TOBY BARNES: MUSCLE MEMORY

Interview by Alexi K, photos by Peter Heishrek, DHPA

Above: Body Electric, artworks and installations by Toby Barnes, at Locust Projects, Miami. 

Top: Chest, by Toby Barnes.

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Toby Barnes is an artist that I met when we were both taking part in a show in Tokyo, called Psionic Distortion. Staying at the Andon Ryokan, a well-known artist's hotel, I seem to recall that we spent the entire week getting horribly lost, partly due to the friendly and well-meaning locals - who obviously had no idea what these bewildered and confused Westerners were asking - and so they repeatedly sent us on wild goose chases to spare us any further humiliation. Our exhibition was specifically curated around the Asian influences in our work, and with that in mind, I thought it would be apt to catch up with fellow-traveller Toby, and feature his work in this edition of Future-Rocker. Here, we present pictures from Toby’s Locust Projects Miami show - a mixture of artworks and installations - entitled Body Electric. The exhibition references the artist’s teenage years in North Miami, where he and his friends would fashion homemade weights made out of found objects such as cement and pipes, with different weights being used to exercise specific muscle groups.

Toby, what's your background? Am I right in thinking your dad was in the military?

I'm Thai American.  My dad is from Midwest and my mom is from Thailand.  My dad dodged the draft as long as he could, and then eventually got drafted but ended up in Thailand.  He returned to Thailand after his service when he joined the Peace Corps, and that's when he met my mother who was working in the malaria labs.  They later settled in Miami where I was born and raised.

How do the places you have lived, inform your art?

I grew up mostly in Miami, but spent summers alternating between the Midwest and Asia, specifically Thailand.  My last show "The Pull of Things", at Volta NYC 2017 best explains how these places and travels inform my art.  It’s part of my method, and also provides the visual triggers that you see in it.  My paintings are like kaleidoscopic Rorschachs, mixing and blending images that I've drawn from both my travels in Asia, India, and South America, and images from my everyday life in the US. 

Knowing that our interests must coincide somewhat ( from having been in Psionic Distortion ), out of books, music, movies and comic-books which do you most enjoy, and which ones manifest in your art?

All of the above.  I love reading about mythology and world religions, and the visual language of mythology is how I get inspired.  For instance, the multiple heads and hands in Indian mythology, or hybrid figures like the Minotaur.  I love composites and figures that transform themselves. 

Below: Body Electric, artworks and installations by Toby Barnes, at Locust Projects, Miami.

Looking at your collages, is it all made from found media, or do you photograph or draw some elements, too?

My collages are mixed-media, but on a sliding scale: I don't want to be fixed into any approach imposed by any given, singular media.  So I use collage to mix digital photography, drawing and painting, but the extent of each one varies according to the work. 

Below: Center Body, by Toby Barnes.

What exactly is the process?

Every medium has their limitation but I've allowed myself to have freedom to expand, combine, and push the boundaries of what constitutes a particular media.  The focus of my challenge has been paintings, and I've sought to expand on what we understand by them.  In the beginning, I used to leave the medium of painting by turning to another medium, such as installation art or silk screening, and then come back to painting with a new approach.  Now I develop my approach from within painting.

Below: Thigh High Club, by Toby Barnes.

What are you working on right now?

I just finished a show this past month ("The Pull of Things", Volta NYC), and now I'm stepping back and thinking about the intersection of collage and painting.  I want to continue the investigation into the aesthetics of the painted surface.

Below: Shower With Flowers, by Toby Barnes.

 Finally Toby, what's the art scene like in Amherst, New York, where you live?

It's a college town, and actually this is the Five College area, so there are five around which gives me amazing access to exhibitions and talks.  I've loved recent exhibits at UMASS Amherst, including an ongoing one now by Kara Walker called "Emancipating the Past."  I'm also vibed from being in constant contact with academics across various disciplines.

Below: Salchi Papa, by Toby Barnes.

ACTION AUTEUR ILYA NAISHULLER DIRECTS NEW PROMO FOR LENINGRAD

'EVERYTHING WAS UNEXPECTED'

Singer, actor and director Ilya Naishuller was the man behind the hugely viral BITING ELBOWS' BAD MOTHERF**KER video ( as featured in Future-Rocker's first edition ), which was later crowdfunded into an expanded concept, becoming last year's cult cinema hit HARDCORE HENRY. Never a man to rest on his laurels, he now serves up another bar-raising promo classic, this time for the band LENINGRAD. Check out the spectacular results, and then scroll down for an update from the man himself:

FUTURE-ROCKER: Your Leningrad promo - at what point did you decide to do this backwards, or was it intended to be backwards right from the early planning stages?

