Born and raised in Manhattan and now based in Brooklyn, Mind Of A Genius signed singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Mindchatter will take the stage Thursday night at Baby’s All Right in Williamsburg for a hometown show to close out his first headlining tour.
After landing an opening spot with French electronica icons Polo and Pan on their 2019 tour, Mindchatter — born Bryce Connolly— made waves in 2020 with his debut album, Imaginary Audience. In 2021, Connolly has kept the momentum going, releasing two dance-floor ready singles “Answer Me” and “Here I Go Again,” the latter of which caught the attention of BBC Radio 1 and Radio 6 as well as Australia’s Triple J.
A rising electronic artist, Connolly’s tracks have been remixed by the likes of electronic music giants Walker and Royce, Anja Schneider, and Justin Jay, among others.
We caught up with Mindchatter ahead of his NYC show to talk about music production, his love of techno, and what exactly makes the New York music scene so special.
RR: Your lyrics have an almost poetic quality to them. Have you always thought of yourself as a songwriter and lyricist, or did the technical aspect of production come first?
MC: It was definitely the production aspect. The lyrics and the singing I didn’t add on until I went to music school. I had never even opened my mouth to sing before, so it was very much a new thing, which I think was kind of advantageous because I had to basically make the songwriting good enough to supplement my lack of voice — or my lack of confidence with my voice, at least. I felt like I had to kind of overcompensate with some poetry.
RR: So you were born and raised in New York City, how do you think growing up in the city, and living here now has influenced your sound?
MC: I went to a lot of Brooklyn raves growing up and I think that influenced me a lot. I went to Ibiza, like three years in a row when I was, like, 17, 18, and 19, so I very much wanted to be a DJ from early on. Being in New York you have every genre, and you have so many different types of venues. I think my music kind of turned out to be a mishmash of everything, but I would say that the thing that took the biggest influence was probably the more pulsing techno music. That’s a rhythm that I like a lot, and it’s kind of my bread and butter.
RR: Your Spotify playlist “the most necessary” is super diverse — like you’ve got artists ranging from Radiohead and Stimming to Khruangbin, John Mayer, and Kendrick Lamar. Which artists do you think have been the most influential to your music?
MC: I think each one of the songs on that playlist has had an influence on me. It’s always a difficult question to answer, but I will say that LCD Soundsystem has had a big influence, even lyrically. James Murphy just writes such cool lyrics, and I think he was one of the first singers in that genre, in the kind of electronic realm to do that. Listening to them I was like, ‘wow, you can actually have really thought-provoking lyrics on this type of music.’ So that was a big inspiration for sure. I was and am still obsessed with Stimming, he has kind of his own brand of electronic music, and something about the grooves really stood out to me. It’s really very layered but it’s very understated, and I like my music to be more on the minimalist side.
RR: So have you always been a performer? Were you that kid who’s looking for attention and grabbing a microphone, or is that something that you’ve had to learn as you go?
MC: No, that’s a good question. I was the opposite of that, and I still am the opposite. It’s funny because a lot of the people who I grew up with, like, my best friends, are just confused about how I wound up here, but somehow it just happened. And it’s funny because I was making the music and putting out the music and having absolutely no thought about the live performance or the direction of where any of this would head. I was just obsessed with making it, and then it kind of dawned on me one day where I was like, ‘wow, I’m gonna have to sing this stuff.’
RR: To me, your songs have a distinctly psychedelic feel. I’m wondering, what do you think makes a song psychedelic? And do you think of your music that way?
MC: I’ve never used the word psychedelic to describe my music, but I will say that I like to think about and write about existentialism — and I think that that’s sort of on the same plane as psychedelics, and those are the questions that come to mind when you’re on psychedelics. People do psychedelic drugs to try and find out who they are and what is the human condition, and I just naturally like to write about that stuff. I also just like trippy sounds and beats.
RR: Thursday night in New York is the final show of your first headlining tour — what’s next after that?
MC: So I have a couple of shows lined up for next year. I’m actually playing in San Francisco on January first at a New Year’s festival. And then I’ll have another show in New York in April.
Connect with Mindchatter:
https://mindchatter.lnk.to/Instagram
https://mindchatter.lnk.to/Facebook
https://mindchatter.lnk.to/Twitter
https://mindchatter.lnk.to/Spotify
https://mindchatter.lnk.to/Soundcloud
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