Från Edmonton i Kanada kommer Evan Collingwoods skapelse Psykkle med ett spännande sound som blandar friskt mellan olika stilar.
Många fick upp öronen för musikprojektet i och med förra årets debutalbum “Rock Bottom Paradise”
I samband med släppet av den nya EP’n “In the City of Nodes”, så passade vår egen Joakim Holfve på att ta ett snack med frontmannen bakom Psykkle.
You’ve recently released a new EP, “In the City of Nodes”, are you satisfied with how it turned out?
– When I finished writing “In the City of Nodes”, I knew it was the track I wanted to use for the single, and I had a bunch of tracks that I really enjoyed that I didn’t feel would fit on the full length album. I loved all the original tracks on the EP, but in hindsight, there were a lot of remixes included. They were all great mixes, but perhaps could have used fewer.
How would you say have you evolved since “Rock Bottom Paradise”?
– My musical tastes have expanded greatly and I find inspiration from a wider range of things. I’ve been taking a lot of inspiration from visual art forms like film, and paintings. I think taking influence from visual sources translates into music very interestingly.
What can we expect of the coming album “Mother Monoxide”? Will it stick to the style presented on “In the City of Nodes” or more like your last album?
– I’ve tried to keep with what Psykkle has become known for. Not doing the same thing twice. Every release I’ve done since “The Parthian Shot” has had it’s own unique quality and influences. The Parthian Shot, and Rock Bottom Paradise were primarily EBM influenced, with the obvious experiments in trip-hop and powernoize. This time around, I’m experimenting with elements from other electronic styles. When I started the album I was listening to a lot of hip-hop like Cypress Hill, so the album has a lot more of a beat driven vibe, instead of the EBM four to the floor. Later on I started listening to producers like Noisia, Broken Note, and Koan, and that resulted in some more DnB and Dubstep sound design and structure. This album won’t feature female vocals, so that will give the album a unique feel compared to previous releases.
You’ve been touring with bands like Assemblage 23 and Front Line Assembly in the past, is there any new tour coming up? And if so, will you stick to North America or tour Europe as well?
– We haven’t done any touring as of yet. We’ve shared the stage with A23 and FLA, but haven’t toured with them. We hope to be on the road in the spring, but we’ll probably only start with Canadian dates.
How would you describe your sound yourself? It’s a bit… hard to put my finger on an exact genre.
– I just call my sound dark-electro. I take so many influences from so many different styles of music, it’s hard to pigeonhole it into one genre. When it comes down to it, I just write music that I want to hear. Combining my favourite elements from multiple genres into my own signature sound.
Yeah, you’ve been notorious in your experimenting with different styles of music, from powernoize to trip-hop, is this something you will evolve even further or do you feel you are in a spot, musicwise, where you are content for the moment?
– Musically I don’t think I’ll ever be content. I will always have those certain things that will make my sound unique to me, but I will always grow. I have to many musical interests to only work within one genre. I have a lot of musical experiments floating around in my head, but most of them are not appropriate to be put under the Psykkle project. A lot of these ideas would have to be pursued on a personal basis.
You’ve been progressing steadily since your debut three years ago, what is the next step in your career and what are your closest goals?
– Right now my main focus is getting the new album done. I am putting together a special edition of the new album that will feature a remixed version of the album, and I’ll be working with local an Edmonton artist, Andrew McCaffery, on special art for it. I’m also working on a number of side projects, most recently I’ve partnered up with a like minded producer to start up our own label, and I’ve also joined a local cold wave group, Sangsara.
The industrialscene have a tendency where many bands sounds the same from time to time. A couple of years ago the “Hocico-sound” was very popular while at the moment many artists are experementing with pop, dub and metal. Do you think theres any problem with this, and how do you stand out in a scene that kinda grows every day?
– I think people should welcome the outside influence. There are a good number of musical elitists within any musical scene, but I think it’s this that can hold a genre back. That’s part of why I do what I do, is because I get so bored listening to bands that just want to sound like other bands. I think that’s how I’ve managed to stand out among the number of groups gaining recognition is because I understand that people want to hear something new. I never got into this to try and create something new or exciting, but rather to just make music that I liked to listen to. At the same time, there are a lot of outside elements that wouldn’t necessarily fit in with the dark electro sound. So I believe it has to be done with care compromise.
