Nick Pittsinger is a twenty-year-old electronic music artist who resides in the Tampa Bay area. According to his Facebook profile, he’s from Sweden, but he’s told us otherwise, “I’m actually not from Sweden! I’m just mostly Swedish by blood, so… It’s my motherland that I hope to go back to someday I guess you could say. It’s also just fun to put on my Facebook, haha! Goes to show you can’t trust everything on the internet.” He works on two music projects, Shamantis and Halo Nova. Despite only having been producing music for about a year and a half, one of his tracks recently made the Beatport Top 100 chart, which we consider to be quite an accomplishment. Fortunately we were able to score an interview with him while he still has time for them.
BRASKY:: What’s the difference between your music projects? You referred to Shamantis as your “#1 love” and Halo Nova as a project that’s “just for fun”, so do you take one more seriously than the other? NICK:Shamantis is an experience, really. It’s a sonic representation of the spirit, the psychedelic experience, the human experience, and nature in an electronic music medium. I combine elements from tribal, ambient, psychedelic, goa, trip hop, dub, trance, jazz, and downtempo music to form my own sound. Think about what Enya would sound like if she got lost in the Amazon with Thelonious Monk. That’s me! Halo Nova is different. It’s very lighthearted, fun dubstep music, usually with elements of chiptune and metal. I say it’s just for fun because I mean, I don’t really have to think to much about music theory or anything with it. With Shamantis, I often do jazz improv solos and often worry about chord progressions, structure, melodies, etc. With Halo Nova, I just worry about how to make the coolest/funniest/badass noises possible! So, in summation I guess you could say Shamantis is the music of my soul while Halo Nova is the music of my heart. As for taking one seriously over the other, I guess I do favor Shamantis but that’s only in the grand scheme of things. I can picture myself still doing Shamantis in 20 years… Halo Nova, not so much! : )
BRASKY:How did it feel to be recently featured in Beatport’s top 100 chart? Nick:It was fun! “Knuckle Duster” peaked at #34, actually. There was even one point where all 4 tracks from the EP were on the charts, which was really cool considering it was my debut. I was excited just to release my music to the world, but never expected it to get into the Top 100!
BRASKY:What are some of the software and/or hardware programs that you use to create music? Do you use the same programs for each project? Nick:I use a combination of FL Studio, Reason 5, and Ableton Live. FL Studio is what I usually make all my stuff in, but I usually dip into Reason because I like a lot of the sounds in it. Ableton Live I use to perform live under Shamantis. I hope to upgrade to Logic Pro in 2011 though!
BRASKY:Do you have any other projects? Nick:I compose video game music, usually for indie game companies. I hope one day to do some serious work! Video games are a huge passion of mine, and I absolutely love composing for them. You can view some of my work at nickpittsinger.tumblr.com.
Shamantis – Space Oceans
“This song perfectly portrays my sound. Tribal, eerie, dark, deep… the kind of music that transports you to other dimensions and worlds.”
BRASKY:One of your tracks references Terrance McKenna. What type of influence has he had on you as an artist? Have any other intellectuals influenced your music? Nick:Terence Mckenna has had a PROFOUND influence on me and my music. He has given me hope where no other intellectual has. He was a true spiritual guru, and the world misses him dearly. Other intellectuals who have vastly influenced me and my music include Bill Hicks, Alan Watts, John Lilly, Timothy Leary, Joe Rogan, and the research of Dr. Rick Strassman. The way these people (especially Hicks and Rogan) word their experiences and philosophies make so much sense to me and reaffirm my beliefs in living a good, positive, humble spiritual life following my dreams and being as egoless as is practical.
Shamantis – The Mandala
“This song is the second part to Space Oceans, and features one of my favorite Terence Mckenna quotes.”
BRASKY:Is there anything else you’d like for us to know? Nick:I believe that 2011 will be the year that both of my monikers blossom. I have a lot of really cool projects (especially with Shamantis) that will unfold next year. Just follow me on twitter, soundcloud, or youtube to get the latest from me! Thank you!
Kimberly Hendrix is a couture fashion designer whose work is passionate, discretely intimate, and classy. She currently resides near Honeymoon Island and is working on establishing a showroom in New York.
"The Jacket is from my collection with Ashley Paige in Fall 2008. It is silk velvet above the waist and lace below."
BRASKY: Where are you from / where do you currently reside? Kimberly:I am originally from the west coast. Born in Southern California then I spent most of my life growing up in Oregon. Attended school in San Diego, then after a brief 5 years in Japan I returned to the San Francisco area then Los Angeles for work and now I live near Honeymoon Island.
