The Brvtalist: For those that don't know, tell us about your music history and the start of the Sydney Valette project.
Sydney Valette: Well SV is my name and I began making computer based music around 2005 (I have a classical/jazz piano background). I was a student in philosophy, soon turning to fine arts, so I was also drawing/painting and doing some photos at that time. Music took over step by step, and when a label was interested in what I was doing, around 2009, I had the perfect excuse to drop everything else. My first album was released in 2011 which was a recollection of all those years since 2005. It was ultra DIY - I didn’t have any synths, even midi synths, no microphone besides the computer’s and all I had was just a crappy Lenovo with Cubase and a mouse. I was doing 8bit Electro pop, influenced by Crystal Castles, Kap Bambino, Metronomy, etc. but sometimes it went more on the experimental side, like deconstructed ambient music with words I don’t know how to describe. After that, I kept on doing it and four other albums came after and here we are in 2020.
TB: Your sound is nostalgic but maintains a fresh modernity. Talk about the balance between channeling influences from the past and still bringing the sound into the future.
SV: Well, no big news we children of the 80’s often like music from that time, and I'm no exception. I began listening to a lot of minimal wave/synth punk music around 2010. I fell in love with the sound, the simplicity of it and of course the format - 1 bass, 1 synth, a drum machine and vocals. To me, that was the perfect way to express oneself as a bedroom artist. This sense of immediacy and intimacy grabs impressions very swiftly and brings them back into a machine. Since then, other influences have been especially rave music/gabber, industrial techno, so I tried building something between those genres, which I think Brothers is the reflection. I have some difficulties with channeling what I do into one style, because I think of EPs and albums as stories with different layers and colors.
TB: You latest 12", Brothers, is out on Ocáculo Records (a great label). Tell us about crafting the release and any concepts or themes behind it.
SV: It was supposed to be out a bit later this year but I told Nico from Oráculo that it would be a good idea to release it now, during these weird times. The last 2-3 years have been very full in terms of releases: there was Fight Back in February 2018, How Many Lives my 5th album in February 2019, then the Russian EP in November, a How Many Lives remix album in February 2020, and now Brothers. So that’s 5 releases in 2 years! I think Brothers has more of a concept behind it than previous releases as a consequence of the present situation: political manipulation, global warming, strikes, bombings, wars, the pandemic, etc. it’s pretty hectic time. I think we now link our lives more to the global situation than before, which is good and so Brothers is a way of trying to link myself to others, and think of our future in new ways.