I wrote the actual script backwards.

And did you storyboard it forwards to check that it would be coherent, then reverse everything?

Nope, storyboards were always drawn in reverse. But everything was filmed forwards, and we edited right on the set to check for how it works backwards.

It looks incredible - what percentage was green-screen, and what percentage was in-camera ‘real’ effects?

Ninety percent was in-camera, real stunt work.

So after having done a big budget film such as Hardcore Henry, was there still anything unexpected that you hadn’t foreseen while filming ‘Kolshik’?

Too much to mention, really. Everything was unexpected, with no references, as I was doing something that was never done well before. And of course, the jump from a five minute video to a ninety minute feature is a very interesting one.

What was it like working with ( DISTRICT 9 star ) Sharlto Copley?

Awesome! He's a true collaborator and works hard to get the best material possible.

So, Ilya, have you been been offered any other movies, off the back of that?

Yes.

Give us a scoop, then!

Top secret…for now. :)

OMOTE: INCREDIBLE REAL-TIME LIVE SPECIAL EFFECTS

FUTURE-ROCKER and our former sister mag MONOBLOG have featured some amazing optical illusions and video effects over the past couple of years, and this is no exception. What you will see in this clip, is real-world, real-time special effects. We predict you will be seeing a lot of this technology used in theater performances, live concerts, and musicals very soon..!

Omote is a 'collaboration between Japanese media artist Nobumichi Asai, makeup artist Hirohito Kuwahara, and digital image engineer Paul Lacroix'.

ON THE DECKS

This edition of FUTURE-ROCKER was powered by large doses of CIRCLE OF DUST.

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OBSYDIANS / SYBREED: UPDATE FROM THOMAS 'DROP' BETRISEY

NEWS ON OBSYDIANS, THEIR NEW VOCALISTS, AND SAMAEL!

As you may know from reading Future-Rocker's comprehensive interview with Thomas back in early 2016, the cyber-metal juggernaut that was SYBREED is no more. Ironically, interest in the band has grown since its cessation, due to an ever-growing army of admirers on Youtube, and no doubt aided by the French singer Rachel Aspe's herculean cover-version of one of Sybreed's best-known songs ( 'Emma-0' from 'Antares' which she did on the popular TV show France Has Got Talent ). It's clear that large numbers of people still listen to the back-catalogue.

With the vocalist Benjamin Nominet leaving for personal reasons, Thomas felt the focal point of the band went with him, and so decided to close the chapter on Sybreed, and build a new, updated-model, called OBSYDIANS. Retaining Sybreed's core musicians ( alongside Thomas, there is also Ales Campanelli on bass, and Kevin Choiral on drums ) Obsydians is apparently going to be very similar to the classic sound of 'Antares', with a notable exception: There will be three vocalists!

We will let Thomas pick up from where we left off last year...

Future-Rocker: Are you in the studio with Obsydians yet?

Drop: We are not in the studio at the moment, but things have moved forward a bit. We’ve finished 3 demos, and as we speak the singers are hard at work on them. We have Jon Howard from Threat Signal, Steve Fari from This Misery Garden, and Guillaume Bideau from One Way Mirror. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the different vocalists and their respective bands, we have included clips below. We're pretty excited, because none of them are run-of-the-mill choices. Thomas is obviously a man of singular vision, and knows that each will compliment his writing and producing.

Obsydians vocalist #1: Jon Howard

Obsydians vocalist #2: Steve Fari ( look closely and you'll see Thomas in the video ).

Obsydians vocalist #3: Guillaume Bideau

Future-Rocker: That is a stellar collection of singers for one band. They will definitely all be able to fit the original Sybreed blueprint and bring something completely new for Obsydians. How long will we have to wait until we hear a new track?

Drop: As soon as we have all the vocals and music, we’ll record everything and make the final versions. I really hope to be able to release one of these songs before the summer! But you know how tricky schedules are, even more when you work with people living in different parts of the globe. ( - Threat Signal are from Canada, This Misery Garden are Swiss, and One-Way Mirror are French. ) In the meantime we’ll finish some more demos, we have approximatively 8 more songs to be finished. ( Continued ).

Below: Thomas 'Drop' Betrisey playing bass on tour with SAMAEL.

Future-Rocker: With singers in three different bands in three different countries, it's surely going to be logistically difficult touring?

Drop: Obsydians is not really a live band. If we’ll have to play some shows, I will surely ask only one singer to sing for them all.

Here at Future-Rocker we suspect that summer festival dates will be the most likely place to witness an Obsydians performance. You never know, more than one vocalist could be available if his other band is also playing on the same bill. 

