On the back of releasing two singles and a remix album exclusive to The Store Front, we talked to Vito, better known as VT-00, about his music experimentation, Future Exp and live shows after the pandemic days, if this will end at all.
First off, for VT-00, I’ve tried to do some research prior to this interview but there isn’t much info on the internet regarding yourself. So for lack of a better question, what is VT-00? Are you a single person act? How do you envision yourself playing live?
Vito: The name VT-00 comes from the spelling of my name, Vito, sside from making it complicated, it ticks people reading it too. Nicknames using only alphabets are way too common anyway, so I decided to mix it up with numerical values. I run VT-00 on my own and this is not my first musical project, but it’s the first project that uses vocals, so it’s interesting to see where this goes. For the live performance itself, my main concern is the vocal, the rest, we’ll see how it goes.
This remix album came from the Future Exp sudden rise in the past month or so, can you describe what is it exactly? Is it a label? Or merely a collective for a group of friends?
Future Exp: The biggest possible megastructure
On these four tracks of remixes, how do you find the right people to do the work of remixing VT-00?
Vito: In regard to choosing the people in this project, I got help from my friends in Future Exp and I personally love the music of all of my remixers in this project, some of them I know, so you can say that the “Total Remixes” project is an album for fun for us and we did it with our own style.
We, the audience, have been blessed lately with the best experimental/electronic acts, especially in 2020, with Loreng, Pencak Xilat and yourself. Do you feel like this is the best time to be releasing experimental/electronic music?
Vito: Experimental/electronic music has its own path and segment in the first place. It’s just a matter of awareness for us listeners. Maybe you can say today that the euphoria is high for this kind of music, accompanied by technological progression and how open it is for breakthroughs to happen these days.
Most of your music is, let’s say, aggressive, at least sonically. What pushed you through this direction? Those brash beats along with some anarchistic songwriting!
Vito: I direct my style of music for power and intensity. The root of my music is industrial/EBM with its aggressive and provocative undertones. For the lyrics, it’s all spontaneous, what’s in my head and in front of my eyes. Beyond that, it’s up for the listeners to interpret as I believe music should be felt and not something you can always analyze and translate.
It feels sporadic to release two singles and now you’re coming back with a remix album, do you have any long term plan in regard to releases?
Vito: Maybe I’ll work on an album but we’ll see. But what’s clear is that there will be more releases.
Obviously, you released your music for the first time under VT-00 during these pandemic days, if we get out of this pandemic, where do you see yourself playing live?
Vito: No plan yet. But if this ends, I can imagine Jakarta, Tanggerang, Bandung or Yogyakarta. I just hope this will all end and we can celebrate live shows and performing together as we were not long ago.