Outfit pictured at right: "The top is from my spring 2009 collection and one of my favorite designs. I have made it in many colors. It sells retail $275 made to order. The skirt is from my vintage collection. "
BRASKY: How did you get into fashion? Kimberly:I have always sewn and I was jealous of my friends who ended up doing it for a living. I went into interior design; spent time designing stores for Rampage and Charlotte Russe. The after waiting long enough opened a vintage online store in 2001 and began my own line in 2007.
"This is a kimono made from vintage lace. I do a lot of one-off pieces that people don't always see. I use them in my editorial closet then sometimes they get reworked. I lived in Japan for 5 years and it influenced a lot of my designs."
BRASKY: We noticed that some of your collections are labeled as couture. Would you mostly describe yourself as a couture fashion designer? What other types of styles do you create? (What do you like about couture?) Kimberly:I labeled my line in the past as k.hendrix couture because everything is done by hand. I do not like to use the machine and although I need it for leather and ready to wear collections, everything in the k.hendrix line untils recently has been done 100% by hand. I have changed the name to simply k.hendrix because my designs may still be couture, but I would like the brand to be seen as more utilitarian. I like the idea of women wearing the pieces mixed with everyday wear and not just to dress up. I do a lot of raw edges and purposeful distressing and shreading so that the pieces will be more wearable and less precious although still beautiful.
"The beaded jacket is an open back silk jacket with vintage beading. It actually can be worn in reverse as well. The bra was actually a stylist pull to go along with the shoot and I forget who it is by..."
BRASKY: We think that your collections are classy, elegant, and passionate. Do any of those word accurately convey how you would like people to feel about your work? Kimberly:I definitely hope my designs evoke passion. I am very passionalte about every piece and have a hard time letting them go, so I hope they evoke the same feeling in their wearer. I know I have not shown a lot of it in the past but I am hoping to convey a strong, sexy, confident side to my clothes. That mixed with elegance and simply pretty.
"This fabulous dress is from my vintage closet."
BRASKY: Is there a certain mood, or way that you’d like women to feel when they wear one of your outfits? Kimberly:Honestly I just want women to feel confident and special and stand out for all the right reasons. I want them to feel so good wearing my pieces that they never end up in the back of the closet, but rather on the wall when they are not being worn. I’d like to think my pieces are go to pieces in every woman’s closet when they need a little something extra. I want them to look beautiful without looking like they are trying too hard.
"The center look was my favorite from the collection. I did all the beading by hand on top of ashley's knit. The beads came from my wedding dress. It looks so deco. I would say this was one of my main designs for the collection."
"The center bikini was created from my collection of vintage silk in a baby blue with a vintage cochetted knit overlay. I had been collecting these materials for years so it was wonderful to see them on the runway. The bikini on the right was my biggest project in the line. It was made from some vintage satin I had and then I hand beaded the whole thing, including the straps. I loved working on this piece."
BRASKY: It seems as though you choose very neutral, earthy tones for most of your designs, though you often work with silver or gold. What are your favorite colors to work with and do you think your choice to work with silver or gold “makes up” for using less flashy/bright colors? Or do you just prefer those tones? Kimberly:It is funny but I love color. I paint my walls bright colors and I have such mood pick me ups when I experience bold colors. For some reason I am just drawn to the more neutral colors for my designs. I joke that I use a lot of bleach and a lot of black dye. I like my colors washed out and aged or muddy. I would say that teal blue is probably my favorite accent color and silver and gold are my loves too. But I do not like them too shiny and perfect. I do all kinds of treatments on my fabrics and beading and sequins to make it feel aged. I love my designs to be the center of attention, but not because they are trying to be. But you never know, I may do a collection of bold colors just to do something unexpected.
“You can definitely play our music in your living room, in the background of a rainy day, or if it’s snowing, or if it’s just before the sun sets and you’re driving around the beach. (I’m thinking Clearwater, like maybe going over the Gandy),” says Carlos Andujar, the frontman behind When Tides Collide.
Carlos claims that their music doesn’t really fit into any genre, though on their MySpace page, it’s listed under ambient, folk, and indie, just to give our readers an idea of what it sounds like. It’s minimalistic and dream-like, and the band has been described by Carlos as, “started with the intention of creating music, sound, or noise for the sole purpose of sleep accompaniment.”
