By Sean Maldjian, Contributor

Meet Olexi aka Brandon Oleksy

Get ready to be hypnotized by Olexi! Our latest interviewee talks about his upcoming musical projects, his love for minimalist and meditative soundscapes, and his inclination towards being a hypnotist. In the interview, he shares how he drew inspiration from early ambient music and the 70s new age sound, and how he created an atmosphere of isolation and contemplation in his "House" EP. Find out more about Olexi's musical journey and personal preferences in this candid interview.

A self-portrait by, Olexi

Would You Rather…

be the greatest juggler in the world or the greatest hypnotist? What would you do with your newfound powers?

I think I'd be a hypnotist. There's the idea of the power behind that, but I have a couple of friends that are into that in a very kinky way and I'm sure would like that experience lol.

Some Questions Olexi

Welcome to the blog! How have you been? Can you tell us about your project?

Hi! Glad to be in this new fangled thing you kids call a blog. I've been doing well these past few months. Life has been crazy for me, but it's all moving forward. Mainly a bunch of life stuff, but also a lot of music stuff I'm trying to do and push myself outside my comfort zone. As for the Olexi project, the whole idea I've had behind it is to really explore what I can and can't do musically and how I can learn to do it. I really became enamored with a lot of early ambient music, the pre-Aphex Twin kind, around the time I made the "House" EP and wanted to explore how I could do this digitally. Since then, I've recorded grunge-inspired demos, and synthpunk demos, and tried to dabble in downtempo. I’m still deciding what I want to release and what I want to hold onto and perfect a bit more.

Your music has been described as having a "minimalist" and "meditative" quality. Can you speak to how you create this atmosphere in your music, and what kind of emotions or messages you hope to convey?

Well, the main bulk of recording for the "House" EP happened when I had a really bad bout of COVID. I wasn't hospitalized, but I think I was in bed for 18 hours a couple of days. The photo on the cover is something I did with a film camera I had the first time I felt well enough to walk up and down stairs again and had no plans for that photo at the time besides just the act of documenting what I looked like with COVID. A lot of the mood I wanted to convey comes from that time of quiet isolation at the beginning of a very harsh winter here in Buffalo. I wanted to strip the music to what I thought was just essential to create a cold and somewhat isolated mood. One track that I think of that I think is the absolute perfection of this kind of feeling is "Lovesong" by The Cure. So dry and closed in but lush all at the same time.

Who would you want to play you in a movie?

When I was a kid, I got pretty good playing the "Townsperson #2" type characters in school plays. Probably that kind of character in a drama or action movie with maybe one or two speaking lines. As much as I love taking photos and videos, I don't really like being in front of a camera too much.

Your March 2023 release ‘House’ leans heavily into the 70s new age sound. What attracted you to this very specific time in music?

It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly when I got into this kind of stuff. When I was in college 7-8 years ago I really started getting into vaporwave and several artists I was into from that time, like NMesh, Luxury Elite, Incarta '95, Saint Pepsi, Eyeliner, and several others all had these different references and looped samples that always entranced me. It almost seemed like a race to who could be the most obscure. Of course, there were people like Mort Garson and I was already very familiar with Brian Eno. But there was all this Japanese ambient stuff I was discovering from the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto (RIP), Haruomi Hosono, and Shigeo Sekito. And then all of that stuff seemed to be connected to each other in one way or another and it just became a rabbit hole I never fully got out of. There were always new things for me to uncover and it was a constant in my life ever since. My interest in it was just ebbing and flowing over the years.

Have you had a chance to translate any tracks from this release to a live performance? If not do you have any plans to do this in the future?

I did play some of them live! I did a 4 song set for the EP release here in Buffalo. Three of the tracks off the album and one track I had done a long time ago from my vaporwave days that I reworked called "Wrong Kind of Snow". It's the opening track to an album I put out called "Karoshi" under the name Open XML. I'd love to revisit that album with what I know now and rework it. Anyway, getting back on track, I originally wanted to take my own keyboard synths and do a dawless thing to play live but that was a pain in the ass to figure out so I had loops running on a laptop running Ableton and times when I wanted it to move on to the next loop. I had a keyboard to play some of the parts live and improvised a whole section of "Vaulted Ceiling" where I damn near broke my midi keyboard by jumping up and down on the keys. I would absolutely love to play that set again in the future. I had so much fun with it.

Who is your favorite one-hit wonder?

I have A LOT. This is like asking me to pick a favorite child. If I had to go with one I would have to say A Flock of Seagulls. "I Ran" is such an amazing and beautiful song, especially the version with the extended Intro. Hell, the whole album that's off of is amazing. 2nd favorite I guess would have to be ABC for "The Look of Love". I know that song by heart as well as that album. The album that's off of "The Lexicon of Love" is a 10/10 album in my opinion and a masterclass in '80s new wave.

What gear did you find yourself using while recording your 2023 release ‘House’?

Well, I found myself sequencing a lot with an Arturia Keystep. I thought it would be cool to try and explore the instruments that were around me and go dawless. But as I said before, with all the layers going on that's a pain in the ass. So what I ended up doing is plugging in straight to Ableton and using hardware synths like Simpler. A lot of what you hear are just very basic presets with some minor tweaks.

Do you remember the first album/CD/tape you ever bought? Has it had any impact on the music you are making today?

The first CD I ever bought that was properly my own was "American Idiot" by Green Day. Right around the time I became old enough to buy music for myself, it was mainly to play on MP3 players and iPods. So if I bought something as a physical release and not a proprietary download, that was a real special occasion. I can't say it has any impact on the music I make today except as an example of what I don't want to make. I really look back at a lot of the music I liked and bought at that time and cringe because I really don't see anything good in it anymore.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

I originally grew up and lived in California most of my life and I'm still much newer to Buffalo than most people. As much as I want to keep this place a secret, every artist and band here are so hardworking and dedicated that I can't not shout out some of these amazing people. I really want to thank Johnny Toohill who helped put out this release and is pretty much amazing in every project he puts out from the EBM of Brute Spring to the psych-punk of Science Man. A lot of Buffalo right now is very hardcore punk focused but I can't say I mind it at all because some of it is really fucking good. I highly HIGHLY recommend Spaced, Exhibition, and Torture Agenda who are from out here. I'm sure if any of them made their way to California for a tour they'd absolutely take over.