In a world where laptop shows have become de-facto for “live” electronic music acts, it is increasingly rare to see performers who can disconnect from the screen long enough to truly connect with the audience. Armed with a computer, a pair of guitars, a projector and his voice, multimedia artist Planewalker takes no prisoners when it comes to the dancefloor. With his brain-tickling psychedelic tracks featuring highly intricate rhythms and Hendrix-style guitar playing, he is anything but the typical DJ. With three album releases scheduled for 2010 including “The Kaivalya Project”, the “Psychic Evolution EP”, and “Spirit Circuits” and well as numerous music video projects inlcuding the Metakinetics YouTube channel, he is posed to take the 2010 summer festival circuit by storm. Seeing Planewalker perform is like watching a magic show – there’s always something new and interesting happening on stage. As versatile an artist as Moby, he somehow manages to straddle the abyss between mainstream and the fringes of reality, drawing in fans from all sub-genres of electronic music much like Shpongle or Aphex Twin. One of the best elements in his compositional style is the constant change-ups where the music can suddenly shift gears mid-song into another style altogether. As crazy as that sounds, it actually works. The best example is “Kabbalistic Kazoo”, a ten minute epic which somehow manages to morph from trance into bluesy sixties swing music and then into a long dub-step breakdown before ending once again with trance. As the artist puts it, “I don’t think appealing to a genre is the right approach to maximize creativity, because you are always working inside a box. When I sit down to make a song, I don’t think genre – I start with a tempo and just see what comes out.” Despite the heavy electronic influence, Planewalker’s sound has its roots in the guitar. He explains, “The first time my mind was blown by music was when I heard Eddie Van Halen’s guitar solo ‘Eruption’ on the first Van Halen album. From that moment I knew I wanted to be a guitar player.” His passion for the guitar led him to becoming a huge Joe Satriani fan, and eventually landed him a guitar scholarhip at Berklee College of Music at the age of 17. But in Boston his music took an unexpected turn. As he says, “I was living on the third story of an apartment building, and on the first story were a couple of DJs always having house parties. At first I couldn’t stand it, but they wouldn’t stop so I figured if I couldn’t beat ‘em, I’d join ‘em.” The following ten years saw his slow departure from a shredder to a dance music producer and DJ, heavily influenced in particular by LTJ Bukem, Roni Size, Goldie and Infected Mushroom. Planewalker’s recent performances have seen the re-integration of his guitar work as well as the new addition of synchronized visuals and vocals. The combination of live guitar with electronic music is a rare thing in itself, but when combined with the animated fractals and human voice magnetically draws even the die-hard wallflowers closer to the stage. “The key to making the whole thing work is this MIDI foot controller, which lets me control the show with my feet so my hands are free to play guitar. I can finally get away from the screen altogether.” And since in front of the audience is where he really shines, it’s definitely a welcome advancement. Planewalker is taking electronic dance music in a direction it’s never been – back to the roots of blues and rock that defines the American sound. “This country needs to understand that electronic music is real music and worth listening to. At the same time, learning how to DJ or even produce songs doesn’t automatically make you a musician. A laptop is not a guitar, but combined with some thought it can be anything you can imagine.” Whether or not you agree with him, you owe it to yourself to check this guy out. http://planewalker.ca Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.