EIGHTCUBED with DYLAN T, FAWN BIG CANOE, HOUSE ARREST, FAYMEZ at Smiling Buddha (961 College), Saturday (August 25). $5. 416-516-2531, www.tribemagazine.com Rating: NNNNN
Eightcubed sounds a little surprised that he’s being interviewed.
True, the electronic musician only has one independent EP to his name and is flying way below the radar, but his whimsical lo-fi beats are strangely addictive and worth paying attention to.
Considering that this interview comes just before his first NYC gig, you can see why, as he’s answering my questions, he starts laughing at his sudden good fortune.
For the past two years he’s been honing a sound that brings together his long-time loves of punk rock and tech house with his newer interest in electro and video-game-inspired 8-bit sounds.
“I love the 8-bit stuff because it’s related to video games, and I love video games. Video games are related to stories, and stories are related to fantasy.
“It really comes down to my urge to tell stories, and I find that right now music is the medium I want to use to do that. I’ve done visual art as well as acting and theatre, but music is where I want to be right now. It allows me to bring everything else together.”
Instrumental electronic music isn’t the most straightforward medium for relating narratives. Eightcubed claims that he wants to keep his storytelling abstract, but it’s also apparent that he’s itching to take it to the next level and be more than just another laptop musician.
“Music is very emotional, and I think it always tells a story. It can bring you somewhere but doesn’t have to explain the details – it just gives you a mood or a sense and you fill in the rest.”
“Right now it’s just me and a computer, but I’m slowly moving toward having a microphone, and I want to start getting my actor, dancer and musician friends into it, too, and get them to come onstage to do stuff.”
Eightcubed talks about characters coming up to the mic to deliver monologues during the breakdowns and his desire to bring more of his theatre background into the stage show as well.
Fairly ambitious stuff considering that it wasn’t much more than a year ago that he was, by his own admission, flailing in his first attempts to bring his bedroom productions to the stage.
benjaminb@nowtoronto.com
