Since arriving on the electronic scene in 2008, David Psutka has never been one to compromise. The Toronto-based producer has attempted to reconfigure club music with his brittle digital drones and phosphorous textures, collaborating and releasing albums under the names ANAMAI, Ceramic TL and Egyptrixx, the latter supplanted by his latest project, ACT!, in 2018.
Psutka’s improvised approach demands each album starts with a blank canvas; therefore it’s of little surprise that his second ACT! album Strange Bounty/About Life should take a striking left turn. Primarily written on guitar and processed via a series of MIDI converters and modular manipulations, the addition of vocals lends the album a bizarre familiarity amidst its tonal anarchy.
How have you found running your Halocline Trance label through this difficult period?
“Like most people, at the beginning of the pandemic I felt like I was at a crossroads, especially in terms of what I wanted to do with the label. Initially, it was created to facilitate my own work because I’ve created a lot of eclectic projects over the years and it made sense to give them a home base. However, the pandemic seemed like a good moment to open the label up to other artists because I feel there’s a real appetite to generate music at present.”
Why did you retire your Egyptrixx project and create ACT! for the majority of your releases now?
“Egyptrixx felt like it had reached its natural arc, although I’m not sure if it’s been completely retired as I
