Bvrdv Takes Full Creative Control on 10-Track Album ‘The Imprint’

For Bvrdv, creative independence on The Imprint meant more than choosing which songs would make the album.

He wanted control over virtually every stage of making it.

Bvrdv said he wrote, arranged, vocally recorded, mixed and mastered the project himself, making the 10-track album a showcase not only for his performance but also for his development behind the scenes.

That degree of involvement is important to how Bvrdv defines his current position as an artist.

He views a completed composition as something an artist has brought to the point where it fulfills the creator’s vision. While acknowledging that musicians can always continue learning, Bvrdv believes his experience has allowed him to reach a greater command of his own creative abilities.

His perspective is also connected to his academic interest in music and psychology. Bvrdv said he chose to double major in those areas rather than pursue a path with the Chicago Symphony, explaining that he was less interested in critiquing work another musician had already considered complete.

That philosophy extends into The Imprint.

Instead of conforming entirely to established formulas, Bvrdv says he is interested in the imperfections and unconventional choices that can eventually create something new.

The album’s sequencing reflects that independence.

Choosing the final songs was difficult, he said, partly because individual tracks correspond with different emotions. Rather than making an album centered on a single mood, Bvrdv wanted The Imprint to move through a range of feelings.

That means the listener’s relationship with the record can change.

A track that does not immediately become someone’s favorite could become the song that resonates most strongly on another day. Bvrdv said that emotional variability was exactly what he wanted to capture.

His approach also reflects his view of contemporary R&B and soul.

After spending years working around labels and learning different aspects of the music business, Bvrdv said he became familiar with the structures that can influence commercial music, including similarities in tempos and rhythms among records receiving radio play.

He decided his own music did not have to follow those expectations.

Bvrdv says he avoids relying on samples and instead takes inspiration from music he has admired in the past and filters that influence through his own perspective.

The result, he believes, is a sound distinctly his.

The Imprint therefore functions as both an album and a statement of artistic independence. Its significance to Bvrdv comes not only from the songs audiences hear but from the amount of himself he placed into creating them.

From writing to the final mix, Bvrdv wants listeners to hear an artist increasingly comfortable defining his sound on his own terms.

Listen to Bvrdv’s The Imprint on Apple Music https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-imprint/6803109433

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