🔵 "It should surely be about giving people a great, durational experience of music and entertainment"

Part two of my chat with Aaron Skates, founder of Cantilever

Thanks to everyone who got in touch regarding part one of this interview. I think the over-arching sentiment is one of excitement that a new and interesting service is either available (if you’re in the UK) or coming soon (US and Europe) that gives music fans and more qualitative engagement with well-selected music.

Since publishing, I did mention to Aaron that it might be worth starting some kind of mailing list so that people outside the UK could be notified when Cantilever is available in their territory. Aaron pointed out that Cantilever has its own Substack, so he suggested subscribing to that for updates - including launch dates in new countries - so maybe do that if you’re keen to know when it goes live where you are. And if you’re in the UK, simply visit Cantilever’s website to get the app.

Below is part two of our chat - enjoy.

Have a great day,

D.

🎶 Listening to “Made By Mia Koden (+ friends) Vol. 3” over on YouTube. I was oblivious to Mia until yesterday, but this mixtape has truly hit the spot. There’s much to take in, and none of it misses. Featuring collabs with anyone from Tim Reaper to Dubrunner to K-lone, this is at points soulful, and others heavy as hell. Just how any mixtape should be. Well worth making time for!

📺 Watching ”Flying a GoPro Into a Tornado” on YouTube. The footage here is nothing less than spectacular, particularly when the FPV drone flyer somehow manages to fly right down the spout of a tornado. Breathtaking - make time for it.

📖 Reading “Burial’s Last Interview” over on

Dan Hancox

’s substack. Much as with the interviews I’ve been reading with Deepchord aka Rod Modell of late, this interview serves as a wonderful inspiration, both in terms of technique but perhaps also in simply doing what one feels to be right. Burial has shunned press and - certainly in the beginning - kept his own creations and artistic identity so secretive that even his own friends didn’t know that their friend was Burial. I love that. In a time where everyone is told they have to live their life entirely online via socials etc, there’s something truly wonderful about the artists who simply let the music speak for itself.

Now, let’s get back to that chat with Aaron…

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I have no proof for this, but I get the sense that independent labels would be highly receptive to Cantilever. I think there is an argument - which I suspect people in the independent music industry would baulk at - that indies missed opportunities to fortify their position through the years by allowing other platforms to grow rather than building their own. In fact, there’s an argument that the whole music industry has done that, by consistently allowing somebody else to build their solution, whether it was Steve Jobs with iTunes or Daniel Ek with Spotify, rather than try and build something that perhaps they owned. What’s been your experience dealing with indie labels thus far? How have they received all this?

I would say that they have been really receptive and I also think that one thing that is important to note is the indie labels have multiple cooperative bodies that have allowed us to be able to move quite quickly, such as the Association of Independent Music where one label as part of this co-op is happy to introduce another.

The first group that I pitched to was Beggars group who said they were happy to do a deal once we had a workable licensing agreement. Then I connected with the Domino team through my Substack, after I wrote a piece on Richard Dawson. One introduction led to another from there.

I’m in touch with press teams at labels who have been connecting me with artists to interview that we’ve been suggesting. Unlike Spotify, for example, which might only ever really interface with the operations and digital pitching side of an independent record label, and Cantilever does speak to those teams too, but we’re also very much talking to the press side also because of our journalism angle. We’re talking to a lot of different people who are receptive for different reasons.

It strikes me that what Cantilever is celebrating and really nurturing is that confluence of music and journalism, where the things people write bring a greater sense of connection and understanding to the music. Is there a point on the horizon where Cantilever could become a kind of framework that would embed in other websites, for example? After all, there’s great music websites out there at the moment. If you read The Quietus, it will have an embedded Bandcamp player and a link to Norman Records. Is there a point on the horizon where Cantilever could be the embedded player that pops up elsewhere?

It’s certainly possible, though there’s no current discussions or plans to do that, partly because all we’re doing is just making sure that the basics work and we’re fixing the bugs as they come, but down the line perhaps.

As you say, with the idea of being embedded, assisting in passing over that value, brilliant, but at the moment it is a standalone app and I do think that there is a lot to be said for just how simple and clean are our interface is which makes that experience of, in effect, narrowing down options and creating a kind of space in which to consider a particular release.

When I was writing about Qobuz a little while ago, I was remarking that I found it almost perverse that one of the things I like most about it was that it’s just got music on it, and you can filter it by genre really easily. There’s a wonderfully reductive element to it compared to the likes of Spotify, and I feel it’s the same with Cantilever. It is just doing one thing, really well, and it isn’t trying to be all things to all people. Was that an intention for you, though, when you started?

