A Q&A With: Codex

Codex(AKA Nick Felaris) is a Toledo based sound-wizard and all-round creative powerhouse. His sophomore album Avert Chroma released on April 4th. I had the opportunity to shoot the man himself a few questions, and he was nice enough to respond with some awesome information. 

Below we chat about Avert Chroma, how on earth Codex keeps track of his samples, Toledo's music scene and much, much more. Check it out x

Peter: First of all, how are you?

Codex: Great. Thanks for your time and support!

Peter: Have you had any profound experiences that you can share with me since we last had a Q&A?

Codex: Moshing. I’m a hermit, and I focus on art, music, and videos alone in my studio, but I love to dance. I entered my master’s degree at Bowling Green State University after I turned 22. At night, the moshes at the Bridge and Beautiful Rat Records (two staple BG venues) introduced me to Drew Binkley and Jacob Fowler. They’re incredible curators who encouraged me in the 419, and I’m grateful to call them punk family.

Peter: Where does Avert Chroma begin and where does it end? What is the story of Avert Chroma?

Codex: Avert Chroma is a concept album, and a tribute to punk, dance music, and digital/physical communities. Each song’s a scene in a machine world. Over three years, I got super into machines (especially orreries, astrolabes, and oscilloscopes,) and read tons of 1950s modernist sculpture catalogues. Avert’s a graffiti artist whose stickers combine words (like “Avert Getar”.) Blood rushed to my head when I saw an “Avert Chroma” sticker. “Averting chroma” read as “averting humans,” or “embracing chrome.”

Login is a “THWACK!” of excitement when entering the Internet. Zip Bomb Quintet is an orchestra overture of zip bombs (malicious .zip files that flood computers upon download.) Machines become characters: Xerox Stag Zero Input is loneliness at a punk party (as xeroxes were the first zine printers,) IK Handle is the nervousness of 3D modeling, and Phybroptic Menagerie is a transparent cyber zoo.

Glistenpendicular, Rivetcluster, Dial, Membranesque, and Wax Lissajous are the excitements of deconstructing glass, rusty bolts, radios, drum machines, and oscilloscopes. For Sculpture Trigonometry, Veneerpanfry, and Esophagus of a Square, I referenced chrome sculptures, stovetops, and sine/cosine shapes to take the story down an uncertain cosmic direction.

Undo, Fourth Spaces, and Logoff is the light out of that darkness, and a coming-of-age moment, becoming a more loving person, and finding family through punk and dance. I sampled club beats and party noise to emulate joy beyond work/life spaces, as if to say, “you did it! To be continued…”

Avert Chroma is me mishmashing my computery experiences with social settings. In that regard, I hope that the album helps others embrace machines and feel less isolated.

Peter: How has Toledo, and with it the music scene, changed in the years since we last had a back-and-forth? Have there been any notable steps forwards or backwards that you can speak on?

Codex: House shows and video documentation. In Toledo, last year was scary. Culture Clash Records almost closed, and the Ottawa Tavern closed indefinitely. Midwest venues are simply hard to come by, and locals work around the financial constraints through house shows, either in after-hours churches or basements. This was how the Bridge and Beautiful Rat came about.

Blackbird Media and Frybot Records are Toledo’s premier archivists and have done so much for our scene. Online videos signal boost small bands, and are proof that, despite all odds, they made some killer noise. My favorite recent acts include Dreggtooth, the Heartthrobs, DJ Tar, Dewvelopine, Other Mother, Diet Smiles, Squish, One Billion Lions, and Milk on the Rocks. Meeting new, like-minded people and dancing with friends will forever be more rewarding than a gloated, thousands-capacity festival with ticket scalpers.

Peter: You make material across a wide range of artistic endeavours - music, graffiti, graphics etc. Is there a particular one which is most compelling to you?

Codex: I blend a little everything into everything across mediums, but I love black-and-white. While I do tons of videos and client jobs in color, I love black-and-white drawings, paintings, illustrations, and animations, especially with collage, robots, monsters, and cartoon animals. It’s my zen.

Peter: You've mentioned before that you are constantly snipping up sounds to use through films and any sonic fields where you may roam. Would you consider yourself to be something of a sound hoarder? Does this obsessive state come with its own set of problems?

Codex: Totally. Active listening and kinetic energy is super inspiring in electronic music, and that’s emphasized using rapid panning or choppy bitrates.

Avert Chroma took three years of collecting samples, recording demos, putting snippets through drum patterns, and enveloping drum patterns, all with my day jobs and commissions on the side. Still, Avert Chroma was liberating. Disregarding 4/4 time signatures and grid systems was like “beat Impressionism:” taking a sample and sculpting a beat around fricatives or low/high frequencies.

Peter: What kind of system do you use to log/organise your samples? Is it alphabetically ordered? By date? By sound? By aesthetic? How in the world do you keep track? Do you bother?

Codex: Audacity, and Ableton Lite for mixing and MIDI mapping. I use a 1byone USB turntable, SP-404 MKII, Roland Boutique TR-08, and a Mackie four-channel mixer for contact microphones and no-input mixing. I keep Google Doc screenshots of glitches in rendering programs to use for illustration collages, and I like song titles with texture or keysmashing.

Peter: Have you got any clue as to how many samples you have actually used on Avert Chroma? Is there a rough estimate?

Codex: More than fifty musical samples, plus twenty-ish sampled stems of playing metal objects and making computer noises. Video game media from my childhood always recurs, like Garry’s Mod, TF2, the Angry Video Game Nerd, Adult Swim, and the Jazzpunk OST. There’s a chronological YouTube playlist of samples which I make with every Codex release. It’s my way of saying, “this is the stuff I listened to, but here were the real deal moments.”

Peter: Where does Codex go from here?

Codex: My first galleried art exhibit, Avert Chroma, will be April 12-26 as my master’s thesis show, featuring my paintings, posters, videos, and Toledo punk illustrations. On the side, I’m working on a graphic novel (Alleycat,) a zine .pdf of my collages, a screenprinting company with my Bridge friends in our basement (Replica,) and playing more live DJ sets. Making art and music full-time is a privilege which I don’t take for granted. I want whatever I do make to serve some functional good, especially for independent artists. Making others happy makes me happy. It’s kinetic energy.

Peter: Thank you for your time and commitment to the craft!!

Codex: Thank YOU!