BIT PEOPLE: Nitepunk
OMEST BIT
Please welcome Nitepunk, aka Lasha Mamulashvili, an electronic musician from the bright city of Georgia, Tbilisi, who currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Throughout his life, he interacted closely with sound. In the very beginning, he listened to the songs his parents showed him, expressed himself through dancing, but then he devoted himself entirely to composing music. His music was released on major music labels such as Never Say Die, HARD Recs, Disciple, UKF, Subsidia, etc.
"Music is an infinite number of variations and possibilities. That's not to say that I consider dance to be limited. It's just the fact that the creative product can potentially reach everyone in this world. And this is of great value to me. Kind of a call to grow through research and learning in this particular area. However, there are no former dancers. I'm constantly moving to whatever rocks me".
Nitepunk's rich track record is built on insane mixes of childish headbanging to The Prodigy, swirling vocal samples, piercing bass manipulations, and the use of different percussion parts from time to time. In a nutshell, a bass producer's reference. Anyway, it's interesting to know the secret of such professionalism, rather than scrupulously delving into the matchbook. Lasha's answer was extremely surprising. He said that he could literally "see the sound," while his father "tastes words" though (the question of genetic predisposition can be considered closed). This phenomenon in science is called "synaesthesia" - the brain mixes external incoming signals with each other due to the peculiarities of the nerve pathways.
"I like to think that my sound is literally visual. This is how I conceive sound - with colors and textures. It's important for me to build an atmosphere, a unique environment, using a huge amount of melodies and noises. In fact, I'm just painting in the track creation process. When I equalize or compress, I see the different colored lines wiggling, their character, their direction. Each finished piece looks to me like a huge painting to hang on the wall".
One of the works of Nitepunk together with Zachary Breindel (CG) and David Gogokhia (Editing, VFX) allows us to get closer to understanding this phenomenon. In 3 months they recreated the visuals that accompanied the writing of the composition "Flow".
"Colors are one of the most important components of the project. The coloring of the video elements was chosen to be as similar as possible to what Lasha saw when he created this composition. In the first stage of the visualization, he created a manual for us, which we used when choosing one shade or another" — Zachary Breindel.
Aiming at an understanding of what was the impetus for the huge change in Lasha's life, I found out some curious information. At the age of 15, he posted a video on YouTube that serves an almost decisive role in the future, and local television even devoted an entire report to this event. The thing is that under the video was left a nice, but unremarkable for an average person comment by a stranger with the nickname punchrobert. To make it clear. In 2008 dancers were going crazy when "Step Up 2: The Streets" came out. Many of us will remember the main character named Chase, aka Robert Hoffman, doing knee spins in the rain. It certainly looks naive and funny today, but it doesn't diminish the emotion at the moment when you are praised by your childhood idol.
The already charged ambition hit the head even harder while watching the Dubstep dance team perform on a Georgian TV talent show.
"It blew my mind. I definitely hadn't heard anything like that before. The hi-hats, the baseline, the whole thing sounded just wow. Also, thanks to synesthesia, I could see everything with my eyes. The metal sounds were wriggling and transforming and twisting. I imagined these guys making music in a deep underground with industrial equipment. The picture was too evident".
The chain of events outlined above blurred all doubts about moving to the US. It was January 2015, and I had a tourist visa. I had a small amount of savings in my bag. Ahead was a long-distance flight to NY.
"I've always dreamed of New York. I grew up on movies like Spider-Man and Ninja Turtles. I love Georgia and my people very much, but it's still a very narrow-minded country, which doesn't allow me to come out of the shell. Art has nowhere to go. I've played a lot of crazy underground raves. In fact, we created a whole community from scratch. When I reached a high where I could, I mean performing at major festivals and recording in top studios, I hit a glass ceiling. I wanted to be on the music scene with the producers and people I had always been looking for. Not to be successful, but self-sufficient to live it".
However, the biography of our hero shows that there is not always space for romance in life. No documents. Lasha rented a room from a friend in Tbilisi. Money flowed out like water. Personal life was total confusion. Fear settled in his heart. Being a ghost in the city of dreams was not a good prospect. Measures had to be taken. Lasha began working with his lawyer to applying for an EB-1A "extraordinary ability" green card.
After 10 months of the hardest bureaucratic maneuvering, everything has worked out. Lasha Mamulashvili became a permanent resident of the US (but this year he's gonna be a full-fledged citizen). Engaged in various musical activities, and with the help and mentorship of Robert Hoffman, the name Nitepunk was on the radar of the entire East Coast. The young producer worked hard to develop his sound and create something that would set him apart from the rest.
"Daydreams and reality joined together. There is nothing I can do but be endlessly grateful. It was the most stressful period of my life, but the dream was stronger. Even as a child, I knew that whatever I did in life - whether it was writing dance music or making something else - I wanted to do it here".
This note is written on the eve of the release of the music video for the track "MTV", where Nitepunk sets things right, gives an idea of what most excites him in his work, outlines the future.
"My goal is to move around the globe, play music, get to know new people and catch crazy experiences with them. There's something exciting and magical about sharing music with an audience as with the one collective consciousness, doing it through shows and energetic performances around the world. It's something I want to do throughout my life. I don't know if I'll ever get tired of it. I want to try my hand at fashion design, movie/game soundtracks and futuristic visual art. These are my dreams".
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