By Kevin McDevitt, News Correspondent
Psychedelevator is a collective of eight Northeastern student musicians who collaborate to create music as both bands and solo acts; they support each other to record songs, mix tracks, run a group website and produce CDs. The eight members of the Psychedelevator collective each have an equal voice: there is no president, or chief decision maker, said senior music technology and Psychedelevator member Nate Belasco. They are also purveyors of eclectic music.
Their new sampler, “Wintry Mix,” features a variety of genres including hip-hop, rock ‘n’ roll, electronic, ambient, and classical. It contains 15 tracks and can be downloaded for free online. Each track showcases a band or solo project – the eight members of the Psychedelevator collective perform all of the music on the CD.
“There’s been a general progression. The first stuff we released was pretty crude sounding,” said Ian Headley, a senior music technology major and Psychedelevator member. “But this latest compilation is a highlight for us because every song on the album shows how each artist has grown artistically and technically.”
Since its incarnation, the focus of the Psychedelevator project has shifted.
“Originally, we imagined that Psychedelevator would function as a record label,” said Mark Aylward, senior music technology major and Psychedelevator member.
Faced with the reality that they didn’t have the resources to function like a label by seeking out and signing new artists, the group focused on maximizing their internal talent, said Psychedelevator member James Staub, a junior media design and music technology major.
By re-envisioning the record label as a musical collective, the collaborative endorsed a do-it-yourself mentality, said Sarah Fylak, a member of Psychedelevator and senior music technology major. This applied not only to the recording and mixing of their music, but the creation and management of their website, she said.
“Everything we do is internally done,” Headley said, “We built the website all by ourselves, we mixed all our albums, we never outsourced it. We rely on the skills we’ve learned from school and from each other.”
Their website features posts of upcoming shows, streaming music, free downloads and videos. The interactive section features an Orchestral Percussion Library that allows visitors to play and download samples that have been used in Psychedelevator music. The most recent posting highlights a flexatone, a marimba roll and a snare crescendo used in “Pirate Party,” a song by Mammox, a band comprised of Psychedelevator members. This is posted to show how samples fit in the final product.
“We’re trying to have more features on the site that welcome people and engage them, and get them to participate,” Staub said.
Belasco said the collective emphasizes transparency.
“A lot of electronic music producers are very secretive,” Belasco said. “They don’t reveal their techniques or their samples. We want to just show people – here’s how we did this. De-mystify.”
Fylak said Psychedelevator wants to make their music accessible to average listeners.
“I think people who are top-40 listeners would have a difficult time accepting our music at first – because it is so different,” Headley said. “That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t like it though.”
