GabberGirl: Okay! I’m here with Origin of Styx, at a hardcore party in Phoenix, Arizona, put on by the AZ Hardcore Junkies. I’m here to ask him a few questions. Origin of Styx, just to let you know, if you haven’t heard his music, its deep and atmospheric. I would say it’s beautiful and accessible and it’s probably, in my mind, the definition of doomcore. So, here he is. Why don’t you introduce yourself and say hello.
Origin of Styx: Hey ya, this is Ethan from Origin of Styx. I’m at the AZ Hardcore Junkies 30th Anniversary party right now. It’s a really great rave, probably one of the best raves I have been to in a long time. It’s got three stages, main stage with a lot of big name hardcore DJs, even coming in from Europe. We’ve got two techno buses here, one playing hardcore, and then the other strictly playing techno, from the Techno Snobs.
GG: So, do you want me to call you Ethan, or Origin?
OOS: Ethan.
GG: Okay, Ethan. I would like to understand how you came to doomcore, and like what your roots are with the specific kind of music you play these days, that you produce. Like how did you find doomcore, and what draws you to it?
OOS: Well, I first started listening to electronic music when I was around 12. I was first exposed to house, dubstep, with artists like Deadmau5 and Skrillex, which were really huge at the time. And then I went deeper down the rabbit hole of electronic music. Probably around like 2014, I started listening to more hardcore, eventually speedcore, and I just kept branching out and learning more about different genres.
You know, when I was in high school, I started having more health-related problems, actually, it got me more prone to feeling fatigued, feeling depressed, struggling with brain fog. So, I started listening to more darker styles of music. I found more comfort in darker styles. Previously, I had just listened to more mainstream house and techno, until the time I started listening to a lot of dark ambient.
I first started producing dark ambient when a rapper from Poland named Biniolynx messaged me on Soundcloud and said he wanted me to make the intro and the outro for one of his albums. So I said I wanted to do that for him but I didn’t have a name to release this kind of dark ambient music under so he recommended Origin of Styx, and that was where the name came from.
GG: Oh!
OOS: And around that time, I started listening to more hardcore, and I was exposed to doomcore when I realized that it’s pretty much the synthesis to techno, hardcore techno, and dark ambient.
GG: Thank you. So you’ve started a doomcore label yourself with your friend who I believe is in LA, and I believe it’s the first doomcore label in the United States of America. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Like the name of it, and how I could find it?
OOS: Yeah, we are the first US-based doomcore label. We have a Bandcamp page, I think its morosrecordings.bandcamp.com, or if you just search Moros on Bandcamp, you should find it.
It was created with my friend Hecatonchirus, a bit of a mouth full but if you search the label, you can find his music, my music, and we wanted an outlet for doomcore that was from the United States because we’re really, at the time, pretty much the only artists in the United States that were producing doomcore.
GG: Right on. So, tell me a little bit about your production style. Are you using actual instruments or are you focusing on a DAW, a D-A-W, or do you use both?
OOS: When I first started producing, when I was like 14, 15 years old, I made all my music digitally with a digital audio workstation (DAW). I started with a cracked copy of FL Studio 10, that was my first DAW. Then I started using Ableton, mostly like the Intro, or the “light” version, and at the time there was all digital, other than maybe some midi controllers that I would use to play the digital synths.
But then probably about two or three years ago, I started having more writer’s block with the DAW. I ended up expanding, I got a lot more DAWS. I started experimenting with Logic, Reason, Ableton more, Persona Studio One, and so I tried all these different DAWs, but I was still having a lot of writer’s block.
I started investing in buying electronic instruments. Synthesizers, drum machines, music sampler, mixers, stuff like that, and I found out that its a lot more enjoyable to actually be able to put my hand on a piece of hardware; be able to hear how turning a knob actually changes the sound, the way the synthesizer sounds. I found that to be a lot more interesting and I stuck with it, and it’s become somewhat of an addiction now, collecting all these synthesizers and collecting all these drum machines, and I’m recording them now into my DAW. So it’s a little bit of both, mostly analog but also a little digital.
GG: Right on. Do you have goals for your studio? Do you have any other synthesizers you are trying to get or do you think you have a complete studio at this point?
OOS: I have most of the things I need to make the kind of music I want to make. I recently got a music sampler, that was a key part of my studio. I also got a Drone synthesizer, like its my first semi-modular synthesizer. I think it might be cool to get a second modular synthesizer, and sync those two together, or also, there are kits online; one is called Microrack. (Search microrack.org online.) Its basically a build-it-yourself DIY analog modular synthesizer kit. I want to get that, learn more about modular synthesis.
Otherwise, there’s also a noise box. Kind of like an acoustic instrument, where you could pluck it and make different weird ambient noises.
Those are the only other instruments, really, otherwise I have everything I need to make the kinds of styles and genres I want to make.
GG: I feel like you already have all that just with your DAW because your album from, what was it, 2018, on Doomcore, was it from 2018?
OOS: The first record I put out on Doomcore Records was 2017.
GG: Oh, 2017. And what is it called?
OOS: I think its just 53, like the catalog number of the label.
GG: Well, what about the album that came out in 2023?
OOS: 2023 was Stygian, I believe.
GG: But you made that with a DAW, didn’t you?
OOS: I made all my music with a DAW up until July of 2024. Pretty much switched and made my music now, pretty much like 80 or 90% analog.
GG: Okay, so you grew up in the Phoenix area, correct?
OOS: [nods yes]
GG: Okay, so this is your rave scene. When did you join this scene? As a raver. I understand when you started making music and stuff. But were you already going to parties, when you were 14, 16?
OOS: I started learning about styles of dancing when I was 14, 15, actually earlier, when I was probably like 12 or 13, I learned first about Jumpstyle, and Shuffle. I’m really good now at Jumpstyle, but I can’t Shuffle at all, but I also kind of have my own kind of style, where I incorporate like Brisbane Stomp and Drum n Bass Step. So I started dancing when I was 14, 15, and then after finishing high school, when I was 18, I started attending more local hardcore techno raves which were mostly either in warehouses, or they were in deserts; underground desert raves.
GG: Oh wow.
OOS: The reason I started doing it that way was because at the time I couldn’t get into venues that served alcohol.
GG: Right.
OOS: Mostly bars, clubs, more things I started going to later, after I turned 21, I started attending a lot more Techno Snobs shows at the club, and I also started going to a lot more goth dance nights because there is a very active goth dance night scene here in Phoenix, with lots of bars, lots of clubs, hosting exclusively goth music, industrial music, and catering more to that kind of audience.
GG: Okay, how do you think the scene has changed or progressed in the past 15, 20 years?
OOS: It could be just because I am going to a lot more clubs, but I don’t think the desert rave scene is as active, but again, it could be just because I’m not looking for those anymore?
GG: Or maybe its cuz of Covid?
OOS: Yeah that was… Covid definitely… a lot of the desert raves have been happening less frequently when the Covid pandemic started. Because I was going pretty much every weekend or at least every other weekend, 2 or 3 times a month, back in like 2018 and 2019, before the Covid started.
GG: Okay. So you started raving in like the 2010’s?
OOS: I started raving, the first rave I went to was in 2018.
GG: Okay. Well, that concludes my questions at this point. Do you have anything to add, to this interview? Anything you want to let this audience know, about your music, your scene, or your goals?
OOS: I would say, just keep following my music, keep following my projects, look up originofstyx.com. and also shout out to the Techno Snobs, and shout out to the Arizona Hardcore Junkies for putting on such a great show tonight.
GG: Thank you, Ethan.
https://originofstyx.com/
https://morosrecordings.bandcamp.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment