Egyptrixx Talks New Album, DIY Management and His New Label

BY Scott SimpsonPublished Jan 26, 2015

You'd think that launching a record label and releasing a new full-length album would be enough to keep David Psutka, a.k.a. Egyptrixx, busy throughout the next year, but clearly that isn't the case. While the release of the third Egyptrixx album, Transfer of Energy [Feelings of Power], is exciting, Psutka tells Exclaim! that he has a slew of other projects on the table that are equally invigorating. Least of which is his departure from Night Slugs, the label home for previous two releases, and the launch of his own record label, Halocline Trance, which will release Transfer of Energy [Feelings of Power] on February 9.

"The Egyptrixx project is quite a weird specific thing, and I think that in order for it to really grow freely it needs its own label, or it needs something without its own community, or theme attachment, which was an issue with some of the other labels I was on," Psutka tells Exclaim! "Night Slugs is and always will be inherently club music, 12-inch singles, DJ tools, these kind of things, and Egyptrixx is not really that at all."

He does clarify, however, that he maintains a close relationship to Night Slugs and remains a fan of their releases.

But now Psutka is almost entirely self-managed, having fired much of his team a while back. With a laugh, he recalls having a "DIY realization a year ago that the music business is full of really incompetent, useless, obsolete people. With social media and a bit of business sense, you can do a lot of it on your own while keeping a lot more money for yourself. I think that if you have very specific, unconventional objectives for your project, then dealing with mainstream industry people is a total fucking waste of time.

"Swans released their first six albums on six different labels," he continues, noting that with every release came a barrage of misnomers, such as "East Village noise punk band" and "alternative rock band," until founder Michael Gira decided to go it alone, which "allowed him to be a bit more release-positive" — something Psutka hopes to achieve through his own label.

When asked about releasing material from other artists, Psutka is open to the idea, but nevertheless happy to maintain it as a platform for his own material as Egyptrixx, as well as one of his many side-projects, Hiawatha, which he confirms is still very much alive. He's also finished production work on the debut album of Toronto drone-folk project Animai, slated for release this March, and has a number of tour dates already booked, keeping him on the road until the summer.

"I'm a lot more at ease with live performances and try to bring a serenity to touring, which makes it definitely more fun and also makes for better performances and experiences, and I try to bring that along with any project I'm involved with."

Considering the magnitude of some of the performances supporting A/B Til Infinity, the prospect is all the more enticing.

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