Sounds from underground/File N°71

amazing bridge between experimental, avant-grade sound and some melodic vocals that will fit perfectly to define our summer 2017. love, love, love. dig it otherwise you're a bad person
0. name of the band
Sunday
1. where are you from?
Richmond, VA in United States
2. what kind of instruments/equipment you use? do you use some particular record technique? which is your method of composition?
I use a pretty sparse set up of mostly software synths and VST’s in Ableton and then I have a Teisco ev-2t which is this cheaper Japanese remake of the Vox phantom that Ian Curtis had, and I often use a looper to write. The compositional process is lots of moderating stream of consciousness flows. I don’t often start off with a clear idea for how the entire piece should function and I sort of use the act of recording as a means of songwriting.
3. what do you think about the music context nowadays and how you place yourself in? do you feel a part of any scene?
I feel a part of a historical lineage of home recording artists and other music fans who have a DIY approach to music that isn’t necessarily about achieving a certain roughness or unrefined quality to the music. As far as being a part of a scene, there are a few artists whose work I really admire, such as Hogan, this synth wiz kid from Delta-9 or some quadrilateral place where riddles predominate. My friends from school have been pretty successful in music and they have been an encouraging influence, but generally I feel pretty exterior to most of that.
4. do you think that nowadays has still sense talking about "underground"?
Yeah, I’ve often wondered about that myself, but I think that as long as there is artistic creation there will be an undercurrent of progressive artists challenging dominant aesthetic and distributional models and in that sense breathing an experimental spirit –– the essence of art making –– into an otherwise increasingly homogenized field where bands get branded and then installed as the vanguard for some promotional purpose or other. The proliferation of channels that allow people to access and discover music is certainly a mixed blessing, but in general I’d like to think that the creative underground has kept pace with the developments, because there are more people out there making and releasing music.
5. do you play live? how public react to your music?
I am in a band named Newscaster and we play live and the audience can be small and half the time it is in front of a room full of people who even if they didn’t like it I would think they would be too polite to say so, but yeah it seems like everyone is having a good time. I tend to get anxious before I perform and there’s a lot of drama queen sort of behavior which is totally unwarranted, but I would like to put on a big show. I have a lot of ideas. We’re playing at a festival back at my old school on Friday, so maybe there will be an opportunity for a more immersive set. We’re practicing on sequencing in between songs to have a continuous set and also open up improvisational opportunities. Considering playing solo stuff live, but need to get better with the Octatrack first.
6. Genesis P-Orridge said "Our records were documents of attitudes and experiences and observations by us and other determinedly individual outsiders. Fashion was an enemy, style irrelevant.". What do your records represent to you?
Really like that quote. I think my records are me trying to reveal my own subconscious processes. Shadowboxing with my own self-made phantoms and flights of whimsy that document my delayed reaction the impressions I receive. It’s a personal truth I’m looking for, but ideally it would end up dovetailing with a progressive politics which doesn’t romanticize escapism.