Music
Interview
BRASKY: Who are the members of When Tides Collide? What instruments do each of them play? (We understand that it’s an evolving project with rotating members?) Carlos:For the past few live shows, WTC has consisted of myself on guitar/loops/keyboards/drums/vocals and Preston Beebe helping out with vibes/percussion/laptop samples. In the past it’s consisted of Chris Vasquez on banjo/vocals, Lucas Oman on violin, Josh Price on bass/keys, and Bryan Duffy on drums just to name a few. On the recordings, I play 98% of the instruments (i.e. drums, bass, guitar, cello, etc).
BRASKY: Where are most of the members of WTC located? Carlos:Primarily, all over Florida! My home base currently is here in Jacksonville but the majority of everyone else is from the greater Tampa Bay area. The other contributors, recording and live, are from various parts of the Southeast.
BRASKY: Tell us about the formation of WTC. What brought everyone together? Carlos:Well, initially, WTC began solely as a personal recording project when I was around 17 years old and consisted only of myself. It was pretty informal at the time with no plans of playing shows or involving other people or anything. I thought it would be a fun idea to write music that I personally could fall asleep to, which probably sounds kind of silly thinking about it now! So it started out like that, with me recording these droney, ambient guitar parts on my cousin’s 4-track.
By the time I started college, I had gotten into music with more of a folk influence. I was really into Mojave 3, Red House Painters, Jim O’Rourke’s work on the Love Liza soundtrack, and the like and so naturally that began to influence the songs that I was writing. Eventually I started playing shows as a singer/songwriter sort of gimmick which got a little stale for me after awhile.
Carlos Andujar
When I moved to Tampa, it just so happened that my roommates and most of my friends were musicians and in bands, so naturally I coaxed them into playing with WTC. As I met more friends while living in Tampa, I recruited them and that’s how my relationship with Preston and Chris came to be. For a good run we played as a guitar/keys, banjo, vibes trio which turned out to be pretty interesting and was a lot of fun!
So I guess to answer the latter half of your question in a non-ramble format: friendship and location.
BRASKY: WTC’s music sounds very minimalistic yet passionate/intense/emotional, even dream-like at times. Is this intentional? Is there anything that is meant to be expressed by this type of sound? Carlos:Well, I’m a pretty nostalgic, emotional sort of person, even though at times I don’t quite feel like I show it. When I write, I like to think of music in terms of a “theme” or a “score” that you’d hear in a film but played in the background of your everyday life which, may sound lame, but it’s the best way I can describe it. I love the idea of writing music or a song for a specific mood, situation, or location. Part of the reason I started writing music to begin with was for sleep-related purposes, so yeah, I would definitely say there’s a dream-like substance to most of the music I write. A lot of times it’s intentional, other times it’s a by-product of the mood I’m trying to create.
I also like the feeling of “floating”. I always had dreams of flying or floating when I was a kid, so being the nostalgic fellow that I am, I like to try and recreate that feeling any time I can.
BRASKY: Are there any current projects/side projects? If so, tell us about them. Carlos:Yep, in addition to WTC, I play bass/sing in a band called Rails here in Jax, I do a bunch of different fun stuff in a band called Pielos based in the Tampa area, and I recently recorded some drums and played a show with Trousers and the New Argyles also based in Tampa.
BRASKY: What do you consider to be one of the most impactful/meaningful songs and why? Carlos:Wow… Tough one. This is going to sound totally geek, but I would say my earliest memory of a piece that truly inspired me, even at a young age, would be Nobuo Uematsu’s opening theme for Final Fantasy IV (Final Fantasy II, as released here in the U.S.). I love the minimalism of the piece and how it builds upon itself, evolving into this beautiful, dramatic theme. I think that single piece helped me appreciate in some ways the concepts of minimalism (along with Satie and Michael Nyman later on) and orchestration. So yeah, let’s go with that for now.
BRASKY: Is there anything else you’d like for us to know? Carlos:Maybe some shameless promotion: November 13th, WTC and my other band Rails will be playing a set along with a ton of other national and local bands at this year’s Conmoto Trench Festival in Jacksonville, FL. It’s a 2-day event and always ends up being a lot of fun. This year, Conmoto teamed up with Harvest of Hope so all of the proceeds from this festival will be going to their organization. It’ll be a good cause and a fun time, so I hope to meet some of you there!
Kalx is an experimental music and visual artist in Orlando, Florida. His music has often been compared to that of Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, and Autechre, although he feels these artists haven’t influenced his creative process.
His album, Nophi, received the “Best of 2005 Album Award” from Igloo Magazine. He is currently unsigned but a few of us at Brasky wonder why his music hasn’t been discovered by the likes of Planet µ or other experimental electronic labels.
