In SOUND CHECK, we check in with some of our favorite musicians.
After taking some time to explore more psychedelic influences through his collaborative project Hiawatha, Toronto-based Night Slugs producer David Psutka has returned to his Egyptrixx moniker, releasing one of the London club collective's most impeccably crafted, introspective records to date, A/B til Infinity. Egyptrixx's latest LP blends heavy metal and house elements that oscillate between harmony and dissonance. It's best (and self) described as "celestial club music; jeep music for a Saturn desert."
But what sets A/B til Infinity apart from its contemporaries isn't merely its cosmic concerns, but its visual nature: the record is actually a collaboration with Berlin-based artist Andreas Fischer (also known as A.N.F.). Each of the album's nine tracks have accompanying videos and images. Captivated, I caught up with Psutka to learn more about the aesthetics behind A/B.
Check out Egyptrixx this Saturday, February 22, in Mexico City!
Emily Manning: Your most recent LP A/B til Infinity is actually a sonic/aesthetic collaboration with artist Andreas Fischer, but this isn’t the first time you two teamed up. Can you tell me about the history of and mechanics behind your collaborative process?
Egyptrixx: An art critic friend showed me his work years before A/B til Infinity and we got in touch. I had commissioned videos from Andreas previously but this was a more in-depth collaboration—we worked on the record start-to-finish. I think we share some basic ideas in our work: a minimalist approach, a preference for abstraction, and an attraction to things that feel synthetic or artificial.
I know Dev Hynes of Blood Orange gave a talk at NYU a few months ago about how synesthesia—or the singular perception of multiple senses, most often visual—factors critically in his compositions. Do you see your project as being in a similar vein? How do the visual and sonic experiences inform each other?
I think I have pretty strong synthestetic tendencies in general but especially with this project, so working from an audio/visual angle felt natural. More than anything, Egyptrixx is just a small sector of my imagination which I'm trying to articulate or describe with records, videos, or whatever. This album and the next one are pretty much just soundtracking
After taking some time to explore more psychedelic influences through his collaborative project Hiawatha, Toronto-based Night Slugs producer David Psutka has returned to his Egyptrixx moniker, releasing one of the London club collective's most impeccably crafted, introspective records to date, A/B til Infinity. Egyptrixx's latest LP blends heavy metal and house elements that oscillate between harmony and dissonance. It's best (and self) described as "celestial club music; jeep music for a Saturn desert."
But what sets A/B til Infinity apart from its contemporaries isn't merely its cosmic concerns, but its visual nature: the record is actually a collaboration with Berlin-based artist Andreas Fischer (also known as A.N.F.). Each of the album's nine tracks have accompanying videos and images. Captivated, I caught up with Psutka to learn more about the aesthetics behind A/B.
Check out Egyptrixx this Saturday, February 22, in Mexico City!
Emily Manning: Your most recent LP A/B til Infinity is actually a sonic/aesthetic collaboration with artist Andreas Fischer, but this isn’t the first time you two teamed up. Can you tell me about the history of and mechanics behind your collaborative process?
Egyptrixx: An art critic friend showed me his work years before A/B til Infinity and we got in touch. I had commissioned videos from Andreas previously but this was a more in-depth collaboration—we worked on the record start-to-finish. I think we share some basic ideas in our work: a minimalist approach, a preference for abstraction, and an attraction to things that feel synthetic or artificial.
I know Dev Hynes of Blood Orange gave a talk at NYU a few months ago about how synesthesia—or the singular perception of multiple senses, most often visual—factors critically in his compositions. Do you see your project as being in a similar vein? How do the visual and sonic experiences inform each other?
I think I have pretty strong synthestetic tendencies in general but especially with this project, so working from an audio/visual angle felt natural. More than anything, Egyptrixx is just a small sector of my imagination which I'm trying to articulate or describe with records, videos, or whatever. This album and the next one are pretty much just soundtracking