Polysick

Like most music I fall in love with, I find completely by accident, and is such the case with Polysick. Being that Polysick is based in Italy, its inevitable to escape that italo vibe. It’s italo, gone acid inside of melted wax dripping out of a VHS cassette thats been covered in Vaseline and jammed into an 8-track player and is somehow playing music and visuals. With releases on Strange Life Records, Bumtapes(under TheAwayTeam alias), Swishcotheque and MinimalRome, I see no stopping for this guy, I always see big things ahead! It also helps to mention his involvement with AAVV, a video label who has been making some big waves in the scene as of late. I had some time to chat with Polysick and the results are as follows…

Polysick – Juno by polysick

Polysick, TheAwayTeam, what do you currently have out for physical consumption from these projects?
I have an album out on Legowelt’s Strange Life Records as Polysick, and a tape as TheAwayTeam (split with Panabrite) on Bumtapes: you can also get a free 4tracks Polysick EP (split with SFVacid) through the Swishcotheque website. And I recently did a remix for Heinrich Dressel, which will be out next month on MinimalRome.

You recently did a video for Stellar OM Source’s “Trilogy Select” release on Old English Spelling Bee? Tell us a little about your thought process behind the visuals.
Working on the video for Stellar Om Source came really easy because I love her music so much, and I’ve certainly been inspired by her visual works too; as with all the other AAVV videos (like the one for CVLTS or Sleep Over) I worked on ‘found footage’ that I rearranged and put in a new context. Usually I spend a few days collecting source material (old videotapes and tv stuff, adverts, vintage ephemeral videos, commercials, whatever), take some parts, and then I start to twist them, adding layers, glitches, effects and reassembling all these things into something new and coherent. This time (as I did with CVLTS or Panabrite) I chose to do a ‘trailer’ instead of a proper video-clip, using bits from two tracks: I think I will go further into this kind of ‘video skipping’ thing in the future.

Give us a childhood memory of music, something that had a major impact on your musical mind?
It would be an old tv jingle with an eerie synth atmoshpere and some dazzling scanimate-style visuals. Something like this:
You’re part of the AAVV crew, what can we except form AAVV in the future?
Well, AAVV as a label is going to release three new dvds in the next weeks, by some of the most representative and brilliant videomakers around: an exclusive work by Luke Wyatt and two compilations of videos by Cosmotropia De Xam and HoboCult. We also have many requests as videomakers, but that will probably take a little more time, because I’m busy enough doing my own things lately.

Any plans to release more music on Strange Life Records, as Polysick?
There are no plans about a new release on SL at the moment; I actually have tons of sessions and tracks that only need to be mixed down and bounced, but I’m lazy about that and I enjoy much more jamming and making new tunes than editing and mastering the older tracks. I’m currently working on a new TheAwayTeam album, which will be something different, a ‘video suite’, compiled as a sort of psychedelic channel-surfing experience,  with bits, tunes, bumpers and longer tracks, something where you can’t separate visuals from music. This work is actually in progress, and it should be out by the end of the year on Sturmundrugs.

What is your take on nostalgia? Do you think it’s becoming an overused niche?
I started to buy analogue synths and play with vintage gear many years ago, basically as a reaction against computer-based style of production; I was tired of staring at the screen and I felt that software and that kind of virtual stuff was shifting my focus too much toward detail and complexity in music rather than on the groove and the nuance of the sound itself. As a result my music may sound ‘retro’ because it’s made with 80′s equipment, which is sort of a trademark sound today, but there is no particular intention or any concept behind that. Anyway I don’t care if something is ‘retro’ or “nostalgic” as long as it’s good and sounds fresh.

What is your favorite food/drink while writing music?
Coffee in the morning, and salted peanuts with cheap beer during the night.

What is your favorite synthesizer and why?
No doubt the Roland SH101. You can make the most powerful basslines and bleeps, you have a gorgeous arpeggiator with a cool on-board sequencer, as well as lots of connections and a killer filter (and great S/H lfo too); all these features are packed in a small, nice looking keyboard that you can still buy second-hand for a reasonable price.

What do you envision yourself doing in 10 years from now?
I never thought about this. Probably what I’m doing now. I don’t like change.

Polysick:
SoundCloud
MySpace