BRASKY: How do you spend your typical day? What do you do to pass the time? Kalx: Spending and passing don’t really happen . Everything is instantaneous. I never experience process or intermediate points. As soon as I start to my body reels back and I am back in the moment. In this sense, I am never passing time at all. It’s like a near death experience that never ends. I realize that everything that is happening to me is a result of an instant in time where my birth and death have stretched out to an infinite proportion since the universe cannot even conceive of its own existence, hence the illusion that most people experience. I however have seen through it and no longer consider myself to be experiencing anything at all. I am in a state some would call nirvana and this is the state at which you realize that no you no longer exist but also that you never existed at all. I am free from any sense of boundary and if I confine myself to realities that people accept, it causes some discomfort.
BRASKY: What type of hardware and software do you use to create music? Kalx: I use software, although depending on the situation it differs between songs. I use an overall process however, and I don’t like to define it by what software I am using more so how I am using it. I’ve often used software that people have told me does not “sound like” the software itself because I don’t think the software itself matters, but more what you are trying to create with it.
BRASKY: Are there any music artists that have influenced your sound, that you compare your music to as some sort of standard, or do you have your own standard? Kalx: I like listening to music that inhibit awareness and I gravitate to sound like artists whose work emulates this.
Future 0006 by Kalx.
BRASKY: How would you describe your artwork? Kalx: I would describe it as minimalist attention to detail. This is to allow the viewer to notice all of the qualities at once.
Future 0010 by Kalx.
BRASKY: You’ve often referred to Kalxia. What is it? Kalx: It’s a joke. I don’t know where it came from. A friend of mine came up with the word after I told someone I invented my own concept of heaven. I don’t like the word itself so I wouldn’t really use it to describe what I mean.
BRASKY: So would you describe it as a new religion or philosophy? Kalx:It’s the philosophy that I am already in heaven, dead and unable to acknowledge any other form of existence no matter how real it seems in the present. Reality does not exist because every event is change that has no definite solidity to imply it is always there. And if it were always there habitual consciousness would not pick it up at all anyway. In either case, it does not matter.
BRASKY: Do you hope visitors experience Kalxia when they go to Kalx.com? Kalx:No.
BRASKY: What are you trying to express through music or art? Is there anything that you hope to accomplish through these mediums of creativity? Kalx: After my experience of samadhi and going into the light, I know that I have accomplished all of my goals. The part of me that is still here is the lingering curiosity I have of still moving forward but I know my time here is done.
Art
Artwork by Kalx. Click on an image to view it in full.
My intention in putting together this mixtape is to bring attention to other music artists, hopefully those which aren’t already on everyone’s play lists.
I would love to receive feedback♥, but please don’t respond with your suggestions as to what “should have been” on this mixtape, but rather, what you think of the music that’s already on it, and your response to it as a whole.
01. HBMS & Chan Marshall – I’ve Been Thinking 02. Hector Zazou & KatieJane Garside – Apostrophe 03. Queen Adreena – Madraykin 04. Castanets – You Are The Blood 05. Martina Topley-Bird – Anything 06. Lhasa de Sela – Love Came 07. Tricky – Christiansands 08. Melissa Ferrick – Drive 09. Me’Shell Ndegeocello – Steal My Soul 10. The Glitch Mob – Between Two Lines 11. Satori – Leaves May Fall 12. Natacha Atlas – Kiddas 13. the xx vs. Biggie – It’s All About Crystalizabeths 14. Phantogram – When I’m Small 15. Beats Antique – Intertwine 16. Einstürzende Neubauten – The Garden 17. Martina Topley Bird – Sandpaper Kisses 18. Flying Lotus – Tea Leaf Dancers 19. Emika – Drop The Other 20. Lhasa de Sela – J’Arrive À La Ville 21. Martina Topley-Bird – Poison
Imogen Heap is an angelic singer from Britain. Brasky Sweethearts have taken to her style, especially with her juxtaposition of nature and instruments on her sets.
“Since 2001 every year in April a growing number of people from all over Europe (23,500 in 2008) to the largest fantasy event in Europe organized the Elf Fantasy Fair. This event takes place around Castle Haarzuilens. Two thirds of these visitors have transformed themselves to Orc, magician, dragon, knight, vampire, elf, unicorn, gothic lolita, manga comic or a combination thereof. The costumes are every year find richer and useful arts. Among the thriving nature of the Chateau, which is the largest castle in the Netherlands, dipping the fantasy lovers are in a pleasant bath of medieval music, dance, lectures, theater performances and parades.” – Kee Spruijt
