In Conversation with Bec Adams

In Conversation With Bec Adams

Bec Adams, founder of female music agency Les Filles, has spent her career at the intersection of music and culture – licensing tracks for major film productions, advocating for female talent, and helping brands understand that sound shouldn’t be an afterthought, but part of the architecture. 

We spoke with Bec about memory, mood, and why the next frontier of branding isn't something you see – it's something you hear.

Tell us about Les Filles.
Les Filles is a female music agency that works with brands to define how they sound and represent female identifying talent . We help brands create a sonic identity, crafting cohesive music messaging across all holistic touchpoints to give brands a distinct cultural edge. 

What were you doing before launching Les Filles?
Before Les Filles, I was working at a music supervision firm called Music and Strategy. We would select and license (where my law school came in handy with contracts!) music to be held on advertisements like Verizon Wireless, and tv shows and movies like Suicide Squad and Vice Principles. 

Has music always played an integral part of your life?
Music has always been my first language. My mother was a pianist, and my dad collected vinyl. Our household held the importance of setting a tone with music to allow life to live and unfold within. 

Music plays an important part in forming memories of people and places, evoking feelings of nostalgia. What is your take on the interplay between music and the world?
Everyone has a memory database that gives us a sense of what is familiar, and clues about the world around us. That carries so much nostalgia, within the context of our episodic memory - memories rooted in emotional response to a moment in our life - this is the coolest thing about our brains  is that it is impossible to lose, studies in Alzheimer's show us this that a disease that deteriorates memory, this is the part not lost. I think this is an example which shows just how music is one of the most powerful tools we have to use in our human experience.

How do you see fashion, music and culture influencing each other right now?
I think brands and the world are finally catching up to the notion shared before, that music is so powerful in shaping and world building. We know what brands look like, but what do they sound like? Brands wanting to get a cultural edge are looking into this now more than ever. It is a really exciting time that all the senses are getting to shape a story, and it is not so surface like it felt it once was.

I think it is also a really interesting time with AI, as music is getting lost in algorithms, and AI is failing to understand the human experience songs encapsulate so one of the most important jobs in the world right now is being a music curator and sharing good music with the world that would otherwise be lost. 


What was the first album you purchased?
The Beatles

What artists are you loving at the moment? What song is on repeat?
Honestly, I can never get enough of Blood Orange, His new album (ish), Essex Honey, has been on repeat since it was released last year. The song The Field does things to me.

What makes a collaboration feel authentic to you, rather than forced or trend driven?
Integrity and intention.

How do you translate a brand’s visual identity into sound and feeling?
A brand already has a sound inside it. My job is to ask the right questions, and understand what it is the brand wants to feel like in all its different facets, and then translate that into a sonic narrative.

When you discover new talent, what is the first thing that draws you in?
It is a feeling, and it is also seeing proof of their vast knowledge of music. To be a real DJ, you need to be a social anthropologist. Your job is to elevate a room from what it was, and that requires a particular sort of person to be able to access what is going on around them, and tap into their encyclopaedic music brain at the right points in time. 

What do you hope people feel when they experience Les Filles, beyond just hearing the music?
They feel the sense of being a part of something that really cares for them, and all they have done. And that they see how incredible it is we have really created this space for women in music, that once no one had. 

Sit Down With SIR.

How would you describe your personal style ?
Effortless and subtle – a real Australian.

When do you feel your best ?
After going for a swim in the Australian ocean. 

What is your most treasured possession?
My Tiffany necklace – I hold it as a reminder of how sacred and simple life is. I have had it since I was 21. 

What scent or sound feels like home?
The quiet waves at the beach in Port Willunga, and the smell of the sand.

What cities resonate with you most and why?
It is weird! Either very busy cities such as New York and Paris, or completely quiet like Port Willunga in South Australia.

What is the best advice you have ever received? 
Don't take no for an answer! 

Who are your dream dinner guests, dead or alive? 
Joan Didion and Brian Eno. 

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