The go-to mixer for Toronto acts such as TR/ST, Austra and Doldrums is launching a record label with a single by experimental electronic artist Petra Glynt.
Headed by Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based producer Damian Taylor, Vibe Over Method is a digital-only label that will put out new music every three weeks.
The inaugural release, This Trip, is the lead single from Glynt’s forthcoming album and features a dub mix by Taylor under his Stone Lions alias on the b-side.
“This Trip is a great sample of what’s amazing about Petra Glynt,” he says. “It’s intensely passionate, multi-faceted, intricately intertwined, hypnotic, unconventional, completely rewarding of immersion, mysterious and full of momentum.”
Taylor, who’s worked with Björk, the Killers and Arcade Fire, spent the past seven years running Golden Ratio studio in Montreal. He plans on releasing singles, EPs, albums and long-form or non-conventional formats. Musically, the label will explore “wild, ragged, visceral, transcendental and uplifting experimental” sounds.
“I’m really fascinating with the tension between pop music and the underground,” he says. “I want to release crazy weird long bits of music that you put on in the background and lock your brain into a subjectivity shift. “Part of me is looking forward to doing amazing singles that are three or four minutes long with a great singer, and then part of me can’t wait to do the hour-long song.”
Vibe Over Method’s first release falls on the more lo-fi and punk end of the spectrum compared with work for which Taylor is best known. He met multimedia artist and musician Glynt – aka Alexandra Mackenzie – a year and a half ago in his studio through Doldrums’ Airick Woodhead. Mackenzie, who moved from Toronto Montreal last year, has been trying to find ways to work with Taylor since.
“I wrote the song when Stephen Harper was prime minister. Now that Trump is the president of the United States, it still has the same potency,” she explains. “It’s about waking up from the various distractions around us. When it comes to Trump, we have all these coping mechanisms for dealing with him in power. We laugh, we make jokes, but the reality is it’s terrifying, so the song is an urgent reminder of where our world is headed.”
Listen to the single below.
kevinr@nowtoronto.com | @kevinritchie
