Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Interview with Evolve

Ambient soundscapes, noise, and hip-hop are all part of Evolve's magic bag of tricks to make you nod your head and think. Social-political lyrics and a desire to yield and inspire an overall communal experience and effort mark this Cincinnati group as another shining point rising in the deep underground. With their debut LP "Beyond Limits Being Human" (Realicide Youth Records) and their follow up "Once It Was Easy To Give Up Everything We Had and Wander Before The Streets Were Venomous: We Walk" (Tanzprocesz) in hand, Evolve look to take their art and message to the road. Ithaca Underground's Pete Ives chats up with Colin (CM) and Dominic (Freakone) on the eve of their Ithaca debut.

IU: How would you describe yourself and what you mess around with in Evolve?

Colin: I would describe it as an experimental electronic media project set to examine the experimentation of electronic media and how that electronic media is used within the context of modern society to control and coerce people and how we can use the same media to counteract that control and project our own realities into the general consciousness - lyric based electronic music.

IU: Which members make up Evolve?

Colin: Myself, Freak Ones, (Mavis) Concave, Larvae Lou, Robert Inhuman of Realicide, Bunk News, plus many collaborations with other artists.

IU: How long has the group been active?

Colin: Approximately six years.

IU: Where are you located?

Colin: Cincinnati, Ohio

IU: How have your recent shows been going?

Colin: Pretty good, we have been getting real good reception in town and largely. It's been good out of town, it's just a matter of doing it more. Some people don't come out because we haven't been there before.. just got to start a network. For the most part, it’s been decent.

IU: Will this be your first time playing in Ithaca?

Colin: Yes, our first time, definitely.

IU: What inspires you musically?

Colin: A lot of different things.. I'm really inspired by the audio cut-out work of William Burrows and more, philosophically applying that to all sounds and just taking all these small bits of information through electronic boxes. I'm into all types of music, so, even if I'm using a synthesizer or anything with more of an organic sound, it becomes more of a collage process, and, I guess I'm inspired more by the collage process than by musical artists.

IU: How would describe Evolve’s writing process?

Colin: Sometimes lyrics are written first because we are all people who write frequently, just like an exercise or meditation. Sometimes, we have a beat and we mix-match or I'll have a beat and well bounce back-and-forth with lyrics. We try different patterns and sometimes things happen randomly.

IU: What are your goals for Evolve?

Colin: Try and play everywhere in the US, essentially, and Canada… and then just go from there. We'd like to use this project to explore the world and hopefully have uplifting experiences with individuals we would have never met otherwise.

Dominic (Freakone): I want to see my own perception and my own view of the world change some, try to build a community of people who want to know what existence and the spirit of human redemption are about, bringing back a natural order, really think about things in logical ways, use music and art as a media outlet in hopes that we will also effect each other's medias, connect with a lot of people who are interested in art and music in general and all the ideas and catalyst in movement, and using media as a way to communicate ideas.

Evolve will be playing this Wednesday, March 10th at The Shop with Robot Detective and Blow!

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