ACCOUNTS & RECORDS
ABOUT A&R
WHO WE ARE
Accounts and Records is a media arts company specialising in unique audio and visual content. A&R creates artfully composed sonic experiences and narrative audio pieces that challenge the listener to consider topics and environments in new and engaging ways. A&R focuses on the production of podcasts, documentaries, radio plays and audiowalks. A&R also provides original visual content, including photography, graphic design, promotional video works, and web content/design.
Collectively, themes that interest us include: identity, place, labour, time and recorded histories, language, art, and science. Approaching these topics, we attempt to make audience-based work that is open, sincere, generous and digestible. But not too digestible: we’re particularly interested in works that expand and complicate the listener’s experience, appealing to the audience’s imagination to help construct the world in which the work takes place. Our special interest are projects that allow for accidental encounters and unintentional consequences when the real world interrupts the sonic environment we create.
HOW WE WORK
We are a dynamic collective producing creative content that engages an audience and lingers in the imagination. We work in a collaborative style to build a team that will achieve the best possible results for each of our clients. We are exceptionally proud of what we produce and consider it a real joy to connect talented people with great projects.
WHAT TO EXPECT
A&R will connect your organisation to the best contacts for your project; we have a large community of writers, artists, sound engineers, photographers and graphic designers with whom we work in Toronto, London and New York. We will create a realistic timeline, oversee all of the elements, and will work independently or in close collaboration with you, depending on your needs.
We love meeting new people, thinking about new ideas, trying out new projects and making things for people to enjoy.
THE
TEAM
Accounts and Records is Angela Shackel and Braden Labonte. The team has a combined educational background in comparative literature, philosophy, fine arts, and science. They bring this diversity of interests and experience with them as they engage in a wide variety of projects and creative endeavours.
Angela Shackel primarily works as the team's audio director and project manager and Braden Labonte works as the lead creative director and researcher.
Together they produce audio and visual projects focusing on strong narratives and innovative content. Frequently the team will also draw on their broad network of professionals in other creative fields (acting, writing, videography) to lend their voices and talents to projects.
A NOTE FROM THE BEGINNING
- Angela Shackel started Accounts and Records as a podcast project in 2011 and since then it’s grown to be something much larger, more dynamic, and multifaceted.
In its beginnings Accounts and Records was a thematic podcast featuring narratives, round-table discussions and interviews. The project was responding to that fact that I’m constantly inspired and moved by the stories of my friends, coworkers and acquaintances. I love surprising personal histories, hilarious anecdotes and clever commentary divulged casually over dinner tables, on the subway, or by text message. My initial plunge into podcasting took these informal stories and gave them form by placing them in a narrative or larger discussion in a focused way.
Connecting well with people through great conversations is my favourite thing. I rebel against a culture where everyone works in isolation; I prefer collaboration, and feel that conversation is one of the best modes we have for challenging each other’s perspectives. As a child I would spend hours entertaining my (significantly) older brothers about stories from grade school. To hold their attention, I started learning about pacing, punchlines, ideas and good characters being key to having your audience’s listening commitment. I have also always been fascinated by time and memory; preserving ideas, thoughts, and events has always been a priority for me. Working in recorded audio allows me to do what I was already doing socially -- editing and retelling stories, events or news items -- in order to connect with people.
TESTIMONIALS
“Combining all the soothing librarian tones and sound effects of NPR programming with a historical narrative of the area, The Slow Now offers a hybrid of podcast, poetry and spatial interaction that will be hugely satisfying for fans of Toronto history and literature.” - NOW MAGAZINE
"StreetARToronto's (StART) first foray into commissioning an audio walk was a result of a dynamic partnership with the Koffler Centre. Passing Through is an hour-long audio journey from Union Station to St Lawrence Market. Using narration, interviews, music and sound, the walk explores not only street art but the history of the St. Lawrence neighbourhood and how streets are our most fundamental shared space. Thanks to Accounts and Records and their remarkable insight, perseverance, research skills, diplomacy and patience, StART, part of the Public Realm Section of Transportation Services was able to offer an audio walk that helps listeners understand that when streets function well on the level of everyday experiences, they provide opportunities for people to connect in a way that no other public space can.
"Thanks to Angela's (Accounts and Records) ability to design dynamic, multi-layered soundscapes, the audio tour includes a broad view of everything you hear when walking the streets of a large urban city. The listener quickly discovers that each neighbourhood, even each block generates very different sounds. By smartly capturing these subtle but essential differences, listeners come to appreciate both the physical and aural beauty of public space. - Lily Zendel - City of Toronto
"An elaboratly produced audio guide is offered to help the gallery visitor understand Annabella Scondi’s influences. The audio piece breathlessly details the evolution and development of the artist as a wounded genius or maybe an elusive idiot savant somehow able to comprehend the complex machinations of the art world and create astute artworks, responding to such varied influences as Brancusi, Duchamp and Bridget Riley."
- Review of The Scondi Collection