Watch: Polygrains - Maoist Chestnuts
Real name Vasilis Moschas, Greek musician Polygrains is the sole musician, singer, producer, and distributor of his music. An alumni of the Contemporary Conservatory of Thessaloniki, he also graduated from the London College of Music with a degree in Popular Music Performance, capturing our attention previously with his track Now I Know.
Ahead of his appearance at Dummy Presents on February 18th, Polygrains returns with the video exclusive for his assembly line inspired track Maoist Chestnuts. A trippy walk through Kathmandu, the warping visuals go hand in hand with the playful and industrial sound of the composition. A sound so infectious, that we were just waiting for somebody to body pop down an alleyway.
We caught up with Polygrains in anticipation of his set to find out a little more about Maoist Chestnuts and what 2016 brings.
Hi Polygrains – tell us a little bit more about yourself. How was your year?
Polygrains: "It was interesting, I was lucky enough to play some nice European festivals such as Eurosonic (NL) and Europavox (FR), and I also released an album last October, called 'Screen Fever'."
Where are you from and how did you get into producing electronic music?
Polygrains: "I was born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece and I moved to London in 2005 to study Popular Music Performance at London College of Music. Music Production was part of my studies and this is how I became more acquainted with production techniques and electronic music-making."
How would you describe your sound? Do you fit into any genre pigeon holes or do you aim to subvert these?
Polygrains: "Genres-categorisation-classification is a way to make life easier. They are justified up to a certain extent and artists sometimes try to stick with them because it makes their marketability easier. However, as I'm not attached to any contract or have no obligation whatsoever, I have the freedom to play with music, its "materials" and forms, and make my music sometimes sound more pop, sometimes more noisy and raw, always playful, but I don't think in any case that I subvert any of these norms."
"Genres-categorisation-classification is a way to make life easier." – Polygrains
What is the concept behind Maoist Chestnut? What does the title mean?
Polygrains: "Maoist Chestnuts came to my mind as a kind of mechanical rhythm (resembling the precision of a Maoist assembly line) with a chestnut-like sound that reminds of the percussive sounds and rhythm of this track."
What were you trying to achieve with the video? The visuals are super trippy, where was it filmed?
Polygrains: "The video was made by Kostas Chritis, one of the people behind standout electronic music labels like Echovolt Records and Into The Light, and also a member of Super8mm Beatnik Ethnographic Institute.
The footage has been taken from his last year trip in Kathmandu. He used this material in a bubbly, and heavily pixelated manner in order to visually convey the cartoonily exotic and oversaturated playfulness of this specific track."
What does 2016 hold for Polygrains?
Polygrains: "I have almost finished a new album, so there will definitely be more music."
If you could transport back in time to live and work in the particular era, when would you choose and what would you do?
Polygrains: "I would like to be sent back to the jurassic period and I would like to be a huge rock or something, so I could watch all these amazing dinosaur battles and stuff happening around without being in danger of being eaten or crushed under a huge foot. The worst thing that could happen is that I could have been pooped on by one and it would be horrible too I guess, but still bearable."
Any famous last words?
Polygrains: "The other day I blew my nose so hard that my right eye filled up with tears. It was very weird. I also listened to this album a lot. Mind-blowing."
Polygrains plays Miranda, Ace Hotel London on February 18th as part of Dummy Presents alongside Club Kuru, Burhou and Tidelines (free with RSVP).
