shade of green imaginable. The creek in the video I made for "Little Goose" is a spot I’d bike to and hang out around to get away from doing things I had to do. That creek and the hill behind my friend Tommy’s house (right after golden hour, with a pinkish-purplish sky) are places I think about often, and thought about often when making the project.
Siber: Do you loud-and-proud claim Jersey?
Denis: I love it so much, man. I know so many people clown on NJ for being the armpit of New York. I grew up biking through the woods, wading in the creek, and playing in the snow, all while being just a short train ride away from the city. There’s not many other places you can say that about. I think I identify with what it has to offer more than what people associate it with, but I’ll still defend New Jersey with my last breath.
Siber: You, Mk.gee, and Bruce Springsteen or Ramy Youssef might be my Jersey Big Three. Outside of my mom, who's from there.
Denis: I love Ramy Youssef's work so much. Clams Casino, Knxwledge, and Mndsgn might be mine... There's so many. Knx was raised in freehold and Mndsgn was born in SD, but grew up in southern N. I don't know if that counts but there’s definitely some Jersey there. Let me put the late James Candolfini on here too, just in case.
Siber: Did you feel a bond with the bikes you'd adventure around on?
Denis: I had a few bikes stolen from me in high school, so I didn’t really bond with any of them like I did with my car. But when I lived in LA, I bought this dinky 1990s mountain bike from a shop in Glendale. I rode that thing for hundreds of miles and really loved it. I couldn’t bring it back with me to NJ, so I locked it up in front of Zack [Villere], Ariya, and Kyle [Chase]’s place when I left and gave Zack the key. Zack promptly lost the key, and that bike has been there ever since. [Laughs] They don’t live there anymore, but I think the last time we checked the listing for that apartment, the bike was still there.
Siber: What lessons stick with you from your time with them in LA?
Denis: The three of them taught me two things: keep showing up even if it doesn't seem like the seeds will sprout, and don't worry about what anyone has to say about what you're making. The ideas and execution are your seeds to plant and tend to. All criticism is valid and can be very helpful, but ultimately your perspective as the creator matters most. Even if they didn’t say that to me outright, I think the example they set helped me a ton.
Siber: It's like that classic Spike Jonze quote about the director's role, safeguarding the core idea. Was this pre- or post-"Biking"?
Denis: Post-"Biking" for sure. I was listening to that so much.
Siber: You mentioned once that denis was partially inspired by escaping the meticulous sound design you chased in your electronic music. What's your relationship to electronic music now?
Denis: It’s probably obvious to so many people, and I’ve talked to so many musicians who’ve been down this path before, but making denis definitely helped me realize that less is more (a lot of the time). Taking the time to get a few things right is much more powerful to me now than finding every little detail and executing upon it, and that thought is really liberating. Throwing 10 screws and nails to close a gap between two wooden beams is okay, but it feels better to craft and carve a joint that’ll hold them together, if that makes sense. I like to chase perfect imperfections when I make music. Little moments that could probably never happen again. I’m less worried about finding every nook and cranny that a sound has to offer, so those imperfections find themselves more than me having to hunt for them.
Siber: More efficient hacking. Whether it's in your own life as Ani, for a weird inside project, making music as denis biblioni, or another alter ego, what's something imperfect you cherish?
Denis: I really like my car! It’s this 30-year-old station wagon that is a lot more reliable than you’d expect, but it’s definitely something I’ve done a bit of hacking to. I don’t know everything there is to know about cars, and I definitely try to learn and do things the right way, but sometimes I use less-than-optimal strategies to get out of situations in a pinch. Zip ties, duct tape, wood screws, putty... they’re things I’m not proud of using, but have resorted to in the past to get the old machine going again. For better or worse, I tend to approach a lot of things (including music) with this attitude: if someone’s going to screw it up, it better be me, because it’s mine, and I’ll know it better through that experience. I approach music like this too: I was never classically trained for instruments, and I learned everything I knew about it just by wanting to make something, say something, or get something done. Filling gaps in my knowledge for the sake of function.
Siber: Another car fiend / friend Amr told me once when you truly love something, you'll invest in things no one else would ever notice. Beneath-the-floor-mats stuff. But I think it's true for most of life. Have you invested in a hidden car upgrade you're proud of?
