Mindex channels landscapes from a far off planet whose creatures and inhabitants travel light-years to reach the listener’s third eye and ear. His complex abilities with sound production allow him to draw every shape, color and movement with it’s own unique character; taking form in melodic patterns, textured layers, and extremely detailed automations of modern synthesizers and effects to create a 4 dimensional topography for your mind to digest.
He carefully constructs crystalline grids of sonic geometry into moments in time. Combining elements of every style of electronic and acoustic music, he has acquired his own recognizable signature sound that makes the dance floors shake with heavy bass along with catchy beats and leads. At the moment, the galactic rabbit hole he has gone down is dominated by influences of Jazz, Funk, Classical Music, Middle Eastern Music, GlitchHop and Dubstep.
With each release, Mindex presents his listeners with musical innovations, always surprising them with his newest explorations in sound. His sonic canvases have been showcased on various labels around the world. His highly acclaimed Teleport EP was released on Kalya Scintilla’s Merkaba Music in 2013. He has also released on respected labels such as Deep Heads Records, Glitch Hop Community, Loodma Recordings and the label in which he founded, Time Resonance Music. Mindex has several tracks out in compilations with other labels as well, along side many modern day sonic alchemists. Mindex has played his euphonious tunes around the globe at many indoor and outdoor festivals and shows in Russia, USA, Ukraine, Spain, Turkey, Israel, India, and Indonesia. In April 2014, he opened for 30 Seconds to Mars for a crowd of over 15,000 in St. Petersburg. Get to know him further in our interview together below.
1. In Search of Truth (Remindex)
2. Alien Shaman
3. Tickling Neurons
4. Silver Void
5. Dream Stalking
6. Quantum Disco
7. Triceratops Furiosity
8. Prism Splitter
9. Old Good Days
10. Red Woods
[LIS] Tell us what Mindex stands for and what made you chose that name for this project?
[Mindex] I am working at least in 2-3 different musical directions. First direction is a transformational, sacred mid-tempo bass, where I am using lot of “outer space” frequencies. Second direction is a funky-jazzy 110 bpm glitch-hop or 140 bpm steppy music. It is all about big jazz chords, lots of Rhodes piano or up-right piano improvisations, crazy glitches, neuro basses, micro edits etc. And third direction is very chill, smooth and deep downtempo, very mellow.
So, one part of me is standing for bringing people to higher states of consciousness, helping to travel through inner and outer space, discover new dimensions. Another part of me really wants crowd to have as much fun as possible, get crazy and freaky, dance like weirdos. I love to see how people doing crazy funny things on a dance floor. I feel like that is one of the happiest moments in my life when i can see that.
I chose this name for my project about 12 years ago when I was starting to work on my own music. My old friend suggested me to try Mind Explorer. With time, it shortened to Mindex, which is I think more flexible name. It could mean Mind Explorer-Expander-Explosion etc. So I felt that I am resonating with this name and kept it.
[LIS] What does your live stage setup consist of?
[Mindex] It is very generic at this moment: laptop, Ableton, Korg Nano Control, Nano Pad2, Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6. Sometimes I have keyboard to play some improvisations on top of my tracks, sometimes I can take Roland SP-404 sampler to add some psychedelic sounds or textures.
I am planning to add some live instruments into my sets in a future.
[LIS] Describe your production process in the studio. What do you to prepare for that process? Mentally, physically, spiritually…
[Mindex] Good question. I need to get enough sleep, do some yoga, get my body feel fresh and mind clear.
Usually I work out little bit between sessions. I can do some pull-ups and push-ups, or a simple warm up. This physical aspect is very important. It will be hard to stay focused on music if you feel pain in a bottom of your back or anywhere else. Spending hours in front of computer is definitely leaving a trace on body. It is good to take care of it in advance.
I do not really do any mental preparations. If I hear something nice playing in my head then I am launching Studio One and starting work. Sometimes up-right piano or acoustic guitar helps me a lot. Those sounds giving me a lot of inspiration. I can jam for hour or two, find some riff or a chord progression and start a new tune with that.
If I don’t know what track I want to work on, I can just start a new project and experiment with beats and textures. Most of the times at the point where I got a nice drum section I can feel what bass riff I want to add there. And then chords, melodies, sound design, arrangement etc. But in general, I prefer to start new track with a chord progression and melody. Shape is important but content is more important for me.
[LIS] What does your home studio set up consist of?
[Mindex] It is a PC tower based on i7 with 16 gigs of RAM. Studio One 3 DAW. Few hardware synths: Virus Classic, Clavia Micro Modular and little analog 4 voice box from Dave Smith – Tetra. RME multi-face2 audio interface, Adam S 2.5 monitors.
Focusrite mic preamp and Rodes NT-2A condenser microphone for vocals and sampling. Midi keyboard.
[LIS] How do you pay the bills? Or are you totally reliant on music and touring? Give us some insights.
[Mindex] Mostly it is music. Sometimes I do graphic design and photography or jewelry if I have a special inspiration for that.
[LIS] What are a of your few non-electronic musical influences?
[Mindex] Tom Yorke, Mars Volta, Pink Floyd, Medeski Martin & Wood, Cinematic Orchestra, Bjork, Rakhmaninov, Chaikovsky, Claude Debussy and many more.
[LIS] Describe the music/art community where you’re from.
[Mindex] There is a lot of interesting visionary artists and designers. Stage design at psychedelic music festivals usually is insanely beautiful.
At events in Moscow, you can see nice performances and decorations, projection mappings. I like everything, except for the fact that Bass/Glitch-Hop music scene is not so developed yet. We do our best to get it somewhere.
[LIS] Any big gigs coming up?
[Mindex] My tour is nearing completion. I just did a We Present show in Philadelphia with Bumble, Random Rab and others. I’ve got another one coming up in Colorado with Androcell and Digital Connection.
[LIS] What are a few of the most memorable gigs from this recent leg of the tour?
[Mindex] Infrasound Festival in Wisconsin for sure. There was perfectly tuned Functions. Big crowd, good weather, good vibes on a dance floor. I had a lot of fun at smaller shows in California. Arcata, Oakland and Miami will stay in my heart 🙂
[LIS] You just released an EP with Gravitas Records in Austin TX. Tell us a bit about the EP and what we can expect.
[Mindex] It is very funky. I was working on this tunes with intention to make people feel at a sexy party on a space shuttle, along with some freaky aliens. It is definitely a party music. I played tracks from this EP at every gig during my tour and every time i saw a lot of smiling faces, crazy liquid dancers and sexy hip moves.
One tune in this release have vocals by Milena Sarkisyan – young talented vocalist from Moscow. We recorded it about a year ago. I am glad that this song found its place.
[LIS] If you could collaborate with any modern composer/producer who would it be and why?
[Mindex] We have unfinished track with Mumukshu. We recently started a collab with Ben Sixis. That few hours in his studio was very inspiring and feels like we got some goodies. Hopefully we will have a chance to finish this track in a near future.
It would be exciting as well to collab with Mr.Bill. His skills are amazing and I think our styles could work well together.
[LIS] Link us to your favorite free VST.
[Mindex] I love this frequency shifter [http://www.fullbucket.de/music/freqshifter.html] . It is only for Windows unfortunately.
[LIS] As a performing act, where do you see Mindex next year this time and what are you doing to reach those goals.
[Mindex] Next year this time that will be some festivals in Europe probably. Or may be the US again. I am just channeling my thoughts to promoters minds and they feel that they need to have Mindex at their event. That works 🙂
