Revealed to the world by their ravaging "Compuphonic Intelligence" first EP on World Electric, Justin Maxwell (Vol) & Jean Paul Bondy (Soc) handle with art creativity, crazyness and irony. A different musical approach from others currents artists if you consider this not so serious but conceptual exclusive interview with Los Angeles duo.

- Atome: Volsoc, nice to meet you and congratulations for your brilliant sound. Well, with one EP on World Electric and two tracks on NIT and Belief-Systems over the last few weeks, end of the year should be good for you, shouldn't it?
- Volsoc: The end of the year was very good for us. As most of your planet enters a consumer spending frenzy to celebrate their primitive superstitions, we find they are most susceptible to subsonic mind control. To take advantage of this, we have begun our releases with our Compuphonic Intelligence EP on World Electric and Needleintuit 12" on Noodles Institute of Technology, followed by more releases with World Electric and Remote Audio. Through a lot of great reviews, press, and lots of support from people with good taste in music, we've had an excellent end to 2002.

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- A.: Could you introduce yourself a little bit more? Where are u both from? How and when did you come to electronic music? What's your musical background?
- V.: Our current base is in the metropolitarian ghettopia of Los Androides, but our biomechanical arms reach far beyond the outer-galactic regions of the Milky Way. Therefore, it is safe to assume we are everywhere and nowhere. It is also safe to assume we are hovering silently above your planet right now, watching you read this interview. Before we began hovering over planets destroying civilizations with bass, the core Volsoc entities gained years of experience in percussion, sound design, programming, scoring, composition and performance. While our backgrounds do draw influence from many disciplines, we aim to abandon direct influence and accepted theory. Our methods have been primarily funded by multinational media conglomerates, many of which are based in the entertainment sector of Los Androides.

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- A.: Could you introduce Volsoc concept? What is the artistic and musical line? How would you describe your music?
- V.: Volsoc is all music, yet sounds like nothing you've heard before. Volsoc uses only the most sophisticated of your technologies, aesthetics and intelligence. We encompass all sound. We are the Future Sound of Volsoc; we are Volsoc Punk. We defy genre and classification. Unlike earthlings who aspire to one sound, we incorporate the organic and synthetic in one angry, robotic, deconstructed, multi-dimensional, tongue-in-chic audio collage.

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- A.: How did you hooked up altogether? What's your purpose and how do your share the work with music?
- V.: Our purpose is outer-galactic superiority, plain and simple. We offer a challenge to the electro community to raise their aesthetic bar. The world already has Anthony Rother, Carl Finlow, the Hacker and Drexciya. Volsoc encourages all electro humans to push their sound further and be more creative, inventive, interesting and diverse. If you don't, prepare for takeover. We both contribute equally to all aspects of audio and video transmission. the vol and the soc units both have their areas of trained expertise, but our subtle differences are undetectable with human eyes and incomprehensible with the human mind.

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- A.: Where do you find your inspiration? Who writes the vocals?
- V.: Our inspiration comes from everywhere. We mostly like to take what you electro humans have to offer, give it some life, some (dis)order and a lot of deliberate sarcasm. We take what many call "electro" and regurgitate it, stomp on it, teleport it back to our spacecraft and retransmit it, leaving only the finest points and making sense out of the sonic mess. The vocals are simply one channel of the transmission, a combination of efforts from all involved.

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- A.: Who is the artist you never worked with and you'd like to in a near future?
- V.: We are currently brainwashing many different artists, and recruiting only the most advanced and sophisticated programmers. Si Begg, Carl Finlow, Andreas Bolz, Fuel and the San Fransisco units Jeff Taylor and Bass Kittens...these are the battledroids all others should fear. There are still a few skilled UK bots who have not yet become entwined in our web of global domination and some others who need to be served a tasty bowl of Volsoc Remix Cereal. All in due time.

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- A.: Other than that, you seem to be at ease with Internet and Multimedia. Your site has already a strong graphic identity. Do you consider graphic elements as important as Volsoc music? Could you describe what .Volsoc Construction Kit. is about?
- V.: Graphic and visual identity is merely one facet of Volsoc superiority. We can't really describe what the Construction Kit is about, though. It's an ongoing string of confusion, behind which no-one has discovered any reason. But, by releasing products online, such as Dr. Awesome's newest formulation of Solvocex and Volsoc Elite identification paraphernalia (see picture), we plan to help ease the transition everyone will go through once the Volsoc plan begins to take hold. We'll be launching a new version of the site soon, although we've been unable to contact Dr. Awesome since he disrupted our surveillance and escaped two months ago.

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- A.: You seem to be fascinated with computers, machines and synthesizers. How do you explain this? Which instruments do you own?
- V.: The Volsoc Class B (Type: BassGenerator) Cruisers are equipped with complex arsenals of sound generation devices. Our forces employ many types of synthesis and wave construction, ranging from archaic modular subtractive devices to the most complex digital technology available. Maintaining this wide generative capability across the audio spectrum is vital to Volsoc. Without divulging too much information (and without providing unpaid advertising for the companies who manufacture our tools), we do use a lot of different software and hardware. Advanced technology has always been a primary focus of the Volsoc Empire, as evident in our audio and video transmissions.

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- A.: Let's talk about your local scene. Do you encounter troubles with promoting electronic music in LA? Is it hard to explain what you intend to do? How would you describe LA scene?
- V.: It's...cute. The underground scene is Los Androides is not underground. It is the amalgamation of yesterday's trends; a counter-culture that has been changed into an over-the-counter-culture in just a few short human years. As a receptacle for the "undergrounds" that other cities have already popularized, Los Androides has long been dead in many ways. Is it hard to explain what we intend to do? Not at all. We intend to leave it the way it is, for now.

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- A.: How do you judge worldwide electro movement?
- V.: Watching Earth's electro movement has been quite enjoyable. San Francisco, London, Berlin, Paris and Miami all contain incredible producers, deejays and music scenes. We have learned so much from what these humans have done. It will be sad to see their little faces when we take what they've done and use it against them.

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- A.: What are your next musical projects? Any solo project?
- V.: The Volsoc Empire's influence will continue to propagate, focusing primarily on electro transmissions. We plan to release some straight-beat and ambient material in the near future, as well. In addition, the Vol division has prepared a variant form of sonic control. This phase, represented under the moniker, "Volum", aims to establish positive telepathic persuasion in individuals responding to lower pulserates.

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- A.: Few words for the electro community?
- V.: Give up.
www.volsoc.com
Nexus 6, 27/01/2003