Anji Kaizen “Decode”
Anji Kaizen and Shaun Mason share an heartfelt, epic version of Paramore’s “Decode,” shedding new light on the iconic song. Laced with epic strings and massive soundscape, Mason’s deep voice evokes melancholia in the song that tackles the mess and collapse of a relationship along with one’s mentality. While Paramore forefront deterioration from a single perspective, highlighting one’s frustration, heartbreak and pain, Kaizen and Mason’s version elevates the theme to its storytelling—the collapse of a relationship, with their voices intertwined, stories overlapped.
The edge of hysteria and emo is smoothen out, but immediacy of the devastation of seeing love exploding in your eyes is captured in slow motion. You’ll feel that powerlessness in their beautifully orchestrated song. Its sensibility and massiveness blossom in your ears like a sonic film. This cover of “Decode” is quite impressive. The duo certainly captured something unique and untouched in the original version and able to bring that out to the fullest.
Before “Decode,” Kaizen has nailed the cover of “Bring Me Back To Life,” where her ethereal vocal brings out a haunting quality of the original. Mason is a prolific singer-songwriter with a catalog of original songs. Both Kaizen and Mason have more music cooking in the ovens. Stay tuned!
Punk Head: I love your arrangement of Paramore’s “Decode.” It’s more sensuous and epic. I read that you guys have more projects coming up and Anji has an album coming soon. Can you tell us a little about that?
Anji Kaizen: So glad you enjoyed our version of the song! This was our first time collaborating together. We agreed our version should be a breakaway from the original to give the song a more haunting and heartfelt approach. Shaun is an incredibly talented vocalist and musician and I’ve really enjoyed making workin on this project with him on this one. And yes you are correct, I am recording an album with my backing band and we are on track to release it this summer! It's going to be a rollicking rollercoaster ride of altrock, pop punk, hard rock, synthpop, experimental samplings of star sounds and more. I’ll be posting teasers on my socials soon @anjikaizen.
Shaun Mason: We appreciate the kind words on the arrangement! It’s always a fun task taking an already iconic song and essentially “making it your own” through the arrangement process. Initially on a Skype video call with Anji, I teased a short draft of what the instrumental “could” sound like and it was cool seeing her approval through her smiles and rocking her head. Once green-lit I finished out the arrangement and sent it to Anji and her team, in which they gave some great suggestions such as adding strings for texture. It was very much a fun collaborative effort! I’m excited to hear the album that Anji is cooking up! Like most crazy artists I have a ton of songs in the works (upwards of a few dozen) all in different phases of production. I’m simultaneously piecing together 2 albums with different styles, the struggle is usually deciding which songs belong on a full body of work (album) or kept as a single.
PH: How do you resonate with “Decode”? What are some other influences?
Anji: “Decode” is such an iconic song. I remember when it first came out in tandem with the Twilight film while I was in middle school. As a huge fan of the books, you can bet this song was on repeat! But at the same time I wished I knew more of what was going on in the lyrics and what the other perspective was. And I really believe that our duet version makes it even more emotional of a song by offering both sides of this story. Other influences for me include PVRIS, Lights, Grimes, Chvrches, Björk & Pink Floyd.
Shaun: Yeah I agree, “Decode” is one of those iconic songs that takes you back over a decade & drifts you into complete nostalgia. Lyrically it always felt like the end of a relationship battle that many of us have endured, but from the woman’s perspective. Interestingly, re-imagining “Decode” with Anji as a duet makes it feel like a back-and-forth between a couple, both asking each other “how did we get here when I used to know you so well?” I believe we’ve added that dynamic with our rendition. Over the years I’ve been influenced by Linkin Park, Staind, Slipknot, Periphery, Papa Roach, Tool, Deftones, Glassjaw, various pop artists such as MJ, Justin Timberlake, Ed Sheeran & more.
PH: How was the creative process producing this song? What inspired it?
Shaun: When it comes to covers, I personally really like to take an upbeat song & slow it down, making it more cinematic & spacey. Anji was on board with taking that approach for “Decode” so I started of course by learning the guitar parts but dropped the tempo down. I’ve been experimenting a lot lately with adding heavily saturated reverbs to clean guitars & panning hard left & hard right to fill the stereo image with a very spacey cinematic texture, and this can be heard throughout most of our cover. The original version is quite dynamic so I kept that in mind while adding elements to the choruses yet removing them from the verses & bridge. And of course bringing it all together at the end with a symphony of guitars, strings, drums & bass. Dynamics are the way to go when bringing people on a musical journey. Vocally, as this was our first time working together, I wanted to do my homework. I listened through many of the great songs in Anji’s catalog & instantly grew attached to her covers of “Mad World” & “Bring Me to Life”. So on our initial Skype meet I expressed to her my interest in her giving a similar breathy, eerie performance on “Decode” and she did NOT fail to deliver! I think the greatest challenge was sending vocal parts back & forth, memorizing what each other did & subsequently laying down harmonies to ‘compliment’ each other.
Anji: Shaun did an incredible job of taking our new artistic vision of the track and running with it - he built all of the arrangement, instruments and mix around the ideas that we shared in our Zoom meetings and was always open to new suggestions like strings & synths to make the cover more cinematic. It was a few months of going back and forth until we came up with a version that felt truly unique but we still wanted to kept the heartfelt emotion of the original song’s lyrics and delivery. I’d agree the greatest challenge was continuing to do alternate vocal takes around each other’s interpretations of the melody but that’s also what makes our cover special, is the amount of attention to detail when it comes to harmony and vocal layering. Originally I was inspired by the dramatic, haunting version of “Sound of Silence” by Disturbed and wanted to do a similar interpretation. What’s the soundscape for two people in a failing relationship, asking each other “how did we get here?” and singing back and forth? What does that sound like and what does that feel like for the audience to experience? Inspiring thoughts.
PH: How would you describe the aesthetic of your music?
Anji: My music typically leans into the different variations of modern rock because I love the energy there - pop rock, alt rock, even pop punk and emo at times. I love experimenting and blending genres, seeing where the edges of a song can be pushed to and what new arrangements can be made but with a more polished, pop sort of production than usual.
Shaun: I’d say my music has broad emotional messages carried by a mix of ambient rock with electronic alt rock undertones. But of course artists don’t normally wish to box themselves into one style or genre.
PH: What are you most excited about releasing this music video?
Shaun: I’m personally excited just to have a really nice visual to put out for our fans and into the world. It’s always weird & seemingly self-serving to ask people “hey go stream our new song” without a visual experience to compliment it. Being 2 independent solo artists in 2023 means that we do all of the promotion ourselves. So, as awesome as music videos are, they are also inherently a necessary promotional tool to help guide new music into the ears of current fans & potential new fans. It will be nice to release a 5 minute visual for the first time in a while, while simultaneously cutting it into short form clips for the ever-changing Reels & TiKTok universes!
Anji: Agreed, it will be awesome to have a video to share with our listeners - it was so much fun to trek out into the woods on a misty evening to record. Hopefully it will further transport our listeners into the world we’ve built around this track and the overall mood. And as Shaun said, it also makes promotion a lot easier and gives us more clips to get the song out there. But I’m most excited to share what we’ve been up to with everyone because they’re only seen a few behind the scenes teasers so they have no idea what’s coming…Be sure to save the date, because it’s releasing this Friday the 17th on our YouTube channels.
