I met Up Records recording artists Octant awhile ago and after meeting them I was instantly fascinated by their personalities and their music. Matt Steinke and Tassy Zimmerman are the core of the band, with additional musicians playing live shows. Their music is science fiction complicated, something from a dark Martian traveling carnival that flew out of the pages of a Philip K. Dick novel, with therimons, electronic drums, light-sensitive samplers, frequency modulators and delightfully haunting voices.

As I am new to the Northwest, I did not realize that Matt Steinke is a bit of a legend in these parts as he has been in some popular Northwest bands that explored a variety of underground styles. He is often called a genius and has an obsessive approach to making music and electronic art. He is an indie label veteran, having been represented by K Records, Kill Rock Stars, Deluxe Records, Punk in My Vitamins and most recently Up Records. One of his former projects, the now-defunct band Satisfact, toured almost constantly, bringing their own blend of shadowy space rock to the masses. Critics claimed that Satisfact was doing what had been done before while my friend Tiber Scheer, of the bands PEE and Lowercase, swears that Satisfact was the second coming of Joy Division.

Later Matt was an integral part the punk based band Mocket, which was another band that toured quite a lot and was successful but met its demise from internal disputes. Octant was formed during the time Matt was in Mocket and once Mocket broke up Octant was to get his full attention and commitment. Tassy and Matt put a great deal into the development of their music as it is more than just live shows and band practices; they make their own instruments and constantly develop, change and refine older ones.

People really seem to be interested the name Octant. What does it mean and how do you think it applies to your music?

Tassy Zimmerman: Octant is the name of a quadrant of the sky. I think it refers to the quadrant. If you look up Octant on the internet you usually get sites that refer to astronomy, electronics or robotics, all of which are relative to the band Octant. Both the band and the quadrant are relatively unknown, but are extremely interesting to watch.

Who is in Octant besides yourself?

Tassy: Matt Steinke and occasionally Summer Mastous (piano) and Pierre Crutchfield (bass clarinet and turntables).

People are clearly fascinated by the robots, do you make them and are they really robots?

Tassy: I usually tell people that we use robotic instruments, but I wouldn't necessarily call them robots. We've had little kids come to our shows before and be very disappointed that we don't have an actual robot that they can talk to. Our drum set is an actual acoustic drumset that plays itself. We try to incorporate instruments that are interesting to watch. Many of them are affected by light, sound, etc. Matt is an electronics genius and creates and builds all of the instruments himself. The drumset is the closest thing we have to an actual "robot," but it is enclosed in cases and is stationary. None of our instruments really resemble any sort of robotic person.

Can you describe the other instruments/machines that you guys play?

Tassy: The other instruments we use are: The electrified stringboard--this was built to take the place of a guitar. All of the sounds on the stringboard are sort of atonal. It has three guitar strings that you can either bow, hit or pluck. It's good for making drone sounds. It also has a mini keyboard made of metal rods; the keyboard is rarely in tune but when it is, it sounds really good. The stringboard also has a row of bars that you can hit or pluck that sound very ambient and provide good background noise. Along with each of these are drone and sweep effects. There is also a random tone generator. It's made out of an old plastic bowling ball. It has about ten miscellaneous buttons on it that each make a different sound. The sound can then be modulated by a light cell affected by a light bulb affixed on top of the bowling ball. The more light the cell gets, the louder the sound. Next, there is a sequencer that we use to control the drums as well as some samples. There is a mini keyboard on the bottom row of the sequencer that we use to play bass lines. We also use a Dr. Sample and other various effects pedals. We recently started using a lot of hand percussion to fill out the sound and give it more of an acoustic element.

Tassy: Almost all of the instruments we use have been modified in some way from when we first started Octant. They have all been made more portable, which is very good! When we first started Octant, the drumset could rarely keep time. At almost every practice I remember telling Matt that I wanted to quit the band. I would get extremely frustrated at the drumset and would yell at it. There was a thin line between it being a joke, being a nuisance, and being really cool.

What made you stray from the Pacific Northwest guitar rock scene, and does this have anything to do with the types of instruments you play or the music you make?

Tassy: Matt and I have always been the type of people who try to do the opposite of what's expected of us. I don't find guitar rock music particularly interesting to listen to or watch. However, I do think there are exceptions. For the most part the instruments are Matt's creations and are heavily influenced by movies like Brazil and Alphaville and by art like dada and Bauhaus.

What influences your music?

Tassy: I think I'm heavily influenced by the music I grew up with. My brothers were always listening to Depeche Mode or New Order and since I didn't have any money to buy my own CDs, I listened to it too. There has always been an underlying new wave theme to the music I play, but when Octant started I began incorporating more unique noises and visual aesthetics--I never really thought about making music visually appealing until I met Matt.

1  2  Next->