When we last checked-in with Drop, he was sitting under a palm tree in Mexico, telling us about achieving his teenage dream of joining his favourite band, Swiss industrialists SAMAEL. Shortly after that, he was delighted to be joining his new bandmates on the 2016 '70,000 Tons of Metal Tour', a yearly metal festival that navigates the Caribbean aboard a cruise-ship.

Future-Rocker: How was the 70,000 Tons tour?

The 70,000 Tons was amazing man. Really cool times, met a lot of nice people. Smoked some green in Jamaica, all good...I really hope we can go back to perform on that "boat" soon.

So you're still with Samael?

For sure I’m still with Samael. We just signed a deal with Napalm Records, and we are gonna release the new album later this year. 

With the intense sound of Sybreed, and also in your guise as producer-for-hire for bands such as Clawerfield, Nakaruga and This Misery Garden, has it ever been suggested that you produce a Samael album?

Haha, the producer and mastermind of Samael is Xy, and I think he does this job really well. So the future will tell what’s gonna happen production-wise.

Cool. Any other big festival tours lined up for Samael?

We have confirmed California Deathfest on October 14th 2017, and we hope that some dates in the US will follow.

Thanks for the update, Drop. A lot of fans will be very happy to know that you've got some new music coming out this year.

Thanks, man! Cheers.

SKOLD: CAREER RETROSPECTIVE

Few musicians get to navigate the fickle music industry as successfully as Tim Skold. Here we present the promo video from his latest solo release. After that, Future-Rocker will guide you through some of the many high-points of his career...

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1 ) Skold's band Kingpin emulate the Glam Metal sound and look of the era, and move from Sweden to LA to capitalise on the scene. There they sign with guitar-shredding label Relativity, and re-release their debut album under their new name, Shotgun Messiah, in 1989.


 


2 ) Skold takes over on lead vocals, as Shotgun consolidate with their follow-up album, Second Coming, in 1991.

3 ) The times are a-changing: By 1993, MTV and the rest of the media has changed its focus and so grunge is in, Hair Metal is out...but what is also getting big is Industrial music, which by now has begun to adopt a more 'metal' guitar sound. Converging with that, Shotgun close their career with 'Violent New Breed', an explosive blast of intense industrial rock that was ahead of its time.





4 ) Amidst many side projects, solo releases and collaborations, Skold's next big hook-up is with notable German industrial band, KMFDM ( re-booted for a short time as MDFMK ). Skold works alongside bandleader Sascha Konietzko in various iterations from 1997 to 2009. Here he is writing, playing and contributing lead vocals.

5 ) Skold's first stint with Marilyn Manson is as producer on the single Tainted Love. He then joins Manson's band after the departure of Twiggy Ramirez, contributing writing, guitars and production. Skold is with Manson from 2001 to 2007.

SKOLD ON TWITTER

SKOLD ON FACEBOOK

BRAND-NEW CELLDWELLER TRACK! : ELECTRIC EYE

Fantastic new track, and long overdue amongst Klayton's myriad other projects.

Can't wait for a new Celldweller album..!

THIS MONTH: REVISITING SOME CONTEMPORARY PROMO CLASSICS!

Featuring Carpenter Brut, Huntress and Rob Zombie. Keep scrolling for updates and clips about TRON:LEGACY, ALIEN:COVENANT, indie sci-fi, new electronica and more!

DIRECTED BY PHIL MUCCI : RETRO-STYLED HARD ROCK FROM HUNTRESS & MONSTER MAGNET

Chronology: Zenith, 2013; The Duke, 2013; Sorrow, 2016. 

PHIL MUCCI ON TWITTER

PHIL MUCCI / DIABOLIK FILMS HOMEPAGE

DIRECTED BY SETH ICKERMAN : RETRO-STYLED SYNTH ROCK FROM CARPENTER BRUT

Exactly one year ago FUTURE-ROCKER featured this mind-blowing music video from the French promo whiz-kids known collectively as SETH ICKERMAN. Here, we re-present it to you in case you missed it first time around. Then, below, you will see them talking about fundraising for their new project entitled BLOOD MACHINES / TURBO KILLER 2.

( Apologies for not being able to show the no-ads VIMEO version, will post at a later date if terms and conditions change ).

CAN'T GET ENOUGH? WATCH THE CLIP BELOW AND THEN CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR NEXT COLLABORATION VIA KICKSTARTER!



CLICK HERE FOR THE SETH ICKERMAN & CARPENTER BRUT KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN!

SETH ICKERMAN STUDIO WEBSITE

SETH ICKERMAN ON TWITTER