Denis: Oh man. There's so many things. But the main one is modifying the brain of the car to rely on a single sensor for vacuum pressure readings, so even if there’s air leaks galore it’ll never leave me stranded. Nobody really knows or cares about it but it’s saved me many times. It was a one time fix that I’ll never take for granted.
Siber: denis kinda deals with becoming unstuck, slinking across our own valleys. Has music always been a tool for you to move forward?
Denis: Like you talked about, denis definitely played a huge role in opening up my perspective on simplicity. But recently, discovering Leon Vynehall’s music has inspired me so much! His music has made me appreciate how much of a “research science” making music can be. His songs feel so explorative yet purposeful, and that spurred me to get back on the hunt for new sound. It viscerally felt like a breath of fresh air. Like I was shoved face-first into a variety bouquet from a rare florist on the outskirts of town. Listening to his most recent song “TEARS4ALOVER,” after listening to the rest of his catalog, had me feeling motivated to keep exploring. That, and my friend Graham’s (pka quickly, quickly) new song "Take It From Me"… man, what a set of inspiring works.
Siber: Long live quickly, quickly. Do you remember what, or who, first catalyzed you shifting from listener to music maker?
The sounds I attribute to getting me really into making music were Dorian Concept and Memorecks. Watching YouTube videos of them playing around on synths opened my eyes to a whole new world of music that I hadn’t known before. I was like, “How are they making these electronic instruments sing with such emotion?” And before I knew it, I was trying to do that myself. I started (trying) to make music in Final Cut Pro because I was really into video editing at the time and thought, “It’s got a timeline, I can make this work.” I did that for a year before I found out the software for making music was actually much better for making music than video editing software. [Laughs]
Siber: What led to music first becoming a fixture in your life?
Denis: My mom introduced me to the practice of music at the age of 4, and I sang classic Carnatic (South Indian) music until the age of 14. Recently I’ve been thinking about "Nagumomu," which is a Thyagaraja composition. Learning that song took it out of me. [Laughs] But I love listening to renditions of it. Weirdly though, I don’t think I really valued music as heavily as I do now until I was 15. I think maybe having the space from it and rediscovering it differently — making Western contemporary music — influenced the way I perceived music. I think it transformed from a rigorous practice into a wide, endless field of discovery at that point. In 5th grade, I was listening to 90s hip-hop instrumentals from J Dilla, DJ Premier, and Pete Rock, along with a mishmash of whatever was on the radio at the time. There were three stations I remember cycling through: 105.1, 103.3, and 97.1. WPRB (103.3) was my favorite. They always had music I’d never heard before.
Siber: The radio's the same moon we look at...
Denis: Damn. I love that so much.
Siber: All credit to cehryl. Last question for you: as you and I grew to value music more and more, society valued it less and less. How have you had to maneuver the cost of living while still creating?
Denis: At one point, I was able to earn a living from making music, kept afloat by streaming, being sampled, doing work with visual art. But in talking to labels, I realized to keep it up, it had to become more about "selling the product" than having fun and discovering. And now we're in the age of selling everything to everyone. Pure quantity. It takes a lot of circumstance to be able to avoid that and hone in on any craft these days. The less and less people value that effort, and the more they value having another product...
Siber: ...and another product, and another...
Denis: The less time and leeway for discovery artists have to keep the wheel turning. I've been trying to exploit all of the skills I have: doing freelance work in video, audio, and software as well as mechanic work. But that leaves me with such little time to explore any avenues of art in freeing ways. I'm always on a mission to keep the ball rolling instead of being able to sit and chip away at a single thing. It's sad, but it's what reality is for a lot of people, and I'm definitely more fortunate than a lot of artists, than a lot of people in general. In a world where speeding up production is incentivized, it's hard to take the time to refine.
Siber: Wanting to embrace imperfection on our terms, to experiment, not because the cost of living or the timeline forces it.
Denis: I try to have a positive view on this: if I were to spend forever investigating ideas, I'd never finish anything. But it's also out of necessity. I notice a lot of "we want more" in lieu of "we want better." I not only have less time to sit down and make something, but I'm also more prone to the thought that it may not even matter if I did.
denis biblioni gets paid the moment you buy his music on Catalog.