It was just to keep it simple, basically. I’ve said before now about Mubi, the film streaming platform. In the early days of Mubi, which, I mean, when I first used it, it was maybe 2019 or 2018, it was 30 films in 30 days. Each time we wanted to watch a film, I knew that I could very easily pick a movie that somebody who cares a lot about independent film has selected for me to check out. I would decide whether I wanted to watch that, and nine times out of ten, whether or not I really loved it, I at least had a very interesting experience and something to talk to people about, especially other users of Mubi, because suddenly we’d mostly watched the same things.

When I want to watch something on Netflix or Amazon, you end up doing what we call in my house, a “film tapas”. We’re just looking at adverts, adverts, adverts from different movies or watching five minutes of something, spending an hour choosing but never settling. The wider the choice, the more difficult it is to make a decision and just go into something, I think. And so the simplicity is absolutely part of it. The intention was to reflect the Mubi model. They’ve pivoted away from that now. They have a deeper catalogue. You can search for things. They’re funding new releases that are coming into the cinema. But fundamentally, why I think it worked is because they limited the scope and that’s what made it easy to make that decision.

I’m a member of the Prince Charles Cinema up in Leicester Square, which screens all kinds of mad stuff. You know, classic films, but also weird oddities, like The Room, or some obscure schlock horror movie. I could just pop Netflix on and probably watch half the stuff that they’ve got on at the PCC, but it’s the experiential part of it and the depth of engagement with it which is the appeal, isn’t it? Do you think there’s a wider sense of desire for people to have that kind of deeper engagement these days?

Yes, definitely. I mean, I see it in multiple different ways. You see articles quite frequently about a younger generation who are deliberately getting rid of their smartphones or opting for a more analogue experience when it comes to engaging with culture and consuming in general. I definitely think that there is a turn away from platforms that demand your attention.

Everybody I know complains about their addiction to Instagram reels and short form video. It’s a curse on people. I find myself again scrolling through my feed with zero joy and zero entertainment value. There’s something about that short form sort of immediate access that is basically anathema to how people want to engage with art. It should surely be about giving people a great, durational experience of music and entertainment.

It’s something that I personally look for. I try and read as much print media as possible. I try to go to the cinema as much as possible. And when I listen to music, you know, I’m still buying records, buying digital downloads still, going to shows and so on.

That being said, I still use Spotify and actually I’m not somebody who thinks that all of their recommendations are terrible. I have found some brilliant music and continue to do so through Spotify. It serves its own function in the general way in which I engage with music. Who knows whether I’ll move to a different streaming service at any point.

How do you feel about this emerging landscape of niche music platforms like Nina, Subvert and their ilk?

I think it’s all great. I think that they’re being willingly niche, doing one thing simply that is against that trend, and I like that. And so Nina Protocol and Subvert, I’m all for both of them. I like what Subvert are doing with the physical zine.

That being said, I also still use Bandcamp, so it will be interesting to see whether Subvert is significantly better than Bandcamp in various ways to then actually drive people to use it. Nina Protocol is also great, but currently, when you stream an artist on there, that artist doesn’t actually receive any revenue from that; you have to buy the release to remunerate the artist. So in that sense, we’re very different because we don’t offer digital downloads but we do remunerate streams. All three of these companies are very different in what they offer and so I can see people using all of them.

I would like to see Subvert succeed, but if I have a criticism of it, it’s that it seems to have largely built itself by bashing Bandcamp. And Bandcamp is doing very well.

I think I just tire of it because Bandcamp as a platform is going great. It’s putting out new features, it’s developing. It certainly isn’t stuck in stasis, dying slowly. It seems, if anything, to be thriving. It irritates me that people feel the need to bash Bandcamp as if they’re an alternative.

Do we need a direct alternative to Bandcamp? I don’t feel we do. Which again, is what caught my eye on Cantilever, i.e. because you’re at least not trying to be that.

It’s not for me to say anybody else’s business or anybody else’s thing is lacking in any way. All I want to put forward is that if your entire positioning and credentials are based on saying that somebody else’s business is not working, you have to ask yourself, well, how are you going to differentiate? Because for many users of Bandcamp, they still love it. It’s a fairly weak argument. So, yeah, I agree.

So what does the future hold for Cantilever? Is there a development timeline where you’ll have genre pages and other features added?

Currently, there are no plans for specialising in one genre or another, or allowing people to filter specific genres. For example, I see the value in having an individual who might think that they don’t know current rap or even think it’s not for them, but they listen to the Jim Legxacy mixtape on Cantilever, the latest release on there, for example. I think that would be great.

I think the music industry also historically had, or it seems to me that it has, this kind of youth fetishisation, which is crap. So yeah I do hope that it has a broad appeal towards a general music listener. We’re not going after one specific demographic or another. A wide range of people have got in touch with me to say that they enjoy it and that’s very gratifying.

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