Alien Gothic

 A pandemic “vacationland” for musicians Ryan Policky and Andy Uhrmacher, Alien Gothic is what the band describes as “with everything feeling so out of touch with reality, we ventured our minds into the cosmos, searching for a new light, while retaining our goth roots. To us the music itself is best described as an “Alien Gothic” genre, and it really resonated with the sound we were creating. A true orchestra from the stars.”  A musical collaboration between Ryan and Andy, who had previously worked together in the nightmare Industrial band Genessier, both men had been making music for many years.  The band explains “Ryan has been hard at it in the Shoegaze scene as the producer, vocalist and songwriter for A Shoreline Dream, which has been making tracks since 2005 with legends such as Ulrich Schnauss, Mark Kramer (BuPhole Surfers, Urge Overkill, Ween) and is currently producing some new songs with a Shoegaze legend to be discussed later. Before that Ryan worked in numerous other bands, such as Drop the Fear, Brim List, The Parallel Light, Pure Drama, and all the way back to his high school years in doom and death metal bands.”

 

Alien Gothic were attracted to the Goth genre of music and say “Goth music comes natural. It’s been in Ryan’s blood since a wee lad. The sounds of the early 4AD bands such as Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins always playing in the mind. The style is completely who we are, and we never really spoke about trying to do it a certain way. Us playing and recording just brought it out of us.”

 

Paying homage to the Prog albums of the past, Alien Gothic have created a concept album that they describe as “telling the story of two Goth Aliens touring the universe and finding themselves crash landed on an overpopulated place called earth. The music and lyrics explain through the hour-long journey that they are searching for a way to get back in the sky after learning that is soon to come to its demise.”

 

When explaining the aesthetic of the band they clarify that “the aesthetic is entirely our creation through the pandemic. Ryan has been in the visual industry in numerous forms over the course of his career, and the visual representations has been developed alongside the music itself.”

Citing tone as a source of inspiration, Alien Gothic has explored as many new instruments as they could get their hands on. They say “during the last 3 years we explored as many new instruments as we could get our hands on. From Autoharps of various shapes and sizes, to pedal steel guitars, various drum pad setups and Mellotron overlays, the songs kinda came together as if they were us finding ourselves through instruments we had never played before.”

 

When it comes to live performances the Alien Gothic cheekily assures that “we prefer to be live rather than dead during performances for sure.”  When it comes to live performances though the band explains “but in all reality, playing in front of an audience is always an amazing connection. A connection you can’t get from any other sort of action in human relation. It’s a feeling that is hard to describe but also one we have not been able to do as Alien Gothic since our setup is so damn confusing. Hopefully one day we’ll be able to give it a whirl with this project, but it’s not the main objective”.

 

Alien Gothic enjoys engaging with fans and says “our engagement is purely in the music. Sharing what we’ve created in whatever way we can. From this thing called “the internet” we are able to spread the tones and the message.”

 

With a long journey to put together an album Alien Gothic believe “exploration of sound is key to keeping the mind active for us, and to find new ways of exploring this passion, we plan to move forward finding new ways to bring forth something that lights up our eyes and ears.”

 

For new listeners, Alien Gothic describes their music as “concept music, and the idea of sitting back and letting the music be the vessel of a story is what we’re sharing with our debut album “High and Dry”. It’s an hour of songs that can easily sit on repeat, as the layers which were inspired by the dark and goth filled universe around us are for sure deeper than anything on this planet.”

 

 

 

 

 Links : 

Bandcamp : https://aliengothic.bandcamp.com/album/high-and-dry

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/aliengothicband