New Zealand-born, LA based electronic artist and producer BAYNK joins me over zoom to talk about his new album SENESCENCE, what keeps him motivated, as well his exciting new show that he’ll be premiering in Melbourne, Australia on July 25th. BAYNK has been slowly releasing music from his forthcoming album in two-song, “episodic-bundles.” Today he has dropped new single and visualizer “Grin,” another taste ahead of the LP’s arrival.

Northern Transmissions: I was wondering about the rollout for this next album. You’re doing it in these two song, “episodic-style” releases and I was wondering what the thought process behind that approach was?

BAYNK: I wasn’t much of a music head growing up. I think growing up not listening to albums, like most of my generation and younger, and just listening to singles or the best picks from certain genres, was something that inspired me. When I started releasing albums, I wanted all of my tracks to get the limelight. I needed a window for people to get two different flavors and see if they like them as opposed to presenting them a full body of work. If they’re anything like me, their attention span could be shot and they might not make it past the first two songs on the album. So, releasing them episodically like this gives all the songs a better chance of being listened to.

NT: I feel like so often an album gets released and the B-sides just get forgotten about. Baynk: 

BAYNK: Exactly. At least this way you’re giving people 5 opportunities for them to resonate with a song or two, as opposed to 3 singles. I also just like a unique approach and this feels novel.

NT: The most recent single “Feel” is loosely about not taking yourself too seriously. You’ve been doing music professionally now for almost a decade. How do you strike that balance between taking what you do seriously, but not taking yourself too seriously?

BAYNK: It’s funny because I feel like anytime you start taking yourself too seriously the quality starts to suffer. Whereas you’d think that “it’s your life, it’s so important; I should be taking it seriously,” but being very analytical about music just leads to colder, more computational songs that just sound like the machine as opposed to a person who has emotion. I think, obviously you need to work hard and put in the time, but you have to have music with fun, emotion and feeling in mind. It’s very much a feeling based thing. And if you aren’t having fun making the music, I don’t think the people listening to it will have fun listening to it. I just have to be there and do it, and not overthink it.

NT: When you’re in those moments of making music that start to feel not fun, or you’re overthinking the music, do you have any rituals you do that take you out of that and reinspire you?

BAYNK: I run a lot. Quite often I’ll go for a run, get outside and get moving. Any form of fitness really. Other times, I wish I could get back into it but I can’t and I’ll just stop. I’ll do something that doesn’t take creative strain. Like organizing sample libraries or watching tutorials, trying to learn something new. But I can waste time too. Watch a youtube rabbit hole or something. I love learning something new though.

NT: Was there anything within the process of recording the first album that informed the way you recorded this new one? Any new approaches or tools you’ve been utilizing?

BAYNK: For sure. I think just knowing that eventually you’ve made enough songs it will just come together. In the first album I would get to a point where I had 4-5 songs for the new album and had written 60-80 songs. It felt neverending. I checked the stats on my songs, and for every 25th song I write, a song gets released. It’s so terrible and a lot of work but knowing the number in the back of my head makes me realize that I have to go through a lot of bad work to get to the good stuff. In the first album I would stop a lot. Whereas in this new one I pushed through and got it done faster. It’s good to know that you’ve just got to work through it. You’ve got the music in you and you’ve just gotta put in the work to get it done.

NT: On “Feel” you reference a Charles Bukowski poem. Is poetry something you reach for a lot to gain inspiration?

BAYNK: No, not recently at least. Just reading books and consuming media, music videos, movies, tv series. That particular poem stuck out to me. His life story, and not that I feel I don’t have enough recognition, but it’s so beautiful that he just kept doing what he loved all those years without it. I don’t relate to his struggle but when I feel like it’s a struggle I think about his life and that poem. “Don’t try.”

NT: The first album focuses a lot on youth, and growth, and living in that. Whereas Senescence is about coming to terms with your mortality and understanding that time is finite. Why touch on that now?

BAYNK: Why think about that now? Because things started happening to me that were irreparable. I got tinnitus about a year ago. Your parents get old, they become frail and it starts to get so much more obvious that there are things that you just can’t come back from. I got myself knocked out twice within the last 8 months. When you’re young, you think you’re invisible and life feels endless. It was the tinnitus and the concussions that snapped me out of that. The tinnitus became a mental block for my writing and a mental thing that I had to get over. The only “cure” for tinnitus is cognitive behavioral therapy; allowing your brain to filter out the sound over time. Becoming attuned and accustomed to it. It took me about 6 months to get used to it. It’s
less of a depressing “everyone is gonna die,” and more of a “one day we’re gonna die, so let’s try and enjoy our life and not take it for granted.” For me, it’s “enjoy music and don’t get too analytical about it.”

NT: You’ve got a new single coming out, “Grin,” how did that one come together?

BAYNK: That one was super quick. Most of the best ones are. My friend had a little sample he sent to me, I drenched it and reverb and it became the drone for the track. He put the bassline on it and immediately I had the idea for the verse and the chorus and all the lyrics. We wrote it in about 2 hours before we had a session with someone else in LA. We came back to it, added a few sprinkles, our friend Aidan or Instupendo, he added a few things to it as well. The song is about long distance relationships. I haven’t been in one for a long time, but my current partner who I’ve been with for 8 years, we did like two 3 year stints at the start. It’s always that feeling of being very nervous and being very excited about seeing that person after a long absence. It feels like you don’t know them but obviously you do. Feels cringey to talk about. That’s life, baby.

NT: You’ve got the Senescence live shows happening soon. You even had to postpone the LA one because of the stage production. What is it about your current live show that is gonna make it more grandiose than your other live sets?

BAYNK: The pillow. The pillow is different. So we’re 7 feet off the ground with no handrails, which is scary for us, and there’s a band. My main collaborator Rutger, is gonna play bass and samples, so that feels very special to have my main collaborator on stage with me. Having a band, recreating the songs for a live scenario is really important for me. And being on this pillow that we made is really important to me.

NT: What is it made out of? It looks crazy.

BAYNK: It’s made of nylon and there’s a big fan at the back that blows it up. It gets really tight. So tight that I think I could probably jump off onto the side of it and jump off. But no promises. There’s also some lights in it that are programmable and I bought some more LED to hang behind it. Just more of everything and hopefully an upgrade to the audio as well. I think having the audio being different, especially for an electronic artist is very special. But I don’t want the songs to feel too bandy though. For now, slightly elevated audio, more vibe and ridiculous pillow.

Pre-order SENESCENCE by BAYNK HERE