Creative Corner with Rory Gilbert from Anjunabeats

Rory Gilbert is the Senior Product Manager at Anjunabeats. He's been working in the music industry now for 8 years, starting out at indie dance label Enhanced Music before joining Anjunabeats back in 2019. Since joining Anjuna he has worked across projects from recognisable names like Above and Beyond, Seven Lions, 3LAU, Andrew Bayer and Mat Zo to developing artists like Trance Wax, Genix and Grum.

Our recent chat with Rory discusses his favourite campaigns and talks about the overlaps between visual creativity and music.

IM LOVING

We recently released the debut album from JODA (Jono Grant of Above & Beyond fame and Darren "serial TOTP botherer" Tate ) which, when I first heard last year, I was absolutely blown away by. It's the perfect merge of 80/90s sensibilities with modern, dance production. It genuinely is one of the most memorable bodies of work I can remember for a long time, and each track stands out on its own.

FAVOURITE VIDEO

Maybe it's being a 90s baby, but I do think the 90/00s were the best era for music videos. Roger Sanchez's 'Another Chance' particularly always stood out, still evocative to this day. Dir: Phillipe Andre.

BEST ARTWORK

I've always been a huge fan of the cover for Grum 'Deep State'. It's the perfect accompaniment to what is a brooding progressive monster of an album, a nod to Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures' to boot.

RECENT CAMPAIGN

As mentioned before but very proud of what we've achieved with the JODA project so far. It's a brand new act and launching one of those nowadays is not without its challenges, but I'm proud of the way we've presented it to date and there's plenty more to come.

COLLABORATION

Gotta shout out the Swedish House Mafia & IKEA collab. It's unashamedly obvious but that's it's beauty. The fact they're also providing affordable studio equipment is a worthy cause in itself.