To mark the release of his new album Gore 3, Fredrik Veiga talks about musical chaos as therapy, emotional distancing through technology and hidden COVID-19 meanings in his songs.

Fredrik Veiga is a nineteen-year-old electronic music producer and a DJ from Åsgårdstrand. His previous musical projects include Sticky Icky, Keygen, Per +/- Fred. Now he produces under the name Psycheek, lives in Oslo and likes stuff that sounds «stupidly obscure» (he jokingly calls the genre of music he makes «hypnotic tweemo cyberbasscore»).

Foto: Adrian Lie Solhaug

Gateavisa: Let’s begin with the basics. Describe your music, inspirations and why you produce.

Fredrik Veiga: It’s always a fun conversation to have when I talk about my inspirations and why I make music. But I feel like it’s not too relevant because if I start name-dropping my influences, it can go on forever – to the point where it gets irrational. I make music because I’m restless, and I find it therapeutic. Especially when I’m making electronic music – very energetic, loud, and explosive. When I’m out, I can channel my stress, anger or other negative emotions into dancing. But when I’m not, my emotions help me shape sounds. I can sit in front of the computer for ten hours straight and put rhythms together – it sorts me out.

Okay, but how about a little name-dropping session?

Lately, I’ve been listening to the Finnish metal band, Oranssi Pazuzu, and went back to Myspace kind of musicians – Salem, Crim3s and all that – because I’ve been stuck in this well-produced and, maybe too polished, bubble. It’s hard to break out of it and just put your raw emotions into music and present it. When I step aside from it, I realise that this is what I want to do. The goal isn’t to just impress people with production but to channel my emotions.

How are your emotions conveyed through lyrics?

When it comes to words, I try not to rewrite existing texts. All the stuff I’ve written throughout the album is just what I’m feeling there and then. Of course, it’s a result of what I’ve been through lately and of my values. Sometimes I go back to the lyrics and find them cringy. But I think that’s kind of good – if they are a bit cringy or embarrassing to share it’s probably because I’m just presenting what I truly feel. My texts can also be abstract and have no meaning. Sometimes words can become almost entirely musical – just something that I think sounds good.

A psychic is a person who has psychic powers. Why are you called Psycheek?

I think people tend to overthink titles and names. But of course, mine has a story – it comes from my inspiration by Psychic TV (an English experimental video art and music group formed in 1981 – ed.note) and their Thee Psychick Bible (a compilation of the literature of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth – a network organised by Psychic TV and others and operating as an artistic collective and Chaos magic practitioners – ed.note). In high school, I read Arthur Rimbaud. He said, and I’m vaguely paraphrasing, that a true poet is sort of a psychic as they don’t necessarily write down everything that comes from themself, but they channel an external entity through them. It can sound like a pretentious and superficial way of making art. But Psycheek just partially reflects me reading Rimbaud and thinking that it’s cool to call yourself a psychic instead of an artist.

Tell me about the origins of your new album Gore 3.

The first song I made was «Create self». I made it when I spent last Christmas at my parents’ house and was reminded of my reality when I lived there. I wasn’t very social then, and there weren’t many people who shared my interests around. My identity more so existed on the Internet. «Create self» was the first song I made with a robotic voice. I decided to stick with the robotic voice as I experiment so much, and this way, it would be easier to release songs that make sense together. But I didn’t aim for a certain release at first; it was quite random. Musical influences for this album were all over the place as usual. I really like the Bristol bass scene – a lot of new exciting drum ‘n’ bass and jungle, which seem like a revival of the break music. Also, producers like Actress, Holly Herndon, Sega Bodega. Maybe sprinkle some Lil Wayne in there. I always wanted to create what they create, but I finally realised that if you want to make the most original and well-produced music, you will never get to that final point of satisfaction. So why shouldn’t I make beats that I think sound cool and sprinkle a bit of emotion in there? That’s what I did and ended up with a folder of decent demos out of which eight went into the album. It took me three months.

Why did you choose the robotic voice and not something else as a uniting element?

It provided me with emotional distancing. I could be melodramatic, cheesy and communicate mood like: «Oh my fucking heart, I’m so sad». If I were to sing it, it would be too simple. Whatever I say with this voice always has an ironic undertone. I express my raw emotions, but at the same time, I know how stupid many of them are. It’s important to be sad sometimes, to be heartbroken, but this robotic voice helped me overcome these feelings. Hearing them from something inhuman is disarming, it gave me a new perspective on past situations. Also, the previous place where I lived had very thin walls, and I couldn’t be too loud – singing wasn’t always practical – so the robotic voice was useful. I did chop up my own voice in the last track «Breakphoria», though – I recorded it when I moved to a new place. But it’s very digitalized and quite robotic too. Another tool of emotional distancing was giving non-existent, anonymous aliases to the two persons featured on the track «Xox0! Feat. Zara Tinker & X». They allowed me to use their vocals from random partying in the studio and drunk freestyles, but they didn’t want to be perceived as co-creators of the track. So I partially digitalized their voices as well.

