VIA FANTASTICA | ONES TO WATCH
viA fAntAsticA (as it’s styled) introduced itself in 2020 with some tasty and intriguing leftfield synthpop, and as an anonymous duo, but – as revealed with the release of debut album 2 Any 1 – is in fact an alias for Cardiff-based musician Justin Toland, formerly known as Location Baked.
What were your reasons for starting this project anonymously, and why did it change for the album release?
I wanted people to listen without preconceptions based on what I had done as Location Baked. But when I contributed a track to the Cardiff Electronic Producers Network compilation the initial contact was through a Facebook group, so they knew my name and it just seemed a bit pointless not to fess up to the project to the wider world.
Why did you retire the Location Baked name and start afresh with this one? Do you feel like there are still common elements to the two projects?
I consciously set out to write songs with tunes and sometimes with vocals. It was a different approach, so it seemed like it needed a different name. Some of the tracks on the album are based around loops of spoken word samples, which is something I did with Location Baked, but they tend to be poppier and more accessible.
2 Any 1 is pretty long, at 21 tracks. Is it a case of using the freedom of a self-release/digital format to put as much out there as possible in one go?
It was primarily an aesthetic decision – I wanted to take the listener on a journey. The album goes a full circle of the Camelot Wheel for harmonic mixing, so quite a lot of thought went into the track sequencing. There were other tracks that got left out because they didn’t fit.
A few tracks specifically reference Cardiff landmarks, such as Gwdihw and the Poets’ Corner, in the context of the value of local communities. Relatedly, one of those tracks is on the recent compilation from Cardiff EPN, which seems to have really developed under lockdown conditions. Have the events of the last 12 months changed the way you think about all the aforementioned?
I wouldn’t say the pandemic has changed my thinking, so much as confirmed it. The whole Covid nightmare has really shown how fragile culture and cultural spaces are – and how important. Virtual initiatives like Cardiff EPN have been a godsend and have helped seed the ground for what will hopefully be a beautiful flowering of creativity once we are all let off the leash again. But we’ve got to have those venues…
Info: www.viafantastica.bandcamp.com
words NOEL GARDNER