Let’s break down the lyrics. In the first track «Intro» the non-human voice says: «Cowardly optimistic, pessimistic, you dance with your eyes». These words resonate with our current COVID-19 reality, as we are cowardly optimistic, yet at the same time pessimistic and dance with our eyes on laptop screens – be it in zoom parties or work conferences. Did you finish any of this in self-isolation? Did coronavirus affect the album?

I worked on it just a bit during corona. But it wasn’t initially made with that purpose and wasn’t affected by the virus. It’s about how you can criticise people for being too optimistic or too pessimistic. When talking about art or entertainment, I tend to criticise people for being either cowardly optimistic – and thus their conversations not being interesting enough as they are positive about everything; or being so pessimistic and not liking anything that they come across as exotic, as someone too good for everything, yet doesn’t add anything interesting to the conversation and even to themself. I think the ‘it’s not good enough for me’ pessimism happens more on the Internet, while the cowardly optimism happens in reality.

Foto: Adrian Lie Solhaug

The «Create self» narrates: «Exist without body, exist without form, create self». In self-isolation, we are mainly existing on social media – metaphorically speaking, without bodies. How do you exist without body and form during the quarantine? Did the way you create yourself and your self-image change?

To be honest, I wasn’t super affected by this situation. These lyrics translate into today’s situation as nobody is outside, and everyone is digging through their trash as they are desperate to share something. Like the people who go through their Instagram archives. I’ve done it too.

Do you think that because you are used to being alone and spending time online, you have an advantage over the people who are now forced into self-isolation?

Yeah, I’m so used to being unsocial in real life that it’s not a challenge for me. Especially when I make music or I’m being nerdy reading about stuff, I tend to isolate myself. But I’m also really social and like to party. So it’s harder for me to be satisfied with such forced isolation when it isn’t my choice to be alone. I think I could live this way, but only if I could go dancing once in a while.

One of your songs is called «Ironing the wrinkles in my brain». Its sound – noisy, crazy, audibly cutting the ears – is exactly how I would describe it. Have you been ironing the wrinkles in your brain recently?

As I mentioned before, making chaotic music is therapeutic to me, and the phrase is a metaphor for this. Channelling this kind of sound can be rewarding by making me calm down or get rid of stress. Many people ask me about how I do this for hours without getting exhausted, but it’s the opposite for me. It’s basically self-care.

The last track «Breakphoria» leaves a euphoric and a light feeling after getting high on the breaks of Gore 3. Like with every other track, you chose the perfect name. The whole album is an excellent example of a narrative structure used in writing. How important are structure and narrative to you as a musician? Do you read?

Yeah, structure and narrative are very important. When I make a song, I want the listener to be affected as much as possible – so they get annoyed, angry, calm etc. I read quite a lot, more now than ever. I’ve always read a lot of comic books, and I think this has subconsciously affected me when putting this album together. I prefer poetry with an interesting rhythm. I believe that in music, structure and narrative mostly depend on the feeling and timing, not the planning beforehand; it’s about making sure that the timing resonates with what I want to portray after I listen to the song a hundred times.

Is this why your album has such different vibes? From the sharp «Ironing wrinkles» to the ‘chill in the beginning, later saturated with fast breaks’ of «Fuse beyond». Do you want to confuse your listeners?

Confusing people is always a thing to reach for as it produces a bigger replay value. This confusion also reflects my internal challenge to land on a particular mood or style – instead of making myself bored with sticking to one thing I try to include everything at once and build a narrative out of it.

Since this is going into an anarchist magazine, what are your views on anarchism? Are anarchist ideas reflected in your music?

I’ve always been left-leaning, and even in a very democratic society, I think it’s never enough. I believe that if you have the right intentions and values towards other humans, you are never too radical. With the coming of age, I started leaning towards maybe identifying as an anarchist. To say that my music is political or based on anarchist ideas would be far-fetched. Still, I think that everything is somewhat political. For me, a desire to make music in new ways that challenge the already existing or mainstream goes hand in hand with challenging the establishment and traditions. Instead of a political debate against the state, you oppose authorities in creative fields. I feel like this is what I want to do with my art rather than making a direct statement. It’s also a question of how confident I feel about joining the debate in general. Lately, I’ve become more obsessed with reading and knowing enough, so I’ve become more confident in voicing my views. My personal goal is to make anarchist music in the future.

Fredrik Veiga har tidligere publisert en artikkel for www.gateavisa.xxx